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And in this miserable way did they pass eight years, occasionally travelling from place to place, occasionally residing in Paris. Coralie, to dissipate thought, dissipated her own money, over which Jan Dirk had no control, while Mynheer Peereboom, whenever he could find an opportunity, steeped his cares in Schiedam, cognac, and tobacco.

This ill-paired couple were now, for the first time in their lives, in the agreeable city of Aix-la-Chapelle, with a view of the benefit that Jan Dirk Peereboom might derive from the mineral waters; for, from his inebriated habits, his health had commenced visibly to decline: he was about fifteen years older than Coralie. But all the bathing in the emperor's spring, and all the drinking the sulphureous waters of a temperature of about 143° Fahrenheit, proved of no avail to Jan Dirk.

One day as the man and wife were being driven in a carriage east of Aix-la-Chapelle, to the neighbouring little town of Burtschied, Coralie, looking out of the window, beheld a face she well remembered, although she had not seen its owner for years.

The said owner was standing at the door of a mean-looking shop, overhung with one antiquely built story. The wares in the window, though few, did not accord with the appearance of the warehouse, being of superior form and workmanship. Madame Coralie recognized Scheck Stalman; but oh, how altered in appearance! instead of the bustling, well-fed, rich, supercilious cordonnier, who once had all the better part of the ladies of Amsterdam on his books, peered from the portal, as if almost ashamed to breathe fresh air (probably because he had been of late years unaccustomed to it), the prison-discharged criminal, who had been sentenced to live on food without salt, with a pale cadaverous countenance furrowed with the traces of care and suffering. Madame Peereboom could not resist remarking that the indisposition that had reduced her husband still rendered their features as much alike as when he and Stalman were both in robust health. She took an after opportunity to drive over alone to Burtschied, when she entered the little shop, and, to the surprise of Stalman, introduced herself, and gave him an order to supply her with her chaussure. He expressed himself in terms of gratitude at this unexpected visit and employ. From old associations, Madame Coralie Peereboom did Stalman, in his reduced circumstances, other charitable kindnesses.

Jan Dirk Peereboom decayed gradually, and, being of a superstitious turn of mind, added

to his ailments of body, he beckoned Coralie to his bedside, and, in great confidence, communicated to her that he had heard, during the preceding night, continually the deathwatch clicking. The study of entomology at this period being very little attended to, the terror that this noise inflicted upon hypochondriac persons frequently caused the event imagined to be prognosticated. Madame Peereboom could not instil any sort of confidence into her husband by laughing at the affair; and he lay restless and oppressed, listening to the heart-sickening tick of a small beetle, that was, in its own mode of merriment, giving an affectionate call to its female companion.

A few days more passed, and Jan Dirk rapidly declined. He then told Coralie that he had not made any will!

The physician of Aix-la-Chapelle who attended was a perfect stranger to them, and as he had to visit a vast number of equally perfect strangers who resorted to Aix-la-Chapelle when it was too late to render them the slightest professional service, he was quite contented to receive his fees, without being very particular as to further intimacy or any inquiries into affairs.

Madame Peereboom became exceedingly anxious when she heard that Jan Dirk was likely to die intestate; she was aware that she never would have any claim to the "Milkmaid's Annuity," as that must, by the original grant, descend to the next male akin bearing the name of Peereboom; but still, with Jan Dirk's saving habits latterly, there must be a considerable sum in the bank of Amsterdam.. Coralie had no one to advise with her-she was at a distance even from her dancing friends, and while she was reflecting as to how she should act, the Angel of Death suddenly arrested the body and soul of her husband.

After the first shock was over, she resumed her presence of mind. She felt she was utterly ruined to all intents and purposes, as no will had been made in her favour; she racked her theatrical brains, which, by the way, had often assisted the stage inventions of her former husband, to devise a scheme by which she might secure to herself the property of her second. At length she hit upon a notion which she imagined would prove infallible.

