tience as you can desire. I practised in Gascony," said I, with a smile.

He made an effort to reflect the smile, but he was evidently occupied in endeavouring to dissipate the embarrassment which, from the commencement of our interview, he had displayed in a greater or less degree, and which now threatened to prevent his articulation.

It was impossible to look at Hartley Aubertin, and to believe him an habitual sufferer from mauvaise honte. He had an air of frank self-complacency which was diametrically opposite to that dis tressing diffidence which, in some pecu, liar instances, casts a shade over the richest mental endowments. I began to prepare myself for a communication of circumstances rather diverging from the beaten track of ordinary occurrences. — All of encouragement I had for Aubertin, had been already proffered. I could say nothing to terminate a mental struggle, of which I could not possibly surmise the cause.

"I was educated at home," he began with his usual abruptness, and now speak. ing with great rapidity, "until I attained my thirteenth year. My father my mother all around me, laboured to impress my mind with a conviction of the pre-eminent importance of that religious system by which every action of their lives was regulated. I was pliant in their hands; whilst with them, I was all they wished. afterwards to Eton.

They sent me Thrown amongst boys of my own age, with the ductility natural, not only to my years, but, I am told, to my disposition also -as my regrets after home disappeared, so did the habits I had acquired there. I became as my compeers not better, not much worse. At the vacation, I recurred easily to my homish feelings and manners ; — 1 had none of the wild vivacity which I exhibited at Eton. I might have had but my circumstances were peculiar ; it was impossible that the constant as

sociate of Camilla Hastings could be boisterous. There!" he continued, breathing a sigh that appeared to afford sensible relief; "I have pronounced the charm under the influence of which I have been fascinated; the open sesame is spoken, and vogue la galére! — Camilla Hastings I shall introduce to you with all possible conciseness.

"She is a ward of my father's-a very few months younger than myself. We learnt the same lessons, enjoyed the same instructions, and shared nearly the same sports. As her talents were gradually developed, her superiority to myself in every rare endowment became apparent beyond controversy or concealment. I was conscious of it, because she encountered all the difficulties of our scholastic labours, and led me smoothly over the ground which she had levelled.. Pride sustained no mortification when there was no exhibition of triumph. Her temper was-is-gentle as the summer

breeze. I even exulted in praises of her, that were more frequently pronounced in my hearing than in her's. Why was I to feel mortification? I knew that she was to be my wife, as soon as our ages permitted; and although I had no very precise conceptions of the relative condition of the wedded parties, I had an indistinct idea of property in her, and valued her brilliance as a woman values that of her diamonds - it belonged to me.

"I cannot commend my own temper to your patronage, Sir William. Camilla and I never quarrelled, but that was the result of her forbearance, not of my selfcommand. She always yielded to my impetuosity, and reasoned only when the stormy gust had passed away.

"Time flew onwards- I was eighteen, believed myself distractedly in love with Camilla, but entertained, nevertheless, a most distant suspicion the shadow of

a shade that she was rather too much

of a saint.

"A term at college was sufficient to disperse all the remaining ideas of overrighteousness, which my Etonian career had spared. I came to spend the first vacation at home. Camilla was herebut oh, how dull was home!-how saintly! how tedious! and Camilla how altered appeared the Camilla of my love!

"No-no-Sir William-the placethe beings Camilla were the same; but I was the altered person! Hitherto, I had viewed her as through the glass of the kaleidoscope, and had seen or imagined beauty and loveliness by a mere deceptio visus. But the glass was broken, and the image of love was gone for ever and ever.

"Is it weakness to be enamoured of that master-piece of nature's works, a beautiful woman? to adore the bright realization of the sweetest visions of the poet? to covet that which embodies ten thousand floating fancies, that have