lay. The next step was to wrap herself up in a large silk mantle, secretly to make her way through the garden-door unobserved, even by a servant, and to walk hastily to the little town of Burtschied, where she suddenly rapped at the door of the humble shop of Scheck Stalman. He was utterly surprised at beholding Madame Coralie, and thought that she had come to rebuke him because he had not finished her blue silk shoes; and yet it was a strange time of night for her to come alone. Coralie then thus addressed Stalman: "You are under some obligations to me?" "Greater than I can ever possibly repay," answered the cordonnier. "You must immediately come with me to Aix-la-Chapelle, and without asking any questions," said Madame. "I am ready," replied Stalman, promptly. And they quitted the house together, and walked on in the dark; during which Coralie told Stalman what had occurred to her husband, that he had died without a will, remarked on the extraordinary resemblance existing between the two persons, and then, rogue as she certainly was, proposed that Stalman should go to bed in the house, personate Jan Dirk Peereboom, and dictate a will in her favour, and that she would so amply reward him, that he would be provided for during the remainder of his existence. There was a plausible reason for supposing that this expedient would succeed, as they were all strangers in the city of Aix-la-Chapelle. The great difficulty to be overcome was to introduce Stalman into the house unseen. Coralie unlocked the garden-gate, and told him to remain concealed in a summer-house until she came to fetch him. She then went in-doors, and going to the room where she had left her fille de chambre at work, said to her suddenly, "How has your master been during my absence?" "VERY QUIET INDEED," said the unconscious girl, who had ofttimes been disturbed by the effects of Jan Dirk's drunkenness. "I do not like that quiet," remarked Coralie, "it bodes no good; go you, my good girl, for the doctor, you know where he lives, and tell him I wish to speak to him immediately." The chamber- maid obeyed her mistress. Madame then sent her other servant, who officiated as her cook, to the poulterer's, to buy the smallest and tenderest chicken she could find, to make some broth. Having despatched them both on these errands, she admitted Stalman at the garden VOL. III. door, made him ascend to a spare bed-room, where he got into bed, and, attired in a nightgown and cap of Jan Dirk Peereboom's, his own worm-eaten frame made him exactly to resemble a man in the last stage of life. There were plenty of empty physic-bottles to place about the room. The cook returned first home, and began busily to prepare the chicken-broth for her poor master; she even shed some honest tears, into the stew-pan, by way of salting it mildly. Then arrived the fille de chambre with the. physician, and this was the moment that required all the dexterous art of Coralie as an actress. She told the doctor that her husband had aroused, and was so far better that she had been induced to remove him to a fresh bed, and was now in a mild slumber, from which she should not like to hazard awaking him, apologized for bringing him out, but handed him his fee, and at the same moment, after sending the fille de chambre out of the room, she in a confidential tone acquainted the physician with that which he before knew, that they were strangers in the city, and that she would be eternally under obligation to him, as her husband had neglected the extremely necessary obligation of every man who had anything to bequeath,-in fact, he had not made his will; if he (the physician) would be good enough to recommend to her an honest attorney. The physician immediately stated that he had a brother, a most respectable person, who followed the law;-and if he had stated that he had also a cousin that was an undertaker, he would not have spoken falsely. They were a profitable sort of family circle amongst themselves, as far as turmoils, tumours, wills, medicine, and coffins went. The physician took his departure, promising to send his brother the lawyer, but ventured to entertain sanguine hopes that the patient might recover, although at the moment he felt perfectly confident that there was a job for his cousin the undertaker. Madame Peereboom was thus far completely successful, but she continued in a state of considerable anxiety until the attorney arrived, attended by two clerks as witnesses; she took them up to the chamber where Stalman was in bed, entreating them to go very gently that her poor husband might not be disturbed; the attorney and the two clerks, led by Coralie, entered the room on tiptoe. "He is awake," said Madame; and addressing Stalman, who, from the effect of the Diet of Worms, certainly looked the character he re51 Stalman sighed, "Ah! we know not how soon calamity may fall on us in this world. I shall not be long in it." The attorney here interposed in a bland tone of voice, saying, "Put reliance in Heaven, sir; never give up hope. I am certain you will recover. I see it in your face." The two clerks winked at each other; and the attorney, notwithstanding that which he had just uttered, lost no time in preparing the necessary document. | signing it was so dreadfully ill that the signature was hardly to be recognized as the handwriting (when compared with the real signmanual of Jan