what he should like very much ;"-for at this interesting moment, the squire was interrupted by the entrance of Tom Hobson, evidently in great tribulation.

"Here's a rare go! By Jingo, this is a pretty country to live in !"

"What's the matter?" said the couple on the sofa.-" What's the matter ?" - echoed the couple from the window.

"Matter! - blow me tight! why we're all going to be murdered; and half of us are already."

At this awful announcement, the ladies gave something between a squeak and a scream; and the gentlemen asking for further information, Tom continued, "Why, Lord Ormsby and uncle Dornton have been attacked by banditti in disguise, here in the very town;

and they've settled my Lord's job for him; and uncle's very bad indeed; and if Pierre had not killed two with his own hand (I saw his knife all bloody,) they were going to have murdered all the English they could find."

"But is any body really dead?" said Simperton, who thought that he could detect something like exaggeration in Tom's confused account.

"Oh! yes; I'm sure Lord Ormsby's dead; for I joined some gentlemen that were talking about it; and Sir George Dowercourt, that used to ride about with my Lord, at Milan, was saying how the barony and the estates all went to Miss Arlingford; and what a great catch she would be."

This interruption of Woodhead's téteà-tête, as may be expected, put to flight the few scattered ideas that it had cost

him such pains to collect; and postponed, for the present, his proposals to Miss Anne Hobson.

It will suffice to inform the reader, without detaining him longer in their society, that, a very few days afterwards, these proposals were brought to a successful issue. The locale, at length chosen by Woodhead, was a singular one. It was in that octagon closet of the Vatican, appropriated to the Apollo Belvidere, that the Squire told his tale of love, in strains which certainly showed no symptoms of having been inspired by the divine influence of the presence of the god of poetry; and there, whilst averting her eyes from that masterpiece of manly beauty, Miss Anne Hobson cast a tender assenting leer on the clumsy, cart-horse carcase of her future husband. A few days afterwards, the Rev. Mr. Simperton, with

a proper Protestant disregard of the Popish mummery around him, took the opportunity of the Vespers of Saint Peter's, to offer his vows at the shrine of Miss Betty Hobson; which, being most graciously received, the double union was arranged to his heart's content.

CHAPTER XXI.

FOR many days, Lord Ormsby's condition continued to be one of extreme danger. The struggle was long and doubtful, between an excellent constitution, and wounds which in most cases would have been decidedly fatal.

It was also no small aggravation to Matilda's misery under this protracted suspense, that she was doomed every day after dinner to hear her husband and Mrs. Mechlin discussing, with the utmost sang froid, the chance of his ultimate recovery;-Sir James illustrating with scraps of superficial medical science his own opinion, that nothing but a miracle could save him;