often succeed when all the doctors were posed.' Well, we went on talking to her, and wandering about; then we sat down on a bank, while I did a little coughing. It was the day before I was requested to go home to my disconsolate family. Then we saw Grainger coming. He ran very fast, and looked very jolly. He flung himself down beside us, panting. 'Well,' he cried out, 'I've done it, and she won't have me; that's one good thing! But I'll never make an offer again, I can tell you, whatever you may say.' we all cried out, screaming with laughter. and done it already?' And he said he had. shrubbery, and had said, as we told him to say, that he was afraid she was getting thin. She said, 'What, Grainger?' And so then he continued, 'I said to her what you told me about my hand and heart, and all that; and she won't have me-said she should not think of such a thing.' Well, we all shook hands with him. I'm a very

'Won't have you!' 'What, have you gone He had met her in the

moral fellow, so I talked to him. I said to him, 'Let this be a warning to you never to trifle with the feelings of the tender sex again.' He said it should."

"This is really true?" I asked.

'Quite true. When he heard of it, Prentice almost gnashed his teeth. We told it to him as if it was the most commonplace thing in the world that Grainger should have made an offer."

"Isn't this a queer boy?" said Lou.

"Then Prentice should not be such an ass," he burst out.

"Well, now we are going out for a walk, and Aunt Christie, too. I must go and find her," observed one of the girls.

"I shall accompany you. Some other time I shall tell Miss Graham all about Charlotte, and how she and Prentice correspond. Prentice is such a fool that he even steals other people's jokes, and tells them all wrong. You know that the house of Daniel Mortimer, Esq., has one long wing?"

"Yes."

"Well, one day when we were making some experiments here, Prentice went up to my room for a bottle of steel filings, and Giles met him wandering about; so he said, by way of a mild joke, ‘Don't you know that, like the albatross, he sleeps on the wing?' Well, Prentice actually was heard to tell that the next day thus, 'My friend Mortimer, I dare say you know that, like the albatross, he―he flies all night!' He had forgotten the point of it; but he came here to lunch with Charlotte soon after, and told St. George how Old Tikey had bought some Irish pigs that would not stop in the stye. One ran away, and jumped clean through a cottage window. Mr. Tikey, in full chase, bolted in at the door and found the woman of the house boiling a dozen, at least, of pheasant's eggs. 'Boiling pheasant's eggs!' said Giles; 'foolish woman. Why, they were poached already! If I had such a pig as that,' he went on, I would soon cure him.'

Would you believe it! Prentice looked earnestly at him, and answered, How?'"

If Prentice had not been one of the chief arbiters of my fate-I may say the chief arbiter-I would not have recorded all this nonsense of Valentine's. As it was, let me say, with due solemnity, that this was the first time Prentice rose on my horizon like a star.

CHAPTER XIX.

"Who would dote on thing so common,

As mere outward handsome woman?"-Wither.

We set off for a walk, and I smelt the fresh earth and the spring flowers. "Oh, do let me garden a little?" I exclaimed, as we came to a border, by which lay some gardening tools.

"To be sure, there is a rake and a trowel," said Aunt Christie ; "rake away, my dear."

"No; I must have the spade, it is so delightful to set one's foot on it, and feel the earth coming up."

"Ah!" exclaimed Valentine, "and so you shall. Let spades be trumps,' she said, and trumps they were.' (Pope)."

“Oh Val, how mean of you to begin in this way, when you know you promised," said Liz, sullenly.

"I said I would be sparing, just at first," retorted Valentine; “but, now, Miss Graham, don't you think it is very mean of my family to repress my rising genius? many would be proud of it." "What have they done?"

"Done !—I say, Lou, how long is this to go on? She has dug up a lily bulb."

"I will set it again; now I have dug enough."

"Then we can proceed. Why, this is what they have done: my vein lies in apt quotations, and they won't let me exercise it."

"We didn't like it every day, and all day long," said Liz. "Now, I'll just lay the case before you, Dorothea: Emily knew that when she went away we should be terribly oppressed, and so she made a rule"

"That the moment I began, if they could call out the author's name, and say, 'Pax,' I was instantly to stop, if it was only at the second word; but, if they could not, I might go on to the end; and, then, if I could not give his name, I might be pinched, or pricked, or otherwise tormented." He said this with an indescribable air of boyish simplicity.

Aunt Christie remarked that the rule sounded fair.

"Yes," he exclaimed; "but they never can call out 'Pax,' for they

are not at all well read, so the rule comes to nothing, unless St. George is present, and he is so quick, that I can hardly ever get out a word; in fact, he often calls out what I am going to say, and stops it; then, of course, I'm stumped. Now, what are you laughing at, Miss Graham?"

"Because you are so extremely young, sir' (Dickens)."

"I'm almost as old as you are," he replied.

Was there ever such an opportunity given for a retort; the old aunt, with her fine Doric accent, instantly exclaimed, "I grant thee, for we are women when boys are but boys."

He danced round her, shouting out various names, but not the right one; and she went on till she had drawled out her quotation:"Now, don't move your arms and legs about so, laddie; it's quite true, as Miss Graham will tell you, and ye should not have begun it."

"Yes," I went on, "We grow upon the sunny side of the wall' (Taylor)."

"Ah," said Valentine, calming down, after his exercises, "I'm not up in that old fellow. Who would have thought it? Thou art a caitiff and a lying knave, and thou hast stolen my dagger and my sword;' those are almost the only lines of his that I know; but they're sweetly appropriate."

