established church. Miss Hillary had long since been aware of the presence of her timid and distant lover on these occasions; they had several times nearly jostled against one another in going out of church, the consequence of which was general ly a civil though silent recognition of him. And this might be done with impunity, seeing how her wealthy father was occupied with nodding to every body, genteel enough to be so publicly recognised, and shaking hands with the select few who enjoyed his personal acquaintance. With what a different air and with what a different feeling did the great merchant and his humble clerk pass on these occasions down the aisle!-But to return. On the Sunday above alluded to, Elliott beheld Miss Hillary enter the church alone, and become the solitary tenant of the family pew. Sad truants from his prayer-book, his eyes never quitted the fair and solitary occupant of Mr Hillary's pew; but she chose, in some wayward humour, to sit that morning with her back turned towards the part of the church where she knew Elliott to be, and never once looked up in that direction. They met, however, after the service, near the door, as usual; she dropped her black veil just in time to prevent his observing a certain sudden flush that forced itself upon her features; returned his modest bow; a few words of course were interchanged; it threatened-or Elliott chose to represent that it threatened to rain (which he heartily wished it would, as she had come on foot, and unattended): and so, in short, it came to pass that this very discreet couple were to be seen absolutely walking arm in arm towards Bullion House, at the slowest possible pace, and by the most circuitous route that could suggest itself to the flurried mind of Elliott. An instinctive sense of propriety, or rather prudence, led him to quit her arm just before arriving at that turn of the road which brought them full in sight of her father's house. There they parted-each satisfied as to the nature of the other's feelings, though nothing had then passed between them of an explicit or decisive character. It is not necessary for me to dwell on this part of their history. Where there is a will, it is said, there is a way; and the young and venturous couple found, before long, an opportunity of declaring to each other their mutual feelings. Their meetings and correspondence were contrived and carried on with the utmost difficulty. Great caution and secrecy were necessary to conceal the affair from Mr Hillary, and those whose interest it was to give him early information on every matter that in any way concerned him. Miss Hillary buoyed herself up with the hope of securing, in due time, her mo ther, and obtaining her intercessions with her stern and callous-hearted father. Some three months, or thereabouts, after the Sunday just mentioned, Mr Hillary returned from the City, and made his appearance at dinner, in an unusually gay and lively humour. Miss Hillary was at a loss to conjecture the occasion of such an exhibition; but imagined it must be some great speculation of his which had proved unexpectedly successful. He occasionally directed towards her a kind of grim leer, as though longing to communicate tiddings which he expected to be as gratifying to her, as they were to himself. They dined alone; and as she was retiring rather earlier than usual, in order to attend upon her mother, who had that day been more than ordinarily indisposed, he motioned her to resume her seat. "Well, Molly."-for that was the elegant version of her Christian name which he generally adopted when in a good humour-" Well, Molly," pouring out a glass of wine, as the servants made their final exit, "I have heard something, to-day, in the City-a-hem! in which you are particularly concerned-very much so-and-so-a-hem! am I" He tossed off half of his glass, and smacked his lips, as though he unusually relished the flavour. "Indeed, papa!" exclaimed the young lady, with an air of anxious vivacity, not attempting to convey to her lips the brimming wine glass her father had filled for her, lest the trembling of her hand should be ob served by him-"Oh, you are joking! what can I have to do with the City, papa?" "Do? Aha, my girl! What can you have to do in the city'" good humouredly attempting to imitate her tone-" Indeed? Don't try to play nock-modest with me! You know as well as I do what I'm going to say!" he added, looking at her archly, as he fancied, but so as to blanch her cheek and agitate her whole frame with an irresistible tremor. Her acute and feeling father observed her emotion. "There now that's just the way all you young misses behave on these occasions! I suppose it's considered mighty pretty! As if it wasn't all a matter of course for a young woman to hear about a young husband!" Papa-how you do love a joke!" replied Miss Hillary, with a sickly smile, making a desperate effort to carry her wine glass to her lips, in which she succeeded, swallowing every drop that was in it, while her father electrified her by proceeding "It's no use mincing matters-the thing is gone too far.' "Gone too far!" echoed Miss Hillary, mechanically. 