ment. Whether confused by her controversial readings, she hesitated, or whether Archbishop Potter desired her personal reconciliation with the prince her son, is not known; but the prelate had a wily answer ready to meet all questioners. When a crowd eagerly asked, "Has the queen communicated?" he replied, evading a direct denial, Her Majesty is in a most heavenly disposition."

With the death of the queen, Lady Sundon sank into obscurity. Lady Suffolk had already retired to Marble Hill, to become by-and-bye the gossip and companion of Horace Walpole. The king soon surrounded himself with new faces, and probably forgot the superior women with whom he had been associated, in the society of his new and acknowledged favourite, Madame de Walmoden, Countess of Yarmouth.

A number of laudatory effusions appeared after the death of Caroline, but not one that we can find of sufficient poetical merit to deserve a reappearance in modern type. But a few lines may be admitted from the eulogy of Stephen Duck, which was probably a sincere tribute of

gratitude. With not a hundredth part of the talent of Burns, and of birth still more obscure, the self-taught versifier, the humble "Thresher" found friends and patrons, and royalty at their head, to give him that help a tithe of which bestowed on the Ayrshire Bard might have enriched our literature beyond all conjecture, and rendered his life honourable and happy. Yet the thresher's fate points its moral most tragically. Conscious at last that his powers were less than the world believed, existence grew intolerable, and poor Stephen drowned himself in a fit of despondency:

"In every state her goodness has been prov'dWhen ruled, obedient; and when ruling, lov'd: Securely blest, beneath her gentle sway "Tis Happiness to serve, and pleasure to obey. "Nor fewer charms adorn her private lifeThe tend'rest mother, most submissive wife; Who never yet her consort disobey'd, By honour, duty, love, and virtue sway'd; In virtue's path she constantly proceeds, By virtue's rule she measures all her deeds."

Romances are quite as common in real life as in fictitious stories, with this unfortunate exception, that they do not invariably end in a happy marriage. But I know my romance to be such an one as might be the fate of any mortal to experience; and will even acknowledge that although my story commences ten years ago, my heroine is not yet married. Shall I, in the approved fashion of the 19th century, transport my readers to her as she is now? No, I will not. As a dream gone by, I will strive to describe scenes long passed away, and Alicia Ford as she then was. Do not expect perfection-realities are seldom found to be so: enough that, without being perfect, she was both Lovely and honourable-a fit creation for the station assigned woman in this world, as a companion to man. One must not look, in this life, for all good things centered in one object. Those very bumps which phrenology teaches us indicate the highest mental superiority, of themselves destroy the regular line of beauty; and if we come to analyze the common run of heroines, their personal charms may easily find rivals in the waxen figures of a fashionable hair-dresser's shop; and the heroes, so thickly strewn with sweets that but, forgive me, I am too censorious, and Alicia Ford is even now waiting for an introduction to you.

It is now ten years ago.

She is standing, half hid by the curtains of it, in the window of an old-fashioned room, whose dropsical chairs and grim dark pictures of defunct warriors speak of a time which has passed to return no more. The last are not alone, for

their ladies keep their costumes in countenance by the proportionate grotesqueness of their own; and here a Diana and there a shepherdess tell how, on canvas, they admired the chasteness and simplicity of each; whilst their own fair faces need no herald to speak of hearts lost and won. It is the library at Stoke Hall. The rays of an evening autumnal sun are playing with the ringlets of her fair hair. Her soft blue eyes are raised to the face of a young man beside her, whose arm encircling her waist, gazes into the depths of those clear eyes; as if he read therein the best guarantee for a lover's hopes. But listen! for she speaks:

Even could I be happy without you, the playmate and friend of my earliest years; even could I bear with calmness the mere separation from one I love as I do you, dearest Egan; let all this alone, what must my sorrow be, when I know that the life which henceforth you will lead must be one of danger?"

"Poor child! dry your eyes. You should think of the time when I shall return; and then, dearest Alice, the hours passed with each other will be doubly pleasant--when, from the knowledge of past separation, present enjoyment will be all the better appreciated. I would not wrong you so much as to express a doubt of your constancy. Need I speak of myself? Centuries-if I lived them--could not change me, my darling; and I trust that I shall come back to you speedily--more speedily than we now think; and Heaven bless and keep you the while, my own!"

