tleman's mamma was a spider-brusher : and such was the freedom of conscience exercised by the parents, that they did not think matrimony indispensably necessary, and accordingly dispensed therewith. From what motives we do not pretend to say, but the loan did not take place, and Glen Eagle went away disappointed from Mr. Compound, as he had done from the doctor. Money-lending in Edinburgh is like what Doctor Johnson said of learning in the same city: it is confined to a few, and even those few are confined in their notions, they have all a mouthful, but no man has a stomach full: the will to gain is counteracted by the fear to lose; so in learning, the wish to learn is sadly checked by the desire of turning learning to account, and by

the fear that even learning should cost too much, whereby the holder of the talent, might not be able speedily to turn it into a talent of gold, or (more probably) a talent of silver. If a man fail with the doctor, or with Mr. Com pound, he must come to Mr. Try, the woollen-draper and furnisher, who will sell him abundance of things abundantly dear: he lives at the sign of the white fleece, or the lamb's fleece, we forget which; he will do a man's bill, ask another to dinner, and fancies himself quite a gentleman: hunts, struts, and forgets himself, but never forgets his bill; he also plays at whist, and visits a few ruined lairds, and green students; and neither are much benefitted by his society: he is, moreover, a

miller: but as Sandy is not the sort for grinding, he makes but a poor hand of it. Transplanted to a richer soil, Mr. Try might thrive prodigiously; but the Scot can take his kail and his haggis without mushroom sauce; and neither his eye nor his palate is to be dazzled or crammed. But away with accommodation bills, et retera, and to our main plot.

CHAPTER IV.

Les jours se suivent, mais ne se resemblent point.
Days like to-day as long as time can last,
Yet different far the present from the past.

LONDON was to Glen Eagle a triste souvenir. He had there been happy in the society of one who was all the world to him. The scene of rendezvous, the hour of meeting, the impassioned billet laid on his breakfast table, the lover's walks, the park, the opera, and the play— all, and every one, brought heart-rending reminiscences to his mind. Even the distractions and dissipation which used to consume his nights, and waste his days, were now insupportable. Be

sides, he had not Tom Shuffleton, that king of dissipation, who used to be the companion of his excesses. It was not to be borne; so he sojourned but two nights in the capital, and posted with all possible celerity to Bath.

Arrived, his first visit was to the pump-room, that panorama of all the characters of Europe, that masqueradish display of loveliness and decrepitude, of vitiated and premature age, of artificial and ill-imitated youth, with here my Lord Padagrus and Alderman Anasarea, there Miss Mimikin about to run away. with an officer, and Lady Languish, of half-a-century old, trussed up like a turkey for the spit, larded with paint and perfumes, and hanging out for an intrigue, whilst she is regretting how well