I question if the baron would forgive me; for baron. The recognition was mutual. I shall he was of Alsace, and, though he called himself French, had German blood and quarterings, and pride enough for a prince of the empire. He was a fine-looking man of fifty, tall, upright, and active, and still giving tokens of having been in his youth one of the handsomest figures and best dancers at Versailles. He was the least gay of the party, perhaps the least happy; for his pride kept him in a state of prickly defiance against all mankind. He had the miserable jealousy of poverty, of one "fallen from his high estate," suspected insults where they were never dreamed of, and sifted civility, to see whether an affront, a lurking snake, might be concealed beneath the roses. The smallest and most authorized present, even fruit and game, were peremptorily rejected; and, if he accepted the Saturdayevening's invitation, it was evidently because he could not find in his heart to refuse a plea sure to his daughter. Angelique was, indeed, a charming creature, fair, blooming, modest and gentle, far more English than French in person, manner, and dress, doting on her father, Soothing his little infirmities of temper, and ministering in every way to his comfort and happiness. Never did a father and a daughter love each other better; and that is saying much. He repaid her care and affection with the most unbounded fondness, and a liberality that had no limit but his power. Mademoiselle de G. was the best dressed, best lodged, and best-attended of any lady of the circle. The only wonder was how the baron could afford it. Every one else had some visible resource, of which they were so little ashamed that it was as freely communicated as any news of the day. We all knew that the ambassadress and her brother the marquis lived together on a small pension allotted to the lady by a foreign court, in reward of certain imputed services rendered to the Bourbons by her husband; that the count taught French, Latin, and Italian; that the abbé contrived in some way or other to make his projects keep him; and that the pretty wife of the chevalier, more learned in bonnets than in impromptus, kept a very tasty and well-accustomed milliner's shop somewhere in the region of Cranbourne-alley: but the baron's means of support continued as much a puzzle as the ambassador's destination. At last, chance let me into the secret. Our English dancing-master waxed old and rich, and retired from the profession; and our worthy governess vaunted loudly of the French gentleman whom she had engaged as his successor, and of the reform that would be worked in the heads and heels of her pupils, grown heavy and lumpish under the late instructor. The new master arrived; and, whilst a boy who accompanied him was tuning his kit, and he himself paying his respects to the governess, I had no difficulty in discovering under a common French name, my acquaintance the

never forget the start he gave when in the middle of the first cotillon, he espied the little girl whom he had been used to see at the corner of the supper-table in Brunswicksquare, every Saturday evening. He coloured with shame and anger, his hand trembled, and his voice faltered; but as he would not know me, I had the discretion not to appear to know him, and said nothing of the affair till I again visited my kind cousin. I never saw any one more affected than she was on hearing my story. That this cold, proud, haughty man, to whom any thing that savoured of humiliation seemed terrible, should so far abase his nobility for Angelique and independence, was wonderful! She could not refrain from telling her husband, but the secret was carefully guarded from every one besides; and, except that they showed him an involuntary increase of respect, and that I could not help drawing myself up and sitting rather more uprigh than ordinary when he happened to look at, me, nothing indicated any suspicion of the circumstance.

In the mean time the fair Angelique, who was treated with the customary disregard shown to unmarried beauties by her countrymen, (whose devoirs the old duchess, the crooked ambassadress, and the squinting countess, entirely engrossed,) was gradually making an English conquest of no small importance. The eldest son of a rich merchant,! who had been connected with our host in several successful speculations, and was exceedingly intimate with the family, begged to be admitted to the Saturday evening coterie. His request was readily granted; he came st first from curiosity, but that feeling was soon exchanged for a deeper and more tender passion; and at last he ventured to disclose bis love, first to the lady of his heart, and thea to their mutual friend. Neither frowned on the intelligence, although both apprehended some difficulties. How would the baron look | on a man who could hardly trace his ancestors farther back than his grandfather? And how again would these rich citizens, equally proud in a different way, relish an alliance with a man who, however highly descended, was neither more or less than a dancing-master? But pride melts before love, like frost in the sunshine. All parties were good and kind, all obstacles were overcome, and all faults forgotten. The rich merchant forgave the baron's poverty, and the baron (which was more difficult) forgave his wealth. The calling which had only been followed for Angelique's sake, was for her sake abandoned; the fond father consented to reside with her ; and surrounded by her lovely family, freed from poverty and its distressing consciousness, and from all the evils of false shame, he has long been one of the happiest, as he was always one of the best, of French emigrants.