Dirk) of the husband of Madame Coralie Peereboom. The moment the attorney and clerks were gone, Madame flew at Stalman, and overloaded him with reproaches for his roguery and ingratitude; and as she was rating him vehemently, he very calmly advised her to hold her tongue, or her servants would overhear her, and then every stiver would be lost, that the best thing for her to consider was how to get him, unobserved, out of the house again; and then to send for the undertaker to prepare the funeral of her real husband. At last he talked so sensibly to her, getting louder and louder in his tone every minute, that Coralie Peereboom was compelled to own the truth of the proverb which we have thus displayed, that "HALF A LOAF IS BETTER THAN NO BREAD.” "And now, my poor sufferer," said Madame Coralie Peereboom, "to whom will you bequeath-Fraser's Magazine. your property?" The attorney had commenced writing the customary preamble, when Scheck Stalman, having been lifted up by his supposed wifelooked as if every instant he was going to give up the ghost; he then uttered distinctly, but in a faint voice, "To you, my beloved Coralie, I bequeath half of my estate." "Half?" said Coralie, faintly. "Half," repeated Stalman. "The other half of my estate," continued the impostor, "I hereby bequeath to Scheck Stalman, shoemaker of Burtschied, and formerly of Amsterdam." The widow was thunderstruck at being so entrapped, any one might have knocked her down with a straw, the reply was so different from that which she expected; but in the cleft stick in which she had placed herself she did not dare to negative the will of Stalman, for fear of losing the whole of the property; while the cunning old rogue in bed was laughing in his sleeve at the thought of dividing with her the fruits of a project which Madame Peereboom had intended for her own sole benefit (a small annuity excepted for the shoemaker.) There was now no alternative left for her; but it was with great bitterness and mortification that, falling into her own trap, she saw Stalman (his hand shaking very much, and the pen almost guided by the attorney) sign J. D. Peereboom to the will, which was duly attested by the two clerks. The testament was taken away to be registered, and affidavits were made by the clerks, before the proper legal authorities, that the testator at the period of | GILLE MACHREE. Gille machree,1 Sit down by me, We now are joined, and ne'er shall sever; Our hearts are one, And peace is ours for ever! When I was poor, Your father's door Was closed against your constant lover; I tried in vain My fortunes to recover. I said, "To other lands I'll roam, Where Fate may smile on me, love;" I said, "Farewell, my own old home!" And I said, "Farewell to thee, love!" Sing Gille machree, &c. I might have said, My mountain maid, Come live with me, your own true lover; A silent cot, Your friends can ne'er discover, Sing Gille machree, &c. 1 Brightener of my heart. When Persia's sceptre trembled in a hand He who had governed fleecy subjects well 1 From Under the Willows and Other Poems, Boston: Loughton & Co. Now when it fortuned that a king more wise So Dara shepherded a province wide, business as well as his wife's, and it seemed WHY LADY HORNBURY'S BALL WAS very strange that he should be riding about so POSTPONED.1 [Henry Kingsley, born 1830; died at Cuckfield, Sussex, 24th May, 1876. He was a novelist and journal ist of remarkable power. Upon leaving Oxford, in 1853, he proceeded to Australia, where he spent five years. Shortly after his return to England he became for some time editor of the Edinburgh Daily Review. For that journal he acted as war correspondent during eight weeks of the Franco-Prussian war; and, after the famous battle of Sedan, was the first Englishman who entered the town. His chief works are Geoffrey Hamlyn; Ravensho: The Hillyars and the Burtons; Austin Elliot; Mademoiselle Mathilde; Stretton; Hetty (a cheap edition of these is published by Macmillan & Co.); Old Margaret; Hornby Mills, which have been issued by Tinsley Brothers; and The Grange Garden (his last novel). Geoffrey Hamlyn is generally regarded as his most successful book; but there is good workmanship in all he wrote.] COURT JOURNAL, April 12th.-"Lady Hornbury's ball on May 2d is unavoidably postponed." "What is the matter?" said all the world and his wife. On this occasion the world and his wife were very easily satisfied; Sir John must have had another stroke, and Lady Hornbury would soon be the most beautiful widow in England of her age, while her daughter Edith would be one of the greatest heiresses. The male line was notoriously extinct. Sir John was a shrewd man of business, a little So apt to be near, and the very last man in the 1 From Hornby Mills and Other Stories, by Henry Kingsley. 