"No, thank heaven, my fears are not for your

faith, Egan. It is sickness, danger, even death that I dread. Your departure hangs over my head like a dark cloud, and shuts out even Hope only for a while, I trust! She will come again. We shall be happy, although this hour is most bitter. Forgive my tears-forgive me for rendering the last few moments we pass together more painful than necessary by my weakness. It will pass away, and in the memory of the happiness I have experienced I will strive to bury the present and look only to the future." Egan's only reply was to press her hand, and try to wipe away the tears which rained from her eyes. At last he said:

"It is a great comfort to me to know that I leave you living happily with your uncle, and that you will continue to do so, until having a house to offer in exchange, you leave his roof for mine. It will be, likely enough, but a poor one in comparison, darling; but I will work hard to procure you even that."

"Is not your heart my home, Egan? I desire nothing better than to rest my head there; and when we are married, if poor, we must trust to God to keep us from want."

"You shall never want, Alice, whilst there is work-even the meanest-to do, and I hands to do it. What you are not afraid to face, surely I should be a coward to retreat from. If fortune does not enrich me, we will be content to be poor, happy in each other's love."

And to look at them, as they then stood, the words seemed not improbable.

Again a silence of some minutes. It is broken by Alicia:

"In the numerous last words I have forgotten one subject of great importance, about writing! You will write as soon as possible-only a line to say you are well-I shall be so anxious to

hear."

"Certainly; you shall have a long letter from the first port we touch at. I shall have nothing to do, when not thinking of you, but writing to you; and I shall expect volumes from you, dearest-a regular journal. Only let it be all of yourself; no other subject can have an equal interest, as you well know."

Just now the sound of carriage-wheels on the drive tells that it is the hour of separation, and that the last words have been spoken. The time is come, and they must bid each other a long farewell; but still Egan delays-still returns to press Alicia once more to his heart; until a servant, entering to say that unless he departs immediately the ship will have sailed, the last kiss is given, the horses bear him from his betrothed, and she, left to herself, sinks into the chair nearest to her, to relieve an overcharged

heart in a flood of tears.

had carved out for him, he declared his intention of becoming a soldier. Fathers are not (as in dramas we are led to suppose) always in an excited and enraged state of existence, and, notwithstanding that Sir E. Dalkeith was both annoyed and disappointed at his son's choosing a profession in which he had not any interest, he yielded to his wishes, making all due allowance for his youth, and hoping that he might, by perseverance, rise to distinction in the army of which he had determined to become a member. Contiguous estates had conduced to the great intimacy which for years had existed between the family of the Dalkeiths and the inmates of Stoke Hall; and the two young men and Alicia Ford growing up together, and now arrived at the respective ages of one and twoand-twenty and seventeen, it is not extraordinary that the Platonic love with which, as children, they had regarded each other, had merged into a warmer feeling; and those who before had in play called themselves man and wife, now looked forward to being so in reality.

The elder brother, Charles, was a young man of dissipated habits, heir to a good fortune. No occupation had been allotted him, and his days were passed-or the greater part of themin the stable. By inclination, and perhaps intellect, he was more fitted for a run with the hounds, or the doctoring of a horse, than to lounge in a lady's boudoir, or improve his mind by literature. The properties of the various land-holders being large, acquaintances in the neighbourhood were in consequence scarce, and visits rendered formal by taking place so seldom made it anything but pleasant when duty proposed and carried out a frozen dinner-party or dull evening; where young ladies, just out, shivered in white muslin dresses, and amused the assembled company by a little music-which article, as generally dispensed in boarding-schools, is very little, and proportionately bad. So much her own mistress in regard to time, Alicia felt, even more than she might otherwise have done, the loneliness which the loss of so dear a friend as her early playmate must, of necessity, bring upon her. Father and mother she had not; but from her birth, almost, adopted by her uncle, from his unvarying kindness to her, she had not hitherto felt what it was to be without parents. Let us follow Egan.

I grieve to disparage my own sex ; but I have often observed that when we are put out by any unavoidable event, we are apt to use it as a cloak under which to hide ill temper; and in the consolatory idea that we are ourselves supremely unhappy and uncomfortable, do our best to make others equally so. Egan felt very dull. The sun had by this time set, and the evening was cold. Wrapping his coat around him, he threw himself back in the carriage, and for the moment almost wished he had consented to be a clergyman, for Alicia's sake; and then he thought of an affectionate father, and many small disa greements which they had had rose before him; and then his leaving-perhaps for years-all that was dear to him; and then, springing up,

he threw open the window and rated the postilion soundly for not making more haste.