66 Yes-gone too far, I say, and I stick to it. A bargain's a bargain all the world over, whatever it's about and a bargain I've struck to day. You're my daughter my only daughter, d'ye see-and I've been a good while on the look-out for a proper person to marry you to-and, egad! to-day I've got him-my future son-in-law, d'ye hear, and one that will clap a coronet on my Molly's pretty head-and on the day he does so, I do two things; I give you a plum-and myself cut Mincing Lane, and sink the shop for the rest of my days. There's nuts for you to crack! Aha, Molly-what d'ye say to all this? An't it news?" "Say! why I-I-I"-stammered the young lady, her face nearly as white as the handkerchief on which her eyes were violently fixed, and with which her fingers were hurriedly playing. "Why-Molly! What's the matter? What the a-hem!-are you gone so pale for? Gad-I see how it is -I've been too abrupt, as your poor mother has it! But the thing is as I said, that's flat, come what will, say it how one will, take it how you will! So make up your mind, Molly, like a good girl as you are-come, kiss me! I never loved you so much as now I'm going to lose you!" She made no attempt to rise from her chair, so he got up from his own, and approached her. - "Adad-but what's the matter here? Your little hands are as cold as a corpse's. Why, Molly! what what nonsense." ." He chucked her under the chin. "You're trying to frighten me, Molly-I know you are! Ah-ha!" He grew more and more alarmed at her deadly paleness and apparent insensibility to what he was saying. "Well, now"he paused, and looked anxiously at her. "Who would have thought,' he added suddenly, " that it would have taken the girl a-back so? Come, come!"-slapping her smartly on her back,-" a joke's a joke, and I've had mine, but it's been carried too far, I'm afraid" "Dear-dearest papa," gasped his daughter, suddenly raising her eyes, and fixing them with a steadfast brightening look upon his, at the same time catching hold of his hands convulsively-" So it isa joke! a-joke-it is-it is"—and gradually sinking back in her chair, to her father's unspeakable alarm, she swooned. Holding her in his arms, he roared stoutly for assistance, and in a twinkling a posse of servants, male and female, obeying the summons, rushed pell-mell into the dining-room; the ordinary hubbub attendant on a fainting-fit ensued; cold water sprinkled-eau-de- Cologne-volatile salts, &c. &c. Then the young lady, scarce restored to her senses, was supported, or rather carried, by her maid to her own apartment, and Mr Hillary was left to himself for the remainder of the evening, flustered and confounded beyond all expression. The result of his troubled ruminations was, that the sudden communication of such prodigious good fortune had upset his daughter with joy; and that he must return to the charge in a day or two, and break it to her more easily. The real fact was, that he had that day assured the Right Honourable Lord Viscount Scamp of his daughter's heart, hand, and fortune; and that exemplary personage had agreed to dine at Bullion House on the ensuing Sunday, for the purpose of being introduced to his future Viscountess, whose noble fortune was to place his financial matters upon an entirely new basis -at least for some time to come, and enable him to show his honest face once more in divers amiable coteries at C's and elsewhere. Old Hillary's dazzled eyes could see nothing but his Lordship's coronet; and he had no more doubt about his right thus to dispose of his daughter's heart, than he had about his right to draw upon Messrs Cash, Credit & Co., his bankers, without first consulting them to ascertain whether they would honour his drafte. Miss Hillary did not make her appearance the next morning at her father's breakfast table, her maid being sent to say, that her young lady had a violent headache, and so forth; the consequence of which was, that the old gentleman departed for the City in a terrible temper, as every member of his establishment could have testified if they had been asked. Miss Hillary had spent an hour or two of the preceding midnight in writing to Elliott a long and somewhat incoherent account of what had happened. She gave but a poor account of herself to her father at dinner that day. He was morosely silent. She pale, absent, disconcerted. "What the devil is the matter with you, Mary?" enquired Mr Hillary, with stern abruptness, as soon as the servants had withdrawn,-" What were all those tantrums of yours about last night, eh?" "Indeed, papa," replied his trembling daughter, "I hardly know -but really-you must remember, you said such very odd things, and so suddenly, and you looked so angry.". "Tut, girl, pho! Fiddle faddle!" exclaimed her father, gulping down a glass of wine with great energy. "I could almost-a-hem!