"Four fathers!-that's a good one, an't it! now this comes of being of a great old family!" "What, sir!"

"What! why, to ha' four fathers, when I remember it was a joke agen me, as I had ne'er an one."

66 Very likely, Mr. Pellett-I speak of those from whom this castle came down to me."

"Odds boddikins, I wonder it hadn't come down upon them long ago-he! he !-Its a tumble down piece o' rubbish, and I dare to say, when we comes to overhaul the timbers, they'll be"

"D-n the timbers, sir, speak to the point, and answer my plain question, how a man like yourself (eyeing the hardwareman somewhat too superciliously) could rise from-from small beginnings into comparative affluence."

"Nothing to be done without a counter, I can tell thee, or without sticking to it—aye, sticking to it-I ask ye pardon."

"Psha-with what capital did you start in business, man?"

"Capital!-come, that's a good one-hey! I ask ye pardon-thank God, I hadn't a brass sixpence to cross myself with-should'nt have been here now, buying castles, as thee call'st 'em-no, no-never knew any body do good in business as begun with any thing."

"Why, confound the man!-how could you get a house, a shop, a hovel, without money?" "Don't ye be angry-ask ye pardon-got first into a good shop."

"But how-how-that's what I want to know."

"How!-Why by sweeping my way."

"Sweeping!-what?"

"The shop, to be sure."

"Take your own way, sir."

"And so I did, and the best way-so on I goes from sweeping to tramping."

"Tramping!"

"To be sure-tramping a'ter master's customers wi' parcels and such like-and doing little odds and ends of 'omissions."

"Well, sir, you seem to have taken your degrees."

"Degrees! there's no getting on in any other guess manner; so after that, I got on to scraping."

66 Making up your capital, I presume."

"Lord love ye, no such a thing-never thought of capital-always running in thy head-ask ye pardon-scraping my master's door, and putting the best leg foremost, as we have it;" which the honest trader illustrated by making a series of very profound flexions of the body.

"And pray, sir," asked the almost exhausted Mr. Geoffrey Owen, "what did that do for you?" "Do! made friends."

"How?"

66 By booing and civility." "Servility, thou meanest""Ye; civility, I mean."

"Your advances were slow at least." "Slow-should like to see thee get on as fast -ask ye pardon, I began to climb like smoke." "Climb! creep, you would say."

"I would say no such thing, for I should lieask ye pardon-I climbed to the garret-first housed, then lodged, then fed as shopman."

"That was a jump indeed," observed Geoffrey rather contemptuously.

"Nothing to the next."

"What, higher than the garret ?"

"Higher- a mile-hop, step-and as we has it-from the off side to the near side of the counter."

"In what manner?"

"My own manner, to be sure-master liked my manner-missis liked my manner-customers liked my manner-so they put me on my prefarment, and I riz to be foreman."

"And how did'st thou rise above the counter?" "Above the counter! that's a good un, an't it? Why, Lord love ye, I couldn't rise higher. It's the nonplush, as we has it-where the dickons would'st thee ha' me go?-There I stuck, for nobody could move me, 'till I growed to it, like a nailed Brummegem; and it's the awkwardest thing in life to me to go without it."

"I mean to ask, how didst thou rise from the situation of a foreman, to that of master? For such I presume thou wert."

"Popped into master's shoes."

"By what means?"

"He died one day-popt to his widow-she jumped at it-carried on the concern, and pocketed the old boy's savings as well as my own. He! he that's a good un, an't it?"

"For thee-a very good one, friend;-I see I shall make no progress in thy school."

"No!-don't look cut out for it: can't give ye much encouragement-can't bend thee body enough-too upright."

"I fear so indeed," groaned Geoffrey.

"You maun creep first before you can climb, as we say; besides, too rich, too rich; I beg pardon, he!"

"Dost thou mean to insult my poverty, sir?"

"Oh lud, not I; ask ye pardon: say 'gain too rich."

"Why, sir, I have not fifteen hundred pounds in the world."

"Fifteen hundred! too much, too much; why, ye can't begin sweeping with such a sum in your pocket."

"Sweeping! why, thou dar'st not imagine”— "Oh! not I-beg pardon, don't imagine any such thing; only, if don't begin by sweeping, can't climb after my manner, that's all; and, good lack! All men's not made for all things, as I heard the famous Zekel Platterface, at Redcliffe church say-you ha'nt the manner, the figure, the"

"Dost laugh at me, sirrah?"

"Laugh! not I; the Lord love ye,-it's no laughing matter, I can tell ye. Wouldn't say nothing to disparage ye; 'tisn't thee fault-nater made us as we be,-can't all rise to the top ;ben't all born to fortin."

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DESCRIPTION OF DOMINIE SAMPSON. THOUGH We have said so much of the laird himself, it still remains that we make the reader in some degree acquainted with his companion. This was Abel Sampson, commonly called, from

his occupation as a pedagogue, Dominie Sampson. He was of low birth; but having evinced, even from his cradle, an uncommon seriousness of disposition, the poor parents were encouraged to hope that their bairn, as they expressed it, "might wag his pow in a pulpit yet." With an ambitious view to such a consummation, they pinched and pared, rose early and lay down late, ate dry bread, and drank cold water, to secure to Abel the means of learning. Meantime his tall ungainly figure, his taciturn and grave manners, and some grotesque habits of swinging his limbs, and screwing his visage, while reciting his task, made poor Sampson the ridicule of all his school-companions. The same qualities secured him at college a plentiful share of the same sort of notice. Half the youthful mob"of the yards" used to assemble regularly to see Dominie Sampson (for he had already attained that honourable title) descend the stairs from the Greek class, with his Lexicon under his arm, his long misshapen legs sprawling abroad, and keeping awkward time to the play of his immense shoulder-blades, as they raised and depressed the loose and threadbare black coat, which was his constant and only wear. When he spoke the efforts of the professor were totally inadequate to restrain the inextinguishable laughter of the students, and sometimes even to repress his own. The long sallow visage, the goggle eyes, the huge under-jaw, which appeared not to open and shut by an act of volition, but to be dropped and hoisted up again by some complicated machinery within the inner man,-the harsh