On reaching Southampton, a boat soon took him on board the "Fury," then lying in the harbour, purposing to sail next day before the sun was risen. It was now night, and Egan was the last arrival. He was in no humour for talking or making any new acquaintances; and so he left the deck for those who, striving to look nautical, by the cheap addition to their wardrobe of a glazed hat and telescope, walked fore and aft until the cold sent them down below also. It needed not the crowing of those doomed cocks between the decks to say that the day was breaking. Already, amidst horrible convulsions and puffs of ambitious smoke, the Fury's paddles are beginning to turn, and she is on her route to India; and soon-too soon, alas !—the nautical gentlemen are laid in their berths, and our hero is warned that for the present he must let his love-sickness give place to that sickness which Neptune claims. The weather was rough, and it was two weeks or more before Egan reappeared on deck.

It was a beautiful day, and he stood gazing at the blue sea. The rays of the sun strove to calm its still crested waves as they quickly chased one another, each dying as it overtook its sister-wave, and melting into one with her.

A soldier's life is glorious in perspective; but ah! the treacherous sea pulls down the noble fabric, and a sick cadet feels little disposed to lead a forlorn-hope, or even to try on his red coat and count the buttons.

Melancholy, in thought, is a great luxury; but requires, like all other pleasures, change. Our cadet is tired of gazing at the sea, and so sits down to talk to a young lady on a camp stool, surrounded by countless shawls. She is very pretty; but what is that to him? He had as soon she had been like one of the witches in Macbeth! But he finds her very good-humoured and willing to entertain him; for she guesses from what his lowness of spirits proceeds, and remembers her own, when her lover left for India. She is now on her way to join him, as he cannot come to England to fetch her, and they will soon be married. Egan and his fair young friend are soon quite intimate, and engaged in a long conversation; until the dinnerbell, announcing that important hour for digestion has arrived, they together go down into the cabin. I will not" carry" my readers (which, if they are as numerous as I could wish, would be rather a laborious task) with me the whole overland-route to India; because never having undertaken the journey myself, I might, not withstanding my lion's skin, show my long ears; and so simply rely on my superior knowledge for the fact that all the passengers in the Fury landed safely at their several destinations without any accident, excepting the loss of a small dog, who, much to the grief of its mistress, and her maid more especially (whose arm it had bitten the day before), fell overboard, and left nothing but its memory in their hearts.

What became of Egan Dalkeith after joining

his regiment I cannot say, for I lost sight of him until his return to England, which did not take place for three years afterwards.

During these three years I must again bring Alicia before you. We left her in tears on a sofa. A few days, and although Egan's name was the signal for a fresh effusion, still the weather was fine, for it was April. A few weeks, and summer was coming. We will not proceed to months, for then a letter had told of his safety and unchanged love, etc., filled with those sentiments which form the staple commodity of most love-letters, and Alicia only thought of his return. She was much alone; preferring the society of her uncle and the few intimate friends she had living near her, to anything of a gayer nature; and leading such an unvarying life, her thoughts had neither opportunity nor inclination to wander, for a moment, from their resting-place.

Egan has been away now eighteen months, and the mail has never failed to bring her letters from him; and now she is expecting it in, and must drive to the post-town herself to get it. She is sure of one-a long one, to make up for the last, which was unusually short. She is so sure of a letter that she does not ask if there is one for her; but asks at once for hers.

That old man, so redolent of snuff, is a long time fumbling over the packet; and then, in the coolest manner, replies to her question: "None to-day, mam."

Oh, indeed!" anxiously rejoins Alicia; "there must be some mistake. Will you be so kind as to look again. Surely there has been some mistake. Has the post-bag-has the mail not come in?"

"The mail was in with the Ingian letters last night, mam; but I will look again."

Look again, postmaster, if you will; but the letter is not there.

It is no use waiting. Alicia returns home. What can have prevented his writing? He is ill; he never could have missed doing so had he not been ill. His last letter—

What makes you start, Alicia? You do not doubt his faith? No; that is the last thing a woman believes. And under the firm impression that he is ill, her fears at times exaggerating the evil until she can scarcely endure the uncertainty, Alicia passes half sleepless nights and anxious days, vainly conjecturing and eagerly looking forward to the next arrival from India. It comes at last. The mail is in; there is a letter this time. It is very short. Why does Alicia weep at receiving what she has so often anticipated in thought? the very first sentence tells her that her fears are groundless on the score of his health. Is the letter unkind? No. In what does it differ from those preceding ones, the bearers of such unmixed pleasure? Alicia cannot say; but she feels the difference, and is unwilling to speak on the subject. Egan writes in very good spirits; but does not make everything depend on his return to England, as he used. He even says that living in India unfits a man for toiling at home.

the education of several little girls, to whose mother she had been recommended by the friend with whom she was staying.