-really it looked as if you had taken a little too much, eh? What harm was there in me telling you that you were going soon to be married? What's a girl born and bred up for but to be married? Eh, Mary?" continued her father, determined, this time, to go to work with greater skill and tact than on the preceding evening. "I want an answer, Mary!" "Why, papa, it was a very odd thing now, was not it?" said his VOL. XL. NO. CCXLIX. daughter, with an affectionate smile, drawing nearer to her father, her knees trembling, however, the while; "and I know you did it only to try whether I was a silly vain girl! Why should I want to be married, papa, when you and my poor mamma are so kind to me?" "Humph!" grunted her father, gulping down a great glass of claret. "And d'ye think we're to live for ever? I must see you established before long, for my health, hem! hem! is none of the strongest" (he had scarcely ever known what an hour's illness was in his life, except his late accident, from which he had completely recovered); "and as for your poor mother, you know"-a 66 Now, long pause ensued here. suppose," continued the wily tactician, "suppose, Molly," looking at her very anxiously-" suppose wasn't in a joke last night, after all?" 6 "Well, papa" I "Well, papa!" echoed her father, sneeringly and snappishly, unable to conceal his ill humour; " but it isn't well, papa;' I can't understand all this nonsense. Mary, you must not give youself airs. Did you ever hear -a-hem!" He suddenly stopped short, sipped his wine, and paused, evidently intending to make some important communication; and striving, at the same time, to assume an unconcerned air-" Did you ever hear of the right honourable the Lord Viscount Scamp, Molly ?" "Yes; I've seen things about him, now and then, in the newspapers. Isn't he a great gambler, papa? enquired Miss Hillary, looking at her father calmly. "No-it's a lie," replied her father furiously, whirling about the ponderous seals of his watch. "Has any one been putting this into your head?" "No one, indeed, papa, only the newspapers" "And are you such an idiot as to believe newspapers? Didn't they say, a year or two ago, that my house was in for L.20,000 when Gumarabic and Co. broke? And wasn't that a great lie? I didn't lose a fiftieth of the sum! No," he added, after a long pause, "Lord Scamp is no such thing. He's a vastly agreeable young man, and takes an uncommon in B terest in City matters, and that's say ing no small things for a nobleman of his high rank. Why, it's said he may one day be a duke!" "Indeed, papa! And do you know him?" "Y-y-es!-Know him? Of course! Do you think I come and talk up at Highbury about every body I know? Know Lord Scamp? He's an ornament to the peerage.' "How long have you known him, papa?" "How long, puss ?-Why this— a good while! However, he dines here on Sunday". "Dines here on Sunday!-Lord Scamp dines here next Sunday? Oh, papa! this is another joke of yours!" "Curse me, then, if I can see it! -What the deuce is there so odd in my asking a nobleman to dinner, if I think proper? Why, if it comes to that, I can buy up a dozen of them any day, if I choose;" and he thrust his hands deeply into his breeches' pockets. Yes, dear papa, I know you could-if they were worth buying," replied Miss Hillary, with a faint smile. "Give me a great merchant before a hundred good-for-nothing lords!" and she rose, put her hands about his neck, and kissed him fondly. "Well-I-I-don't think you're so vastly far off the mark there, at any rate, Polly," said her father, with a subdued air of exultation; "but at the same time, you know, there may be lords as good as any merchant in the city of London hem! and, after all, a lord's a superior article, too, in respect of birth and breeding." "Yes, papa, they're all well enough, I dare say, in their own circles: but in their hearts, depend upon it, they only despise us poor citizens." "Us poor citizens-I like that!" drawled her father, pouring out his wine slowly with a magnificent air, and drinking it off in silence. "You shall see, however, on Sunday, Poll! whether you're correct” "What! am I to dine with you?" enquired Miss Hillary, with irrepressible alarm. "You to dine with us? Of course you will! Why the devil should not you?" My poor mamma" "Oh-a-hem! I mean-nonsense you can go to her after dinner. Certainly, you must attend to her!" "Very well, papa-I will obey you-whatever you like," replied Miss Hillary, a sudden tremor running from head to foot. "That's a dear good girl-that's my own Poll! And, hearken," he added, with a mixture of good-humour and anxiety, "make yourself look handsome-never mind the cost -money's no object, you know! So tell that pert minx, your maid Joliffe, that I expect she'll turn you out first rate that day-if it's only to save the credit of us-poor-merchants!" "Gracious, papa-but why are you really so anxious about my dressing so well?" Her father, who had sat swallowing glass after glass with unusual rapidity, at the same time unconsciously mixing his wines, put his finger to the side of his nose, and winked in a very knowing manner. His daughter saw her advantage in an instant; and with the ready tact of her sex, resolved at once to find out all that was in her father's heart concerning her. She smiled as cheerfully as she could, and affected to enter readily into