and confectioners, lawyers and surrogates, should be indispensable; and that etiquette requires a sufficient time should elapse to enable the most loving pair to weary of each other before they can be united for life. Those horrid settlements, signed, sealed, and delivered! the huge cakes

to be compounded

the breakfast to be arranged

the eternal discussions about blonde and Brussels, orange-flower and veil, or feathered hat; the silk, satin, and gauze, encumbering every chair, and even hanging in drapery from the banisters; then, the running against les marchandes des modes at every step; the pre-occupation of the couple themselves; the frown if their téte-à-téte be interrupted; and all the other innumerable annoyances of such an event. ' ‚ .

I speak feelingly, having been compelled to endure all this but six months since, when my aunt, as a punishment, I believe, for not claiming the hand of my cousin myself, insisted on my playing Père, and giving it away to another. The absence of such fooleries proves beyond a doubt the superior wisdom of the savages; and, when weary of my present parti, which will bevere long, I have decided on becoming a Cherokee or a-Tupinamba.

The joyful consent of the parents followed

the demand of Frederick for the hand of his

lovely Emma, and

The sun shone fair on Carlisle wall,
For love was still the lord of all."

And still might the despotism of love have endured but for those horrid settlements. The father could give his daughter but little-she was a treasure in herself— the mother could scarcely survive the parting with her sweet child, but she would make the sacrifice, and yield her to him for her happiness. What would he settle on her? Five hundred a year, all he had; and trust to his profession, the law, to win her more. The papa looked grave-the mamma turned pale. "All he had now: but was he not heir to his uncle of Heathmoor, and would he do nothing for him? five hundred was too small an income for the delicate Emma."

The proposed alliance was mentioned, but the old see not as the young: the uncle avowed his detestation of the whole race of Dalzell; branded them as cold and heartless manœuvrers, themselves with scarce a sixpence, but valuing others only by their riches; and, moreover, made his will that very night, leaving all he possessed to his cousin, Arthur de Beauvoir, with more than thirty thousand a year, instead of to his nephew

with only five hundred; dying the next day lest he should have an opportunity of executing a wiser testament. The father felt convinced of the impropriety of allowing his daughter to marry a "Briefless Barrister," with only five hundred a year, a conviction deepened into horror on the advance of a wealthy suitor; and more than hinted that he would find the exterior of the house more agreeable than the interior. The mother shed sympathizing tears; regretted he had not fortune; lamented in pathetic terms his hard fate, and her own inability to change her husband's resolve; spoke strongly of a child's -duty of submission, and curtseying him out at one door with a tear, welcomed his rival in at the other with a smile. The young lady was in despair- but obedience was a duty- a parting interview would but increase the grief of bothshe wished him every happiness, and her own anguish was so great she was obliged to seek its alleviation in the tender attentions of her new admirer.

But what did the young gentleman ? Oh, pleaded his cause with a force, pathos, and eloquence, deserving a silk gown, that would have won a verdict in his favour from any other jury in England; and, if published, would ensure his

But

employment as counsel in every tender case, tried within the confines of Great Britain. the opening speech, the plea, and the rejoinder, were of no avail: genius and honour are not gold; and the discarded lover, instead of pouring the flood of his indignation on the servile crew, and then leaving them to the bitterness of their own contempt, must linger in the neighbourhood, forsooth, and stand within view of his lady's window night after night, till ague claimed the mastery over love, and the romantic youth was confined to his bed, instead of tasting the midnight air, and frighting the owls and nightingales.

Here ends tale the first; and for the moral :Trust none! Be wary-be wise!

Pray why was I to hear nothing of all this, but through indifferent people on my return from abroad some two days since? You were wont to say my trifling advantage in age, whilst it made you look up to me as a guide, did not teach you to regard me less. Then, why this silence? Why not give me your confidence? Whatever may be my own feelings on this subject, however withering the blight experience has thrown over my own heart, I never have taught, I never will teach, doubt and distrust to

young bright spirits. When their own hand has withdrawn the veil, then may I moralize with them on the gloominess of the truth; but not a fold, not a plait, shall my hand disarrange of the flowery gauze of youthful hope.

Why then this silence? At first, the timidity and bashfulness of a first love, and the dread of ridicule from which you, with all the children of enthusiasm suffer, till its own energy casts it off; and then a proud delicacy about that estate of your old curmudgeon of an uncle. This should not have been. You know I neither sought for nor desired Heathmoor, and you might have guessed that I should not retain it. A year since, you would have felt no embarrassment on the subject, but your dream is fading fast; the trammels of the world are twining round you, and the conduct of the Dalzells has taught you to look on money as the world looks upon it You no longer prize riches, as of old, for their power of conferring happiness on others; you prize them for themselves, or rather for their power of commanding respect; as a means of procuring the reality of luxuries, the semblance of love. You think my estimate of riches must have changed as your's has done. Right: the man thinks not of riches as the boy thought of them;