this young gentleman's visits to the Black-Fort, and that if they had displeased me, I would not have known how to stop them ?"

“Did I know that your honour knew of his visits!" exclaimed Deborah, in a triumphant tone,-for, like most of her condition, she never sought farther for her defence than a lie, however inconsistent and improbable" Did I know that your honour knew of it ?—Why, how should I have permitted his visits else? I wonder what your honour takes me for! Had I not been sure it was the thing in this world that your honour most desired, would I have presumed to lend it a hand forward? I trust I know my duty better. Hear if I ever asked another youngster into the house, save himself-for I knew your honour was wise, and quarrels cannot last for ever, and love begins where hatred ends; and, to be sure, they look as if they were born one for the other --and then, the estates of Moultrassie and Martindale suit each other like sheath and knife."

"Parrot of a woman, hold your tongue!" said Bridgenorth, his patience almost completely ex

hausted; "or if you will

prate,

let it be to your

play-fellows in the kitchen, and bid them get us some dinner presently, for Master Peveril is far from home."

"That I will, and with all my heart," said Deborah ;" and if there are a pair of fatter fowls in Man than shall clap their wings on the table presently, your honour shall call me goose as well as parrot." She then left the apartment.

"It is to such a woman as that," said Bridgenorth, looking after her significantly," that you conceived me to have abandoned the charge of my only child? But enough of this subject-we will walk abroad, if you will, while she is engaged in a province fitter for her understanding."

So saying, he left the house, accompanied by Julian Peveril, and they were soon walking side by side, as if they had been old acquaintances.

It may have happened to many of our readers, as it has done to ourselves, to be thrown by accident into society with some individual whose claims to what is called a serious character stand considerably higher than our own, and with

whom, therefore, we have conceived ourselves likely to spend our time in a very stiff and constrained manner; while, on the other hand, our destined companion may have apprehended some disgust from the supposed levity and thoughtless gaiety of a disposition so different from his own. Now it has frequently happened, that when we, with that urbanity and good humour which is our principal characteristic, have accommodated ourself to our companion, by throwing as much seriousness into our conversation as our habits will admit, he, on the other hand, moved by our liberal example, hath divested his manners of a part of their austerity; and our conversation has, in consequence, been of that pleasant texture, betwixt the useful and agreeable, which best resembles" the fairy-web of night and day," usually called in prose the twilight. It is probable both parties may, on such occasions, have been the better for their encounter, even if it went no farther than to establish for the time a community of feeling between men, who, separated more perhaps by temper than by principle, are too apt to

charge each other with profane frivolity on the one hand, or fanaticism on the other.

It fared thus in Peveril's walk with Bridgenorth, and in the conversation which he held with him.

Carefully avoiding the subject on which he had already spoken, Master Bridgenorth turned his conversation chiefly on foreign travel, and on the wonders he had seen in distant countries, and which he appeared to have marked with a curious and observant eye. This discourse made the time fly light away; for although the anecdotes and observations thus communicated, were all tinged with the serious and almost gloomy spirit of the narrator, they yet contained traits of interest and of wonder, such as are usually interesting to a youthful ear, and were particularly so to Julian, who had, in his disposition, some cast of the romantic and adventurous.

It appeared that Bridgenorth knew the south of France, and could tell many stories of the French Huguenots, who already began to sustain those vexations which a few years afterwards

were summed up by the revocation of the Edict of Nantz. He had even been in Hungary, for he spoke as from personal knowledge of the character of several of the heads of the great Protestant insurrection, which at this time had taken place under the celebrated Tekeli; and laid down solid reasons why they were entitled to make common cause with the Great Turk, rather than submit to the Pope of Rome. He talked also of Savoy, where those of the reformed religion still suffered a cruel persecution; and he mentioned, with a swelling spirit, the protection which Oliver had afforded to the oppressed Protestant churches; "therein shewing himself," he added, "more fit to wield the supreme power, than those who, claiming it by right of inheritance, use it only for their own vain and voluptuous pursuits."

"I did not expect," said Peveril, modestly, "to have heard Oliver's panegyric from you, Master Bridgenorth.”

"I do not panegyrise him," answered Bridgenorth; “ I speak but truth of that extraordinary man, now being dead, whom, when alive, I fear