"And when he saw his eyes were out, with all his

might and main,

He jump'd back through the quickset hedge, and scratch'd them in again."

The Captain got through the hedge, however, with the loss only of his hat and his heart.

"You Peter," said the Captain, "hand my hat over here, and break through yourself." "Indeed I can't, sir; the reasons against it are too pointed."

"Go round, Nelly, to the stile, and bring the young man with you after the Captain."

Locked arm-in-arm, Rosa and Oliphant walked up towards the Hall, keeping, however, the footpath under the hedge-row elms.

Here, young man," said Nelly, making her appearance in turn; come round by the stile."

"Ah, splendid woman, but rustical!" ejaculated Peter. "I'm sure you must be pretty Nell, though vox is not absent when you are present."

"Yes, my name do happen to be Nelly; and as to pretty, thank'ye, sir," said the girl, curtsying.

"Hast got a sweetheart, Nelly ?" continued. Peter, patronisingly.

"Thank ye, sir. Yes; it's no secret, all the country know it."

"You are blessed in the extent of

fidants. name ?"

your con

What may be the happy youth's

"O, they call him, sir, about these parts, Poaching Jack. All malice, you know."

"Nell, pretty Nell, as you love a poacher, you can have no objection to my poaching a little on Jack's manor ?"

"What do you mean, Mr. Saucychaps?" said the lady, bridling up.

"Only a specimen of my manner," and with this he made overt demonstration of snatching a kiss, which demonstration was met on Nelly's part, by a severe Cornish slap on the face, that made Peter's eyes see double. He looked a

little grim at first, at this specimen of Nelly's manners; but he rubbed his cheeks, and clapped a salve to them in the shape of another pun, and all was well again.

"A smart thing well applied, Nelly ;" and then regarding her in mock heroics, he struck his heart with his right hand, and exclaimed, "The Knell of all my hopes."

"I'd have you to know that I'm meat for your master," cried the indignant Nelly; "follow your ugly nose up the footpath, and leave an honest girl alone."

"Meat for my master! cat's-meat !—what a paw !"

So the two marched up also, towards the house, in what is called, in military tactics, open order.

For some most urgent reasons, the Captain and Miss Belmont walked round and round the shrubberies, without ever coming into actual sight of the house. Their conversation was a peculiar one. Hitherto, Oliphant had found

This, their

the young lady rather grave in her deportment, exalted, or rather stilted in her sentiments, and magniloquent in her sentences. third meeting, she had characterised by playfully mocking him, and commencing her address to him in a nursery rhyme. He adverted to this change in her manner, and told her how much mirth became her. At this she blushed deeply, and her merry humour vanished in a moment. The young officer was heartily sorry for this he knew not what to say. As yet, he much better understood the training of his guns, than how to lead a falsely-educated, and overrefined young lady to discourse of those things that were lying heavily upon her heart, for the Captain, notwithstanding his little knowledge of the fair, had already discovered that some secret was oppressing Rosa.

:

Captain Oliphant knew that, as regards the usages of the world, Miss Belmont was acting with great impropriety. The poor deceived young lady knew it not. There was something

exquisitely romantic in the whole adventure, and that satisfied her conscience that nothing in it could attach blame to her conduct. She had formed, or rather Mr. Rubasore had, for his own selfish purposes, assisted her to form, her code of right and wrong, and her conscience pained her not at granting almost private interviews, to a remarkably handsome young officer, almost a stranger.

But when this young officer strove to worm from her the secret of her infamous engagement with Rubasore, which it would have been a merit in her to have revealed, she shrank from the request with a startled sense that even to hear of it was a crime.

When the poor girl talked to Captain Oliphant of the cerulean blue, of the canopied heavens, of the exquisite satisfaction of a selfimmolating happiness, whose tortures were raptures, and of the unfathomable depth of the susceptibility of inexpressible and not to-be-revealed feeling, he rather thought, upon the