Coralie was a woman of adventurous character, and had to contend with difficulty from early youth. The first thing she did was to refrain from giving any alarm in the readyfurnished house in which they resided; it was evening, and she securely locked up the bedchamber door, wherein poor Jan Dirk Peereboom

lay. The next step was to wrap herself up indoor, made him ascend to a spare bed-room, a large silk mantle, secretly to make her way where he got into bed, and, attired in a nightthrough the garden-door unobserved, even by gown and cap of Jan Dirk Peereboom's, his a servant, and to walk hastily to the little own worm-eaten frame made him exactly to town of Burtschied, where she suddenly rapped resemble a man in the last stage of life. There at the door of the humble shop of Scheck Stal- were plenty of empty physic-bottles to place He was utterly surprised at beholding about the room. 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:

man.

"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.

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 Having despatched them both on these Stalman, who, from the effect of the Diet of errands, she admitted Stalman at the garden-Worms, certainly looked the character he re

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51

presented to the life, or rather, we should say, to the death-raised his head from the pillow, and rolled his eyes so horribly, that the very clerks were alarmed; he spoke, with apparent difficulty, "Who are these people?"

Coralie replied, "My dear, did not you express a wish that I should send for a professional gentleman, to receive directions about your property?"

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 reI see it in your face."

cover.

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;
This hearth's our own,

Our hearts are one,

And peace is ours for ever!

When I was poor,

Your father's door

Was closed against your constant lover;
With care and pain

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;
I know a spot,

A silent cot,

Your friends can ne'er discover,
Where gently flows the waveless tide
By one small garden only;
Where the heron waves his wings so wide,
And the linnet sings so lonely!

Sing Gille machrce, &c.

1 Brightener of my heart.

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When Persia's sceptre trembled in a hand
Wilted with harem-heats, and all the land
Was hovered over by those vulture ills
That snuff decaying empire from afar,
Then, with a nature balanced as a star,
Dara arose a shepherd of the hills.

He who had governed fleecy subjects well
Made his own village by the self-same spell
Secure and quiet as a guarded fold;
Then, gathering strength by slow and wise degrees,
Under his sway, to neighbour villages
Order returned, and faith, and justice old.

1 From Under the Wlows and Other Poems. Boston: Loughton & Co.

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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 journalis: 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; Ravenshoe; 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 heir

esses.

The male line was notoriously extinct. Sir John was a shrewd man of business, a little apt to be near, and the very last man in the world to enrich unnecessarily a successor to his house in the shape of a new husband for Lady Hornbury. The world and his wife were easily satisfied; one of the pleasantest houses in London would be closed that season, and of course Lady Hornbury could not go out in the present state of her husband's health.

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 had been staying at a country house, her old submission in the most remarkable way. She Aunt Hornbury's, where there was a large general society, and a style of living under the careless, good-humoured old maid most conducive to mild flirtation, or, what the old lady called it, "the young people being happy tosaid the world that week; but the world was gether.' The old lady, however, drew a pretty astonished out of all propriety when it went into the Park next day to find Sir John-Edith's attention was a little too much ensharp line in these matters, and thinking that faultlessly dressed and as upright as if paralysis and he had never made acquaintance riding his celebrated bay, with his faultlessly appointed groom quite a long way behind him, by no means close to him, as he used to ride

So

when Sir John was likely to have a seizure. The world, in short, was utterly puzzled; the more so when he answered that Lady Hornbury was perfectly well, but had been called suddenly from town on business, and would probably not appear for a considerable time. Sir John was a man who generally did his own

1 From Hornby Mills and Other Stories, by Henry Kingsley. 2 vols. London: Tinsley Brothers.

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gaged by a very handsome young fellow, a Mr. Holmsdale, wrote to her mother quietly, and Edith went very submissively home. Her mother never mentioned the matter to her, and all was perfectly secret, until, some months after, the maid who had been with her at her aunt's tremblingly told her that Miss Edith and handed her a letter, of which the following was corresponding with this Mr. Holmsdale,

were the contents:

"SIR-Once more I request you to cease this utter folly. have unfortunately once told you that you are not indifferent to me, and for that one expression in a moment of

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