"Well, now we shall have a little peace, I hope," said Liz, as he is conquered with his own weapons."

"Are you conquered?" I inquired. "I think you are only sighing to yourself, 'Ah me, what perils do environ the boy that meddles with cold iron.'"

"Boy, indeed!" he exclaimed; "but, Pax, (Hudibras,) this is nothing but envy of my superior parts. I will lead you and Aunt Christie such a life. Even if you quench me, you will only be disappointed, as the wild Tartar is who, when he spies a man that's handsome, valiant, wise, if he can kill him, thinks to inherit his wit, his wisdom, and his spirit; or, as that famous schoolman was, who swallowed his enemy's knife, that it might be handy to whet his words, and sharpen his tongue on."

"How was he disappointed?"

"He found it cut short all his arguments."

"And the Tartar?"

"Why, he was doubly disappointed, for when he had killed the other Tartar, there was nobody left to fight with, which was very dull; and he himself was as ugly and cowardly as ever."

"And that's a fine compliment, by implication, to us," said the old

aunt.

"Yes," said Valentine, "and one chief merit of this quoting faculty is, that by means of it, one can tell people such home truths."

"Well," said Aunt Christie, "but it's a very elaborate kind of wit, and I think I agree with Lizzy, that it's not worth exercising.”

"The fact is," said Valentine, "I am not doing myself justice. I feel so coy to-day; you really must bring me forward. Wait a minute."

He darted off to a little copse, and thrust his head into a bush. "The Oubit grows," said Aunt Christie; "he's a stately young fellow."

"I said so," exclaimed Valentine, coming up; little lesser-white-throats are building there again."

"those precious

"But you won't be so mean as to steal the eggs," said Liz; “I am sure you have eggs enough."

Nay, nay," said Aunt Christie, unexpectedly taking Valentine's part, "ye must not look for virtues that are contrary to all nature. I should as soon expect to meet with a ghost that could crack a nut, as a boy that could keep his hands off a nest of young linties."

"That's the second time I have been called a boy during the last five minutes."

"Didn't ye invite me, yourself, into your room last Christmas,” exclaimed Annt Christie, "and wasn't it just choked with rubbish of every sort that boys delight in?"

"He has such a value for some of his rare eggs," says Lou, "that he takes them about with him, packed in bran, wherever he goes."

"Well," answered Valentine, "I don't see that they are a bit worse rubbish than many things that other people carry about."

"Not a bit, Oubit, not a bit; the amount of rubbish that some people are proud to carry is just amazing. It is a blessed thing, indeed, that none of us can take our rubbish to another world; for, if we could (I speak it reverently) some of the many mansions' would be little better than lumber-rooms."

"Why do you call him 'Oubit'?" I inquired.

"Mamma did," was the reply.

"But what is an Oubit?"

"Nobody knows. St. George thinks it's a hairy caterpillar; but I say it must be a kind of newt."

By this time we had reached a little wood, as full as it would hold of anemones, celandine, and wild daffodil. We gathered quantities of them, and I felt the joy of roving about where I would. This is a kind of bliss that no one can imagine who has not been some time held captive at sea. It kept me under its influence till we had returned to the house, and I had dressed for dinner. Some neighbours had been invited to meet us. I told Liz and Lou that I had never been present at a dinner-party in my life. They said this was not a real dinner-party, it was only having a few friends to dinner, and that among them would be only one interesting

person. This was a nephew of Mr. Mortimer's, a banker in a neighbouring town, who lived a little way out of it, and had been invited to meet Tom because he was such a clever man, and because they wanted to show him that they had clever friends themselves sometimes.

None of the guests had made their appearance when I came into the drawing-room. Mrs. Henfrey and Valentine were down there. I was asked how I had liked my walk; and when I had answered, Mrs. Henfrey said, " And which way did Giles take Mr. Graham?" "As if you could not guess, sister," exclaimed Valentine.

The sister smiled, and I looked out at a window, and saw a wide stretch of beautiful country, for the drawing-room was upstairs; and I thought Tom must have been pleased, whichever way he had walked.

"Of course," continued Valentine, "he went down the Wigfield Road, that he might gaze on those chimneys and the endeared outline of that stable."

"I thought she wasn't at home," said Mrs. Henfrey.

'Mind," observed Valentine, "I don't know that he went that way, I only feel sure of it. You ask him."

"Oh, you feel sure, do you? I thought Miss Dorinda was not come home."

"No more she is; but has the place where she hangs out no charms for a constant mind?"

"You are rude-hangs out, indeed! I wonder what Miss Graham thinks of you! Ah! here is Giles ! Well, which way did you

walk?"

"Down the Wigfield Road," replied Mr. Brandon.

"What attractions must a whole wig possess," said Valentine, aside, to me, "when beauty draws us with a single hair.' (Pope)." "Is she handsome?" I asked, also aside.

"She is."

Strange to say this revelation as to the state of Giles's heart was a considerable relief to me. I am quite sure I was glad. I had always known, past the possibility of a doubt, that he felt no attraction towards me; but I felt a kind of enthusiasm still about him, because he was philanthropical, and I thought he had high motives, so I cared for him. In a certain sense he was dear to me, and I did not wish to lose him—out of my world-married or single; but I had been teazed about him, and, consequently, I had felt as if all the natural instinct of friendship towards him must be smothered; now I knew that he had attractions elsewhere, and I felt calm security and ease flow into my heart at the thought of it. "Now," I thought, "this annoyance really is over." I have frequently thought so; and yet it kept cropping up again.

So I thought, as the visitors arrived. Talk flowed around me,