all his feelings. She poured him out one or two glasses more of his favourite wine, and chattered as fast as himself, till she at length succeeded in extracting from him an acknowledgement that he had distinctly promised her to Lord Scamp, whose visit, on the ensuing Sunday, would be paid to her as to his future wife. Soon after this, she rung for candles; and kissing her father, who had fairly fallen asleep, she withdrew to her own room, and there spent the next hour or two in confidential converse with her maid Joliffe. Sunday came, and, true enough, with it Lord Scamp-a handsome, heartless coxcomb, whose cool, easy assurance, and business-like attentions to Miss Hillary, excited in her a disgust she could scarcely conceal. In vain was her father's eager and anxious eye fixed upon her; she maintained an air of uniform indiffe. rence; listened almost in silence the silence of contempt-to all the lisping twaddle uttered by her would-be lover, and so well acted, in short, the part she had determined upon, that his Lordship, as he drove home, felt somewhat disconcerted at being thus foiled for-as he imagined-the first time in his life; and her father, after obsequiously attending his Lordship to his cab, summoned his trembling daughter back from her mother's apartment into the drawing-room, and assailed her with a fury she had never known him exhibit at least towards any member of his family. From that day might be dated the commencement of a kind of domestic reign of terror, at the hitherto quiet and happy Bullion House. The one great aim of her father concerning his daughter and his fortune had been-or rather seemed on the point of being-frustrated by that daughter. But he was not lightly to be turned from his purpose. He redoubled his civilities to Lord Scamp, who kept up his visits with a systematic punctuality, despite the contemptuous and disgustful air with which the young lady constantly received him. The right honourable roué was playing, indeed, for too deep a stake an accomplished and elegant girl, with a hundred thousand pounds down, and nearly double that sum, he understood, at her father's death-to admit of his throwing up the game, while the possibility of a chance remained. Half the poor girl's fortune was already transferred, in Lord Scamp's mind, to the pockets of half a dozen harpies at the turf and the table; so he was, as before observed, very punctual in his engagements at Bullion House, with patient politeness continuing to pay the most flattering attentions to Miss Hillary-and her father. The latter was kept in a state of constant fever. Conscious of the transparent contempt exhibited by his daughter towards her noble suitor, he could at length hardly look his Lordship in the face, as, day after day, he obsequiously assured him that "there wasn't any thing in it"-and that for all his daughter's nonsense, he already" felt himself a lord's father-in-law!" Miss Hillary's life was becoming intolerable, subjected as she was to such systematic persecution, from which, at length, the sick chamber of her mother scarce afforded her a momentary sanctuary. A thousand times she formed the desperate determination to confess all to her father, and risk the fearful consequences: for such she dreaded they would be, knowing well her father's disposition, and the terrible frustration of his favourite schemes which was taking place. Such constant anxiety and agitation, added to confinement in her mother's bedchamber, sensibly affected her health; and at the suggestion of Elliott, with whom she contrived to keep up a frequent correspondence, she had at length determined upon opening the fearful communication to her father, and so being at all events delivered from the intolerable presence and attentions of Lord Scamp. By what means it came to pass, neither she nor Elliott were ever able to discover; but on the morning of the day she had fixed for her desperate dénouement, Mr Hillary, during the temporary absence of his daughter, returned from the City about two o'clock, most unexpectedly, his manner disturbed, and his countenance pale and distorted. Accompanied by his solicitor, he made his way at once to his daughter's apartment, with his own hand seized her desk and carried it down to the drawing-room, and forced it open. Frantic with fury, he was listening to one of Elliott's fondest letters to his daughter being read by his solicitor as she unconsciously entered the drawing-room, in walking attire. It would be in vain to attempt describing the scene that immediately ensued. Old Hillary's lips moved, but his utterance was choked by the tremendous rage which possessed him, and forced him almost to the verge of madness. Trembling from head to foot, and his straining eyes apparently starting from their sockets, he pointed in silence to a little heap of opened letters lying on the table, on which stood also her desk. She perceived that all was discovered,-and with a smothered scream fell senseless upon the floor. There, as far as her father was concerned, she might have continued; but his companion sprang to the bell, lifted |