five yards of her. Oh, what a situation was hers! "He has seen me kneel, he will know all that passed through my mind!" was the thought which sprang into existence at the moment; but it was instantly followed by another:-" What then! does he not deserve my prayers?"

The Lady Evelyn was right. Frederick Blackston might, perhaps did, know what passed through her mind; but he was not the less deserving on that account of her prayers. He advanced towards her with a countenance which beamed with emotion; and, holding out his hand in all the frankness of a well-established friendship, relieved her at once from whatever sense of embarrassment might have pressed upon her ere his salutation was given.

"Dear Lady Evelyn, how glad I am to see you! How grateful to Providence that with you first my meeting should be! How are you? How have you been?

mamma?"

How is

This was a wonderfully commonplace address, doubtless; yet it served the purpose of restoring to Evelyn her self-possession a thousand times better than if the speaker had expressed himself in a tone more befitting the hero of romance. She put her hand affectionately into his; and if no closer embrace followed, a regard to truth compels us to allow that the young pair mutually looked as if neither party would have had the smallest objection to it.

"Do you come also," asked Blackston, as he drew her arm through his, to this spot from time to time, to offer up, as I do, your petitions to Heaven, feeling that there can be no temple on the earth's surface so sacred ?"

"Indeed I am not ashamed to say that I do. You saw me on my knees, did you not ?"

"I did, dear Lady Evelyn."

"Oh, not Lady Evelyn! Surely, surely, you ought to call me by my name!"

"And will you, then, address me as Frederick only ?"

“Will I ! —oh, will I not? But do you guess what I was doing on my knees ?"

"Praying, of course, dear Evelyn; but as to the subject of your orisons, how should I be able to tell that?"

66

Nay, now, Frederick, I cannot believe you. You know that I was praying for you!"

A deep blush overspread the innocent girl's countenance as soon as she had given utterance to these words; and she turned her head aside in the vain effort to hide it, but she might have saved herself the trouble. Frederick was by far too happy, by far too much entranced, by far too highly lifted above the consideration of other matters than those in which he was himself an actor, not to have made himself acquainted at a single glance with all that her expressive countenance could communicate. His eyes sparkled, his pulses beat rapidly, while he replied,—

"Was it indeed so? Oh, then let me tell you in my turn, that never has the day passed over me during my sojourns at home, that I have not come to the same spot, and

prayed for you · prayed that God would bless you, sustain you, guard you from all evil, and render you ever what you now are-the best, as well as the fairest, of His creatures!"

There is no denying that Mr. Frederick Blackston, in thus giving vent to the feelings which swelled within, took a step infinitely more decided than he had yet done since his intercourse with the Lady Evelyn began. He had treated her indeed throughout, rather with the familiarity of a brother, than with the deference that might be considered due to a mere friend; but though it sometimes cost him a struggle, he had never till the present moment allowed an expression to pass his lips, of which the most fastidious in such matters would be justified in saying, that it went beyond the recognised limits of ordinary acquaintanceship. Has the time yet come, however, or will it ever arrive, when hearts that labour with the same engrossing sentiments, shall be able to withhold a communication of the truth, the one from the other? No direct avowal may, indeed, be made. There are circumstances, and one of them operated now, under which a lofty sense of honour will always keep the lips from uttering what the spirit abundantly reveals. But is the utterance of words in such

cases needed? Oh, no -no-no! Frederick and Evelyn perfectly understood one another. The veil was rent from before their eyes; and long ere they reached the house-for they walked back arm-in-arm towards itthere was a sort of tacit compact ratified between them, that the whole world contained not aught which either would accept as a compensation for the loss of the other's society.