a little higher than his head, he raised him- | lives. There is a curious infelicity about him, self in the saddle, and the sagacious quadru- which carries him straight to the wrong point. ped, his grey pony, an animal of a most If there be such a thing as a sore subject, be accommodating and congenial spirit, having is sure to press on it, to question a parvenu on been, for that day, discarded in favour of a his pedigree, a condemned author on his trayounger, gayer, less inquisitive and less pa- gedy, an old maid on her age. Besides these tient steed, the new beast sprang on and left iniquities, his want of sympathy is so open him sprawling. Once, when in imitation of and undisguised, that the most loquacious Ranger, he had perched himself on the top- egotist loses the pleasure of talking of himmost round of a ladder, which he found self, in the evident absence of all feeling or placed beneath a window in Upper Berkeley- interest on the part of the hearer. His constreet, he lost his balance, and was pitched versation is always more like a judicial exsuddenly in through the sash, to the unspeak- amination than any species of social interable consternation of a house-maid, who was course, and often like the worst sort of examrubbing the panes within side. Once he was ination-cross-questioning. He demands, like tossed into an open carriage, full of ladies, as a secretary to the inquisition, and you answer he stood up to look at them from the box of a (for you must answer) like a prisoner on the stage-coach. And once he got a grievous rack. Then the man is so mischievous! he knock from a chimney-sweeper, as he poked rattles old china, marches over flower-beds, his head into the chimney to watch his ope- and paws Irling's lace. The people at murations. He has been blown up by a rocket; seums and exhibitions dread the sight of him. carried away in the strings of a balloon; all He cannot keep his hands from moths and but drowned in a diving-bell: lost a finger in humming-birds; and once poked up a rattlea mashing-mill; and broken a great toe by snake to discover whether the joints of the drawing a lead pin-cushion off a work-table. tail did actually produce the sound from which N. B. this last-mentioned exploit spoilt my it derives its name; by which attack that pugworthy old friend, Miss Sewaway, a beautiful nacious reptile was excited to such wrath that piece of fine netting, "worth," as she em- two ladies fell into hysterics. He nearly dephatically remarked, "a thousand toes." molished the Invisible Girl by too rough an inquiry into her existence; and got turned out of the automaton chess-player's territories, in consequence of an assault which he committed on that ingenious piece of mechanism. To do Mr. Lynx justice, I must admit that he sometimes does a little good to all this harm. He has, by design or accident, in the ordinary exercise of his vocation, hindered two or three duels, prevented a good deal of poaching and pilfering, and even saved his own house, and the houses of his neighbours from divers burglaries; his vigilance being, at least, as useful, in that way, as a watchman or an alarm-bell.

These are only a few of the bodily mischiefs that have befallen poor Mr. Lynx. The moral scrapes, into which his unlucky propensity has brought him, are past all count. In his youth, although so little amorous, that I have reason to think, the formidable interrogatory which is emphatically called "popping the question," is actually the only question which he has never popped;-in his youth, he was very nearly drawn into wedlock by the sedulous attention which he paid to a young lady, whom he suspected of carrying on a clandestine correspondence. The mother scolded; the father stormed; the brother talked of satisfaction; and poor Mr. Lynx, who is as pacific as a Quaker, must certainly have been married, had not the fair nymph eloped to Gretna Green, the day before that appointed for the nuptials. So he got off for the fright. He hath undergone at least twenty challenges for different sorts of impertinences; hath had his ears boxed and his nose pulled; hath been knocked down and horsewhipped; all which casualties he bears with an exemplary patience. He hath been mistaken for a thief, a bailiff, and a spy, abroad and at home; and once, on the Sussex coast, was so inquisitive respecting the moon, and the tide, and the free trade, that he was taken at one and the same time, by the different parties, for a smuggler and a revenue officer, and narrowly escaped being shot in the one capacity, and hanged in the other.

The evils which he inflicts bear a tolerably fair proportion to those which he endures. He is, simply, the most disagreeable man that

He makes but small use of his intelligence, however come by, which is, perhaps, occasioned by a distinctive difference of sex. A woman only half as curious would be prodigal of information-a spendthrift of news. Mr. Lynx hoards his, like a miser. Possession is his idol. If I knew any thing which I particularly wished the world not to know, I should certainly tell it to him at once. A secret with him, is as safe as money in the bank; the only peril lies in the ardour of his pursuit. One reason for his great discretion seems to me to be his total incapacity of speech-in any other than the interrogative mood. His very tone is set to that key. I doubt if he can drop his voice at the end of a sentence, or knows the meaning of a full stop. Who! What? When? Where? How? are his catchwords; and Eh? his only interjection. Children and poor people, and all awkward persons who like to be talked to, and to talk again, but do not very well understand how to set about it, delight in Mr. Lynx's notice.