2 vols. London; Tinsley Brothers. coolly in the Park, and Lady Hornbury gone away on business. Mystery was added to mystery when Hunter, of the Dragoons, came on the scene and reported himself returning from the camp at Chalons, where he had been professionally examining the French cavalry: he said that he had met Lady Hornbury at the station at Calais, just getting into the Paris train. Here was a great mystery; Edith Hornbury was at school in Paris, and was to come out at the great ball now postponed. What on earth was the matter? Sir John and Lady Hornbury were, deservedly, nearly the most popular people in London; they were wealthy, clever, kindly, and good-humoured. He was much older than she, but she was absolutely devoted to him, and never left him for an instant in his very numerous illnesses, one of which had resulted in a very dangerous attack of paralysis. There was perfect confidence between them, although Sir John had hitherto left all matters relating to his daughter to the care of his wife, only asking from time to time how the girl was getting on. She was all that could be desired; discreet, beautiful, accomplished, and perfectly obedient in everything, a most model young lady in every respect: early in her life she had shown a will of her own, but it seemed to have been perfectly subdued by her parents' kindness and indulgence. An event which had taken place a year before this had shown her She submission in the most remarkable way. Edith's attention was a little too much en were the contents: "SIR-Once more I request you to cease this utter folly. I have unfortunately once told you that you are not indifferent to me, and for that one expression in a moment of weakness I am to be persecuted to death. You must take your final answer, and further letters from you, sir, will be instantly laid before my father." I "I think that our girl has behaved very well indeed," said Sir John, when his wife showed him the letter. "Deuced well. wish my sister would keep her house in better order. The girl shan't go there again. I think we are very well out of it; give me the letter." of scene; give her a year's school somewhere. Send her to Comtesse d'Aurilliac, at Paris; she can't come to any harm with that old dragon." "My daughter will come to no harm any. where," said Lady Hornbury, proudly. "That I am quite sure of, my dear. But the society at the old lady's pension is very agreeable, none but the very best legitimist girls, and no followers allowed." "I would not be vulgar, Sir John, if I were in your place," said the lady; "will you ever "What are you going to do with it?" "Send it to him addressed in my hand-forget the barracks?" writing, with my name signed in the corner. I shall send it under cover to my sister; her butler knows his address. Who is this Holmsdale?" "I don't know; the villain!" exclaimed Lady Hornbury. "We don't know that he is a villain, my dear," said Sir John; "he must be a gentleman, or my sister would never have had him to her house." "A clandestine correspondence!" said Lady Hornbury, bridling. "My dear, did we have no clandestine correspondence when I was a younger brother, and a dragoon, with five hundred a year, and you a fine lady, with Lord Bumpster at your heels everywhere? Did not you tell me once that if your mother pressed on the match with him that you would run away with me on five hundred a year and your own fortune, and trust to my poor brother Tom to get us something? And you would have done it, my lady, "You were very nearly knowing a good deal about them yourself, my lady, that night when you proposed to run away with me." Lady Hornbury swept out of the room majestically and left Sir John laughing. There was very little conversation between mother and daughter, for Edith found in a day or two, by an answer which came from Holmsdale, that her father and mother knew everything. She was completely impassive in their hands; but apparently the Holmsdale wound had gone a little deeper than her mother had thought for. Edith spoke very little, and seemed cheerful at the thought of going to Paris. In a week she was with the Comtesse d'Aurilliac. Every letter from the comtesse breathed delighted admiration for her charming and beautiful pupil. Since madame had been forced by the lamentable occurrences of the Revolution (her two aunts perished in the September massacres) to take pupils, she had never had such a pupil as Edith. She was the admiration of every one who had seen her, and the brightest star in her little legitimist galaxy: everything went perfectly well for three months, and Sir John and Lady Hornbury were delighted. About this time there came to Sir John and "Why, we owe her much," said Lady Horn- Lady Hornbury a lumbering young nobleman bury. "I tell you that no right-thinking young woman would have betrayed a kind and gentle young mistress like Edith in a love affair," said the atrocious dragoon, Sir John. "What would you have said to your own maid in old times if she had done it to you?" The argumentum ad hominem was a little too much for honest Lady Hornbury, and she had to laugh again. "But," she added, "if we send her away she will talk about the matter all over the town and country." "Well, then, double her wages and let her stay," said Sir John; "but don't let me see Ler. And as for Edith, let her have change of vast wealth, who was in some sort a connection of theirs; so near that they called him cousin. He called one morning to say that he was going to Paris, and to burden himself with any commissions to Edith. "I should like to see my old playmate very much," he said. "I was a lover of hers when we were in the schoolroom; I should like very much to see her once more, though I suppose she is getting too fine for me." There was not the slightest objection to his seeing as much of his cousin as he chose, and Lady Hornbury wrote a note in her best French (Madame d'Aurilliac did not speak English, nor did Lord Lumberton speak French), whereby |