How stealthy is the first growth of love, be it ever so pure in itselfbe it ever so righteously bestowed. Why should the Lady Evelyn be anxious that Frederick should not enter the house under her escort? Why, when they arrived within view of the mansion, did she blushingly suggest that he should go round by the main entrance, while she passed through the shrubbery, and met him as if for the first time in the drawing-room? And why did he, with all his manly and honourable feelings, not merely acquiesce cheerfully in the arrangement, but experience a feeling of the most rapturous delight in doing so? Is it "that the course of true love never does run smooth," because lovers themselves not unfrequently choose to trouble it? Or was there, in this particular instance, a secret conviction in the minds of the young people, that it would be more judicious to hide their intimacy, or, at all events, the turn which it had taken, from eyes that might not absolutely approve? On the lady's side we venture to believe that some such suspicion existed-nay, we are far from asserting that the gentleman was entirely free from it. But however this may be, she withdrew her arm from beneath his just as they came within eye-shot of the windows; and, smiling and blushing, they bade each other good-by for a season. And she passed lightly and gaily to her room. She entered by that same postern-door from which she had made her egress, ran hurriedly up the back-stair and along the corridor; and gaining her apartment, found all things in the very same order in which she had left them when she sallied forth. But it was not so with him.

Frederick had parted from Lady Evelyn behind the screen of a small plantation. He had stood for several

seconds gazing after her, while with the rapid yet graceful movement of a sylph, she glided through the shrubbery; but losing sight of her, he turned round to encounter, not certainly much to his satisfaction, a personage with whom he felt that he had little in common. This was Lord Welverton. What could have taken his lordship abroad, and on foot too, at such an early hour, has never, as far as we know, been explained; yet there, sure enough, he was, standing at a particular spot in the park, whence a rapid glance round him assured the young soldier that the whole arena of his own recent proceedings was distinctly visible. Frederick felt like one who has been detected in the commission of a crime. He could assign no good reason for this, yet he knew it; and he knew also that his manner, as he advanced to greet Lord Welverton, plainly convicted him of a consciousness of error.

His lordship, on the other hand, appeared perfectly cool and self-possessed. He acknowledged Frederick's salutation with an easy nod, and then went on to ask carelessly whether he felt the worse for his journey. Frederick replied, of course, in the negative, and then demanded a reason for the inquiry.

"Because I do," was the reply. "I'm sick of this stupid place already; and as for going through the bore of another visit to the constituency, I would greatly prefer resigning my seat at once. Indeed a seat in the House of Commons is a prodigious bore!"

Frederick smiled, and was going to argue the point with him lightly, when his lordship interposed again:

"Was it my sister, Evelyn, from whom you parted this moment?"

Frederick blushed, hesitated, and felt half disposed to say no; but independently of the assurance that the querist was perfectly competent to answer his own question, there was a consciousness of self-respect which would not permit him to falter with the truth even for a moment. He therefore replied in the affirmative, not without experiencing a good deal of anxiety as to what might come next.

"Pray, Mr. Blackston, are Lord and Lady Boroughdale aware that you meet their daughter in retired

corners of the park, and carry on a clandestine correspondence with her?" "A clandestine correspondence, my lord ?" demanded Frederick. “Í do not understand you!"

"Why then it is full time that you should. The Lady Evelyn Rochfort is at once too old to be treated as a child, and too young to be dealt with as mistress of her own proceedings. I will be much obliged to you, therefore, not to honour her with quite so much of your society; at all events, till you have referred the matter to her father or to me !"

"I am not aware, Lord Welverton," replied Frederick, coldly, "that I have done any thing to merit this sort of reproof which you are pleased to bestow upon me. Your sister and I have been intimate friends these eighteen months, and that with the perfect sanction of Lord and Lady Boroughdale. You must excuse me if I wait for their commands, ere I place myself on any other footing towards her."

"I don't think that either Lord or Lady Boroughdale would quite approve of your persuading so young a creature to meet you at the lake,

and

"My lord, I never persuaded Lady Evelyn to do any thing of the sort; neither is she the kind of person to be drawn, either by me or by any body else, into the commission of an act which might convict her, to say the least of it, of imprudence. Our meeting at the lake was, upon my honour, quite accidental."

"And your parting behind that clump of trees, was that accidental too ?"