The three years are nearly over.

Time passes slowly in life to what it does on paper. Mr. Ford is an old man, and his mind seems breaking up with his body. He can scarcely leave his room, and Alicia is always with him; and now one wintry day, Death comes stealthily, and steals his soul whilst he is in the arms of his sister, Sleep; and Alicia is left alone to mourn the loss of a dear friend. All supposed that, having adopted his niece, he would leave her all his property, and she never doubted that his promises made her to that effect would be fulfilled; but now, as he rests in his long home and the funeral is over, no will can be found. All search is fruitless; he has died without one-and Alicia finds herself a beggar, cast on her own resources for a livelihood, and the estate, which by intention was hers, the property of a nearer relation of Mr. Ford's.

Friends, in such cases, are generally very kind in offering advice. Many did so now. One only offered a substantial proof of friendship, and that was a home for Alicia until she could decide on anything for the future; and this she gratefully accepted: for too proud, after Egan's late coolness, to write and apply to him, she waited that he might be the first to make overtures, now her poverty so altered her position. But month succeeded month, and still the letter full of sympathy and reawakened affection on account of her late sorrows, for which she so earnestly hoped, came not; and at last she read his name in the papers as having landed in England.

She had received but one letter from him during the preceding six months, and now her eyes opened to the dreadful reality that the love she bore him was a gratuitous donation on her part, which he did not care to acknowledge. She had only waited for his return to break off her engagement to him. Alicia was, from the depths of her soul, a true woman. Her mortified pride led her to determine on the above steps; but although supported by it to go through with her intentions, they were not felt the less; nor was her early affection in any degree diminished for Egan. Her path is clear, but still she delays to take the final plunge; and notwithstanding she is obliged, however unwillingly, to allow to herself that he is not what he was when they parted, still she cannot bring herself to be the one to seal her own unhappiness. She had decided on going out as a governess, provided her fears were true (which now, alas! she could no longer doubt), and in this resolution she was induced to close rather

hastily with an offer made her, to take care of

To one used to the business, the part of a governess is always a difficult one to play; to

We must do Egan the justice to say, that although absence and new scenes had caused him to forget in a great measure his youthful engagement, and to consider it in the light of a boyish folly, he was not aware for some time after of Mr. Ford's death, or of the utter destitution of his niece. Had he known it, we trust his conduct would have been less deserving of censure; for on taking the first opportunity to go down and see him and Alicia, he was greatly surprised and shocked to find Stoke Hall in the hands of other people, and its former possessor no more.

His inquiries after Alicia were unavailing; and then Egan felt how wrongly he had be haved, and would have done anything in his power to recal the past. Perhaps had he persevered, he would have found out her present abode, for she was in London; but he strove rather to stifle than satisfy his conscience, consoling himself by repeating continually that theirs was a romantic love, more a matter of fancy than feeling; and that had she really cared for him, she would not have taken so much trouble to keep out of his way. He little knew that Alicia Ford was then undergoing the drudgery of a governess; looked down upon by the heads of the family, and disliked by all the servants-a gentlewoman, without the privileges of one-a servant, without the remuneration.

It was the beginning of a London season. The country was nearly deserted, and conse quently dull to all except the sparrows; and Egan, following in the path which pleasureseekers led, soon found himself in town, and as overwhelmed with engagements as he could desire. Night after night saw him one of the most eager in the cultivation of a society in which folly vied with extravagance which should bear the palm from its rival. Invitations were numerous and various. Egan was sought after, as all eligible young men are, by chaperons who have last year's goods on hand to dispose of; and amidst the beauty and fashion which everywhere surrounded him, he soon began to forget that Alicia existed. If he had imagined that she was penniless, for the credit of human nature we trust he would have exerted himself more effectually to find her; but of this he was not cognizant, and this last fact must plead some slight excuse for him.

Amongst his acquaintances he was most frequently at the house of a Mrs. Berryl, a widow, with a good jointure, and one only daughter; who, having arrived at the age of four or fiveand-twenty, she was anxious to see married. Emma Berryl was a very handsome girl, accomplished, and a finished woman of the world. Continually invited by them to dinner, or the

opera, their cavalier par excellence, Egan found himself unintentionally the acknowledged admirer of Miss Berryl.