His catechetical mode of conversation en- As I live, here he is! just alighting from chants them, especially as he is of a liberal the grey poney, asking old Dame Wheeler turn, and has generally some loose silver in what makes her lame on one side, and little his pocket to bestow on a good answerer. Jemmy White, why his jacket is ragged on To be sure the rapidity of his questions some- the other-bawling to both-Dame Wheeler times a little incommodes our country dames, is deaf, and Jemmy stupid and she is anwho when fairly set into a narrative of griev-swering at cross purposes, and he staring ances do not care to be interrupted; but the with his mouth open, and not answering at honour of telling their histories and the histo- all, and Mr. Lynx is pouring question on ries of all their neighbours to a gentleman, makes ample amends for this little alloy. They are the only class who can endure his society, and he returns the compliment by showing a very decided preference for theirs. The obscure has a remarkable charm for him. To enjoy it in perfection, he will often repair to some great manufacturing town where he is wholly unknown, and deposit himself in some suburban lodging, in a new-built row, with poplars before the door, when, inviting his landlady to make tea for him, he gains, by aid of that genial beverage, an insight into all the loves and hatreds, "kitchen cabals and nursery mishaps,"-in a word, all the scandal of the town. Then he is happy.

question as fast as rain-drops in a thundershower-Well I must put away my desk, and my papers, especially this, for I should not quite like to have the first benefit of the true and faithful likeness, which I have been sketching; I must put it away; folding and sealing will hardly do, for though I don't think-I can scarcely imagine, that he would actually break open a sealed packet,-yet man is frail; I have a regard for my old friend, and will not put him in the way of temptation.

WALKS IN THE COUNTRY.

THE OLD HOUSE AT ABERLEIGH.

JUNE 25th.-What a glowing, glorious day! Summer in its richest prime, noon in its most sparkling brightness, little white clouds dappling the deep blue sky, and the sun, now partially veiled, and now bursting through them with an intensity of light! It would not, do to walk to-day, professedly to walk,— we should be frightened at the very sound; and yet it is probable that we may be beguiled into a pretty long stroll before we return home. We are going to drive to the old house at Aberleigh, to spend the morning under the shade of those balmy firs, and amongst those luxuriant rose-trees, and by the side of that brimming Loddon river. "Do not expect us before six o'clock," said I, as I left the house; "Six at soonest !" added my charming companion; and off we drove in our little pony chaise drawn by our old mare, and with the good-humoured urchin, Henry's successor, a sort of younger Scrub, who takes care of horse and chaise, and cow and garden, for our charioteer.

Travelling is much to his taste; as are also Stage Coaches, and Steam Packets, and Diligences, and generally all places where people meet and talk, especially an inn, which is capital questioning ground, and safer than most other. There is a license, a liberty, a freedom in the very name, and besides people do not stay long enough to be affronted. He spends a good deal of his time in these privileged abodes, and is well known as the laquisitive Gentleman, on most of the great roads, although his seat of Lynx Hall is undoubtedly his principal residence. It is most commodiously situated, on a fine eminence overlooking three counties; and he spends most of his time in a sort of observatory, which he has built on a rising ground, at the edge of the park, where he has mounted a terscope, by means of which he not only commands all the lanes and bye-paths in the neighbourhood, but is enabled to keep a good look out, on the great northern road, two failes off, to oversee the stage-coaches, and sheep an eye on the mail. The manor lies in two parishes-another stroke of good fortune! -since the gossiping of both villages seems to belong to him of territorial right. Vestries, My comrade in this homely equipage was work-houses, schools, all are legitimately a young lady of high family and higher endowground of inquiry. Besides his long and in- ments, to whom the novelty of the thing, and umate acquaintance with the neighbourhood her own naturalness of character and simis an inestimable advantage, to a man of his plicity of taste gave an unspeakable enjoyment. Turn of mind, and supplies, by detail and She danced the little chaise up and down as minuteness, what might be wanted in variety she got into it, and laughed for very glee like and novelty. He knows every man, woman a child. Lizzy herself could not have been and child, horse, cow, pig and dog, within more delighted. She praised the horse and iolf a dozen miles, and has a royal faculty the driver, and the roads and the scenery, and if not forgetting, so that he has always plenty gave herself fully up to the enchantment of a of matter for questions, and most of the rural excursion in the sweetest weather of people being his tenants, answers come quick- this sweet season. I enjoyed all this too; . He usedfor the road was pleasant to every sense,