“I do not know what you may be pleased to consider an accident," replied Frederick, not quite so much master of himself as he had been a moment previously; "but I can assure you, in all sincerity, that it was at least unpremeditated. I cannot tell you why we separated there."

"Neither have I the smallest desire to catechise you," answered his lordship. "My present purpose is merely to intimate that your visit at Welverton had better be made to the family at large, or else discontinued altogether."

"I have no wish, my lord, to force myself upon any body," replied Frederick, drawing himself up; "but

before I separate myself from the society of your father and mother, I must receive the command to do so from their own lips."

"You will probably find that their sentiments on this head do not essentially differ from mine," replied his lordship. "But you were going to call. We will return together, if you please."

There was nothing either in the tone of the young nobleman's voice or in his general manner throughout the continuance of this dialogue, which gave the faintest intimation of a ruffled temper, far less of a disposition to pick a quarrel. The former was, as usual, monotonous and languid, the latter marked by the appearance of indifference, which never, except on very rare occasions, abandoned it. And his proposal to be Frederick's companion to the house seemed to be made in perfect good-humour. Yet Frederick winced under the whole business. In the first place, he felt insulted by the air of superiority which Lord Welverton had throughout assumed. In the next place, he was embarrassed by the consciousness in his own mind that Lord Welverton's insinuations, though groundless in the letter, were in the spirit not wholly unjust. Then again, what was he to say to Lord and Lady Boroughdale; how account for the false position in which he had placed himself; how touch upon a subject at all of which he felt the extreme delicacy, and concerning which he judged, from Lord Welverton's manner, they too had begun to be sensitive? Nay, more; however clear his conscience might be in reference to their meeting, it would refuse to bear him out were he to assert that the parting was equally the result of chance. What a pity they had not walked straight to the hall door, as he wished! However, it was too late to argue that question

now.

It was by Evelyn's desire, too, that they had separated beside the shrubbery; and she, doubtless, had her own reasons for urging it. Was it, therefore, for him to question the propriety of the arrangement? But they go in with these speculations. The two young men entered the house together,-Lord Welverton cool as he was wont to be, Frederick

Blackston labouring under a good deal of agitation. The latter was welcomed by its noble owners with less, as he conceived, than their accustomed frankness; and the reserve which appeared on their greeting was certainly not dispelled by the abrupt manner in which the events of the last five minutes were communicated to them. Both Lord and Lady Boroughdale looked grave; and Frederick, as a matter of course, looked foolish.

"Come, Welverton," said Lady Boroughdale, after a brief pause, "I want your judgment on a point which concerns me more than any body else. You will take care of Mr. Blackston, Boroughdale, till we

return."

Lord Boroughdale did take care of Mr. Blackston; but it was not exactly after a fashion which the party cared for would have chosen. He was silent for a little while, and awkward; after which he said, somewhat abruptly,

"Mr Blackston, I am afraid that Lady Boroughdale and I have been to blame in sanctioning the intimacy which it was very natural should arise between you and Lady Evelyn. You are both of you arrived at a time of life when friendship between persons of opposite sexes ceases to be safe. I mean that Evy is too old for you to treat her as a child, with impunity either to yourself or to her, or to both. Now, as I have views of my own in reference to her settlement in life, you must excuse me if I tell you, that it would be neither generous nor just in you to establish any ascendancy over her affections. Observe, I don't mean to insinuate that you have either done or meditated any thing of the sort. You are a man of honour, and would not, I am sure, commit so grave an offence

against its dictates. But-but-in short, my dear fellow, it will be best if, for a while, you intermit your visits to this house. A little more intercourse with the world on her part will put all to rights. In a year or two you will be with us again on your ancient footing; and in the meanwhile, we shall always be glad to hear of your welfare. Our obligations to you we can never forget, but I am only doing my duty to her as a father, and to you as a friend, when, as a measure of precaution, I put an end to your intimacy."