Arrived at his lodgings one evening, tired and dispirited, rather annoyed than otherwise at hearing his marriage with the above young lady talked of as a settled thing, he threw himself, as he was, in a chair, (for once) to think. The table was strewn with notes, cards, here a ridingwhip, there a faded bouquet; but amongst all the confusion, one small note shines forth conspicuously at least to him-for in the handwriting he recognizes that of Alicia Ford. Poor Alice! is that sigh for you, or for him

self?

The letter is not dated; but these are the words :

you

"I do not write, after so long a silence, to tell that, hearing of your approaching marriage, I release you from your engagement to me. You have released yourself; I still hold mine. Past recovery it is broken; but, Egan, not by me. I give you no address by which to enable you to answer me. I wish for none. I want for nothing; and am living very comfortably in my present home. If you will accept them, believe me you have my best wishes for your happiness, and

"I remain yours, very sincerely, "ALICIA FORD." "How cold!" exclaims Egan, half aloud. "I never could have believed it, Alicia, of you of all women."

It is more than he has deserved, and he knows it. Two months later, and he is travelling with Emma Berryl in the south. They are married, and when he sails some months afterwards for India, to rejoin his regiment, she goes with him; and now we drop the curtain over a lapse of years, only to draw it up again to finish our

five

story.

The scene now lies in a large house in square, in small and scantily furnished room of which, where with the exception of books there is nothing but what is absolutely necessary, a woman sits alone. The fire has burnt low in the grate. It is so small a one that it must be coaxed if wanted to burn, not ruthlessly thrust into by a poker, or the few coals would soon cease to give even the little heat they do. It is late at night; the clock in the passage ticks audibly, rendering the entire silence which pervades the house even more apparent by its monotonous sound. All seem asleep save the inmate of this room, and she appears worn out with anxiety and fatigue; for she leans her head upon her hands, and they both rest on the table. The clock strikes two. She raises her head, preparatory to rising, and we now see it is Alicia Ford; and how changed! It is now eight years since we first introduced her to our readers, as a girl of seventeen. The features are the same, and the beautiful hair; but the expression of her face-such a shade of melancholy has passed over that, as only does over the faces of those where all happiness has vanished, and life is endured only in anticipation of a future

heaven; where all interest is confined to the occurrences of the moment, and the mind travels far beyond, fearing almost to look forward.

The fire is out now, and the air is chilly. Alicia takes up the only candle in the room; for she too at last is going to bed. Her bed-room is at the top of the house; but still she has not far to go, as the school-room she has just left is on the same floor. It is a large house in which she lives, and its owners are pleasure-loving people; but the governess has little to do with all this; her life passes in the room we have just described, excepting when she takes a daily walk, either in the adjoining square or the park, in company with her young pupil. The latter is under the charge of Mr. Bryanstone, and it is his wife who engaged Alicia as governess for her.

Strange things happen in this life; and when our heroine came to live in square, she heard that the little girl of whom she was to have the care was named Lucy Dalkeith; but she did not discover until some days afterwards that she was the only daughter of Egan; and when she did know it, her interest in the child, as may be imagined, was at once very great. But to explain how Lucy was consigned to the care of the Bryanstones, we must retrograde a little.

became the father of a girl, now about four years In less than a year after Egan's marriage, he old; and her mother dying, from fever, two years after, induced him to send her, thus early, hood. Mrs. Bryanstone had no family, and to England, to remain there during her childAlicia was therefore engaged as much as a companion to Lucy as anything else, for as yet she was almost too young to learn. It was with a double interest that Alicia entered upon her new task. At last she had found an object in whose welfare to be anxious, and on whom to lavish much of that affection with which nature had so richly endowed her.

Lucy was very docile and amiable, and knowing no other friend than her nurse, the one year Alicia and she had passed together was sufficient to render them much attached to each other; and she was loved by her governess, if not for her father's sake, for her own. He was still in India, though expected home very shortly. The latter fact did not prevent Alicia from remaining with Mrs. Bryanstone; as, under the name of Miss Wallace (by which she was now known), and trusting to the change which so many years had made in her personal appearance, she determined, if she could remain unrecognized by him, to continue in her present situation even after Egan's return.

His elder brother had lost his life some months previously, from a fall at a steeple-chase; and now the death of his father induced the present baronet to sell out from his regiment and hasten home, his newly acquired property precluding the necessity of his continuing any longer in the army. But to return to our story.

Alice had scarcely reached her room, when a loud knocking at the hall-door caused her to