"Man alive! are you going to keep us here all the morning? Why don't you curse the Hebrew huckster of superannuated pantaloons, aud be done with it?" This laconic speech, together with its fistic accompaniment, had the effect of restoring the astonished Squire to his pristine self-possession. Assuming a perpendicular position, and that with almost preternatural agility, considering his weighty capital of flesh, he made one bolt at Widdicomb, and grappling him bear-fashion, roared out with the stentorosity of a gross of town criers, It would be at once pedantic and impertinent to bore the excellent peruser of these lines, with any explanations of the passages above chronicled. Being madly enamoured of the heiress of Newlove Grange, Crooks the younger, who had discovered the foot whereon she halted, made a bold stroke for a wife, and gained as the bogus Count, what he had been denied as the sterling advocate. If a merry symposium was not enjoyed in Cobourg that blessed morning by a certain nuptial party, write the Purser down as a promulgator of unveracities. The fusilading of corks was a caution, and healths, pottle deep, were dedicated to the prosperity of the united dynasties of Newlove and Crooks. The only malcontent at the banquet was the erudite Laura Sophonisba. This mature spinster was rendered misanthropical, not merely by the mean estimate taken of her charms, but from the fact that her niece had not wedded a romantic and titled mate. "Here's health, wealth, and happiness to you, Fanny," ―said she, during a lull in the joviality,-"but it vexes me to the soul, that after all the trouble I have had with your education, a commoner's lot has fallen to your chance. Heigh, ho! I thought to have seen a coronet on your carriage and table spoons, before I had shuffled off this mortal coil of ropes, as William Shakspeare says, but the Parks (Parcæ were probably intended,) have otherwise decreed!" "Let not that fret you, aunt of mine,"―rejoined the happy bridegroom. "My Fanny is entitled to stitch Baroness to her name, whenever she feels inclined so to do. When in Germany this summer, I purchased a patent of nobility for a mere song, from a Grand Duke who chanced to be slightly out at the elbows, and if we visit Baden Baden in the spring, my wife may take precedence of all the commoners in Christendom." SUMMER AND WINTER. I. One balmy morn, in laughing May, Beside me sat upon the green The fairest maid in the west countrie. The brightest diamond-flash, I ween, Shone dim before her hazel ee. II. I broke my love-she said na' nay. We pledged our vows— -it seemed a dream; The sunny hours fled swift away As foam-bells on the whirling stream. Earth was a new-born paradise, A fairy-land of wild delight; We spoke not-in each other's eyes, Our every thought we read aright. |