Frederick Blackston was thunderstruck. Had the scene of that day occurred four-and-twenty hours earlier, he would have tried to argue Lord Boroughdale out of his resolution. As the case then stood, he could only stammer out some professions of his own inability to understand the grounds on which so unlooked-for a disposition rested. These were, of course, accepted in good part, and brought out anti-declarations of his lordship's conviction of Frederick's perfect sincerity. But his lordship did not swerve an inch from his point. And the issues were, that poor Frederick, who quitted Altamont that morning with a heart full of joyous anticipations, returned home utterly crest-fallen. So much for the difference between the promise which hope gives and the fulfilment which belongs to certainty! So much for an illustration of the great tale of human life as in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred men are forced to tell it! Manhood rarely answers to youth, old age to manhood never. It is an April day from its dawn to its close, and happy is he who comes soonest to its termination.

NAP called us a nation of shopkeepers. He was envious, being himself a dealer in the general line. But deep as he was in the tricks of trade, he was not up to us. Our channelled goods beat all his Boulogne trumpery hollow; and though, at the very last, he had a great run, our Waterloo articles carried the day, and since then there has been little or no competition, except among ourselves. The foreign market being closed, and the home alone offering a fair field for profit, it is not surprising that contentions should sometimes arise, and be carried to an extravagant pitch, among our rival tradesfolk. Such, unhappily, was the case with the once united firm of SEWELL and HEWELL.

In Friday's Gazette, together with the lists of members returned to serve in this present parliament, declarations of insolvency, insolvents, bankrupts, War-office promotions, certificates, Scotch sequestrations (the London newspapers don't trouble themselves with Irish!), there appeared the following announcement:

"Partnership Dissolved. Sewell and Hewell, Oxford Street, haberdashers."

In the morning journals of the following Saturday, Times, Chronicle, Herald, Post, and Advertiser, this news was spread abroad to all the world by statements more particular and descriptive. Ex. gratia:

"SEWELL (late Sewell and Hewell), No. 599 A Oxford Street, begs leave to announce to the royal family, nobility, gentry, and other customers of the late firm, that he has separated from, and has no connexion whatever with, his late partner, Barnaby Hewell. It is unnecessary to retail the reasons which have induced him to free himself from that connexion; but it is due to the public and to himself to state, that he could no longer carry it on consistently with the high character of an English tradesman.

VOL. XXIV. NO. CXL.

Oxford Street Ballads. Broadside, 84.

The vast, elegant, and accumulated stock of the late concern is selling off under prime cost upon the premises. SEWELL begs leave to announce, that he has laid in an entirely new assortment of every kind of haberdashery, unequalled for quality and cheapness; to which he invites the public attention, being determined to conduct his business on the most liberal principles, which he can do by selling for ready money only!

"N. B. No connexion whatsoever with Barnaby Hewell."

"HEWELL, late acting partner and superintendant of the house of Sewell and Hewell, in announcing the dissolution of that partnership, takes the opportunity to advertise his friends and the public at large, that he has opened the extensive adjoining premises, No. 599 Oxford Street, with an entirely novel assortment of haberdashery, such as he flatters himself cannot be matched in the metropolis. Dealing directly with firstrate manufacturers, paying and selling for ready money only (the only means of selling real bargains), HEWELL needs no quack puffing to vamp up his articles. Unless they are acknowledged the best and cheapest in London, he is willing to exchange other articles of the same value to every buyer who is a competent judge between prime goods and flimsy imitations.

"Take notice!!! Hewell, No. 599, is not Sewell, No. 599 A, next door, whose spurious articles will, no doubt, be attempted to be imposed upon the credulous public as the genuine thing. Beware!

"N. B. The late very extensive stock of Sewell and Hewell selling off greatly under prime cost,- it being Hewell's determination to wind up this concern at any sacrifice."

Such was the commencement of the war between the quondam friends and partners, Messrs. Sewell and Hewell, two of the most respectable tradespeople in the quarter where they resided, inasmuch as Sewell was one of the select vestry, and Hewell stood fair to be elected.

M