point of etiquette to vie with one another in the grandeur of their equipage.

The present sheriff, to whom the carriage belonged, was a great landed squire Mr. Mansell, Mr. Hastings' brother-in-law, and Bertha's uncle-whose house being in a distant part of the county, he had, from its proximity to the city, taken up his abode at the park during the assizes.

In an instant all my philosophy was put to flight. For, having reined up my horse to let the landau pass, with an accuracy that could not be mistaken, I saw that Bertha was there. What was more, she saw and knew me, and recognised me with a look which thrilled me. The sparkle of her eye, which had so bereaved me of my senses twelve months before, seemed to flash with new and increased lustre, and her cheek, always blooming, was now more rosy than ever with a suffusion of surprise, as I supposed, at seeing me so unexpectedly in that spot.

Of her general improvement in looks, I can give no idea. The lovely girl had matured into a still more lovely women; her shape more graceful than ever, more, than ever set off by her attire, always, as I have related, so graceful.

That she knew me was plain, exclusive of the look I have described; for as the carriage rolled on, I could perceive two gentlemen leaning over the sides, looking back at me, one of whom I took for Mr. Hastings himself; the other, a young man in appearance, I thought was Charles.

My confusion at the whole vision (for such it op

peared) I shall never forget. All notion of gallop. ing was at an end. I came to a dead stop, and sat motionless and almost senseless on my horse, till the carriage was out of sight, which it soon was, and I left to recover as I could.

Alas! what became of my philosophy? Let those who ever really loved answer. What a change can one little minute make in a man's firmest resolves! What, then, in mine, which were none of the firmest? The best, or the worst (I don't know which), was, that I turned sophist upon this occasion, and philosophized the other way. I found that I had been a sad coward in thinking of flight. I ought to have braved the danger, to have any thing like a triumph, and I resolved to do so still. Bertha, or Bertha's father, had never changed towards me; it was a duty I owed to common politeness as well as gratitude to wait upon them; and this I determined to do as soon as I reached York. Whatever our reason, how do our inclinations cheat us!

Behold me now in the ancient, and, for the present, crowded city of York, amidst hundreds of busy creatures, drawn together by all that could impel men to congregate; care, anxiety, vanity; alarm for property, alarm for life, curiosity; pleasure, ambition, duty! Nor was ostentation the least among the motives of the crowds who visited the town for the activity and splendour displayed within it. Yet was I uninterested and unawed by any thing I saw; dogged; silent; thoughtful; rapt; in short, alone in crowds.

I was received by my father with his usual affection and plainness; but he put off detailed or lengthy communication for the moment, having been summoned to the Castle on assize business, and left me for the present alone. Being thus my own master, in conformity with the brave resolution I had taken to present myself to the Hastings' family, I sought the inn where the sheriff had put up, which was soon found, and taking my station in the yard, the mere sight of his horses, panting as they were rubbed down, after their rapid exertions, caused me a thrill from the associations which they bred, surprising even to myself. When a young man, and still more I suppose when a boy, is in love, what trifles, what feathers may not give him pleasure, or pain!

I met Mr. Hastings' own man in the yard, but he did not seem to recognise me. He did not move his hat, and I was angry. But Mrs. Margaret, Bertha's own woman, of whom I formerly made honourable mention, crossing also, with a band-box in her hand, dropped me a courtesy, nay, saluted me by name, and said, her master and Miss Bertha would be quite glad to see me. Mrs. Margaret was plain, and seared with the small-pox. I never before thought her otherwise, but her cheek now seemed absolutely smooth.

But Foljambe himself now appeared. He had seen me from a gallery which went round the inn yard, and descended, whether to greet me kindly or not, I did not know, but his presence filled me with an undefinable

compound of feelings. I had still good-will towards him, and my sense of supposed affronts having been diminished by time and absence, I felt my old regard revive. Nor did I mind his quizzing me, or the illustrious Rozinante, as he called him, on which he had seen me on the road.

"He must be blood itself," said he, pertly," or he would never have brought you here so soon."Mem.; I was here an hour after them.

Though I was nettled at this, I hoped it was mere Christ Church flippancy, and at least it was better than the reserve and stiffness which my fears had anticipated.

"I assure you," added he with vivacity, "we all, and Bertha in particular, thought you a very fine horseman, and your horse quite knowing."

At the sound of that name I reddened to the ears, and though so full of her image, could hardly stammer out the usual inquiries after all the family.

"Why my father," said Foljambe, “is well, and as for Bertha, she is grown quite a woman, and, needs must, for she already begins to flirt; but I tell her she must wait till she has done with that old Ma'amselle La Porte, and is really come out, which she is not yet. The old virgin opposed her coming here on that account, but her cousin, Frank Mansell, who is to dance with her to-night at the ball, as the son of the sheriff, carried it hollow."

Had I been struck with thunder I do not think I could have felt a greater agony of heart than these words occasioned. I was absolutely sick, and looked

So, I suppose, for my friend asked me if I was unwell. "Indeed," said he, "you were always a tender one, and though you have, no doubt, fed well among those bluff beef-eaters (I must not call them animals) at Queen's, you are not more rubicund than you were formerly. I wish you had been at Eton; a bottle of claret at the Christopher, and a run with the King's hounds, would have done you more good than all the sturdy Crackenthorpe lectures, by which you profited so much in your learning, and so little in your health."

I liked this less and less, but particularly when he continued, "I suppose the old lord (for so he always designated my father) designs you for some quiet, moping profession, and I have no doubt you will make a capital parson.”

From all this I gathered that the punishment, as I in my simplicity supposed it, which he had undergone in being expelled for contumacy, was no punishment at all; and that he had settled the matter with his father, or his tone would not have been so unchanged. The fact was, he gloried in it.

The flippancy of Foljambe's speech, however, augured no good to my hopes that our friendship might revive, which the proximity to Bertha now made me wish, particularly when, with something like former frankness, and putting his arm within mine, he said, "Come, you must go and pay your duty to the governor (his phrase for his father), whose horror at the growing insubordination of young people will be at its height if you neglect to come to the levée he always