and delight which the scene outspread before him was calculated to elicit; the others, even if they had not gazed upon it before, were too fashionably fine to betray any marked sensation, especially of a pleasurable nature, so that little was said for a few minutes, until Lady Middleton, upon changing her position, and perceiving her son, suddenly ejaculated :

"Gale here! amazement ! You are the last person I should have expected to encounter. I knew not that you took pleasure in exhibitions of any sort."

"Pleasure!" exclaimed the young man, shaking his head with a melancholy look of dissent. "And yet it is a species of pleasure thus to see London without being stunned with its din, suffocated by its fetid smoke, and above all, without being revolted by the noxious portion of its inhabitants. It is like contemplating a portrait, wherein we may trace the form and the lineaments of some hideous monster, while we avoid his roar, his stench, and his ferocity. Or rather may it seem that I am gazing upon the silent and

unsubstantial ghost of a departed metropolis. Oh! what a curiosity were this painted apparition, could it reappear at some future date, not perhaps so distant as we fondly dream, when the mighty city which it represents, like all its commercial predecessors, shall have passed away, and be numbered with the buried majesty of things that are no more, -with Ophir and Tadmor, with Tyre, Sidon and Carthage: when St. Paul's, dwindled to a few upstanding columns amid a wilderness of prostrate ruins, shall echo no vespers but those of the hooting owl and the screaming bat; when yonder lapsing Thames, for ever flowing away, and yet the only feature of the scene destined to remain, supporting no vessels upon its deserted waves, and reflecting no stately edifices on its banks, shall wind through an uninhabited and swampy waste; whose silence shall be only broken by the bark of the lurking fox, or the mournful cry of the bittern."

"Allons!" whispered Lady Middleton to her companion. "Cette tirade m'ennuie. We did not come hither to listen to these rhapso

dies. Let us make our escape, for Gale has no more tact than an infant, and if he attaches himself to our party he will prove a perfect Marplot."

"Now then is our time," said Mrs. Burroughs, for he seems plunged in so profound a reverie that we may reach the bottom of the building before he comes to himself."

Nodding a silent assent, Lady Middleton made a signal to her daughter, and the party, descending the stairs, passed through the conservatory towards the Swiss cottage, till they reached the pastry cook's-shop, when Sir Dennis courteously invited his companions to refresh themselves after a laborious descent, which he stigmatised as the most murderous fatigue he had ever voluntarily undertaken. Mrs. Burroughs declared that she never took any luncheon; but as she saw some of the almond-cakes, of which her dear little children were so fond, she would just put up a few that she might have the pleasure of telling her young folks they were sent by Sir Dennis. So saying, she stowed away into her capacious

reticule a whole cargo of edibles, for which the baronet paid, and they proceeded to the cottage. Sir Dennis, apparently exhausted with fatigue, threw himself into a chair; Cecilia seated herself beside him; there were no other visitants in the room, and the opportunity as well as the scene, with its little lake, its fircrowned rocks, babbling waterfalls, and cooing doves, seemed to be so expressly adapted to a declaration of love, that Lady Middleton, taking her companion's arm, sauntered back towards the conservatory, under pretext of examining some of the rare plants.

Cecilia had been instructed by her prudent mother that, as her admirer seemed to be a sluggish indecisive person, who, if permitted, would probably degenerate into a mere dangler, it might be expedient to quicken his resolves by a timely hint, or even to pique his jealousy by an allusion to Ned Travers, her civic suitor. Willing as the daughter was to avail herself of these hints, and sensible that she could hardly expect a better opportunity than the present, she scarcely knew how to administer the pre

scribed stimulants, since her companion talked of nothing for some time but the ducks in the little lake, and the owl upon the rocks. Collecting, however, her ideas and her courage at the same moment, she ventured to exclaim :

"Certainly this is a most sweet and picturesque scene, and if I were at all romantic, I should say it is precisely the sort of place for making love."

"Ah now, that's very extro'r'nary,” cried the Baronet. "I give you my honour I was just thinking of the self-same thing." He sate upright instead of lolling, drew his chair nearer, and assuming a more earnest manner than was his wont, thus proceeded: "Indeed then, Miss Middleton, I have long been wishing for an opportunity of speaking to you upon this subject, which lies upon my heart, it does, and of telling you that though I never meant to marry for some years to come, for sure if I did, wouldn't there be wives enough to be got in Ireland; yet since I came to London I have been induced to change my mind, and to come quite entirely to a different conclusion. In