teeth, lost one of hers in the fray, and was brought as girlish poltroonery, or almost meanness; and he bleeding into the drawing-room, followed by a even charged her with hypocrisy in her attachment maid dragging in the sturdy culprit, accompanied to an aunt who had not been too kind, and to cousby the weeping Fanny. One might have excused ins not too gentle. But Tom durst not persist in a mother for being at first alarmed and offended, an accusation to which his heart gave the lie as though the criminal was almost an infant; but strongly as did Fanny's silent tears. what came out, in the course of investigation, ought to have produced a more impartial judgment and a mitigated punishment.

But Harriet's tooth was gone, and it had been followed by a few drops of blood and torrents of vengeful tears; and she protested that she did not mean to keep the Frau Jansen-the Dutchwoman, the unlucky Helen of this new Trojan war-but only for a day or so, to look at her. Tom was summarily adjudged to solitary confinement in the housemaid's broom-closet, on the attic floor, and was led off, persisting in dogged silence, while Fanny sobbed as if her little heart would burst. From that hour, open hostilities were proclaimed between Tom and the family, which never again ceased for many years, save during some temporary, and always hollow truce.

When I left the ladies in the drawing-room after dinner, on the day of Tom's punishment, I sought the children in the wilderness, where they generally went, with their attendant, at this sultry hour: but no Fanny was there.

Tom had been early sent off to school with his cousin Henry; and when the returning holydays brought the boys to the Rectory, the Allahbad Bethels, in again meeting each other, were almost as happy as the children gathered beneath the wing of their mother. Then came a full interchange of hearts and confidence, as with intertwined arms the orphans wandered away together through the woods and dells of Bethel's court, which converged on the narrow grounds of the Rectory. Tom was more and more astonished, and almost angry, in every succeeding year, while he was below fifteen, that Fanny had so little or rather nothing to complain of-no quarrel that he could adopt-no enemy on which his prowess might revenge her.

In all this time, I had never seen Fanny Bethel nor her brother, though I had occasionally corresponded with both. Indeed, I believe that I was for some years Fanny's only correspondent; and, as my epistles always accompanied my sister's well-executed town commissions, and presents of toys and books for the Rectory children, they were probably tolerated, if not welcome.

But a more critical age was arriving, and Providence was silently opening up new resources to the orphan girl.

"She is naughty, too," said her little namesake, tossing her head with the air of a small wo- For the first six years after I had seen her, man and a thorough family partisan. I followed Fanny partook of the instructions of the govup the adventure by seeking out my little friend. erness Mrs. Bethel had engaged for her own She was sitting on the garret stairs, at the door daughters; and, blessed with a humble, loving of Tom's prison, whispering to him through the nature, meekness and submissiveness cost her less key-hole. The sight of a sympathizing friend- effort than any other creature I ever knew-and for nature had already told her that I was one-I believe that her childhood was not unhappy. made Fanny's tears flow afresh, and she began to sob out her little apology, as senseless, perhaps, as the reiterated wail of a lapwing, but as plaintive" Poor Tom is so young, poor little fellow," "The sisters of Mr. Whitstone, the rector of &c. &c. I played the discreet part for once, and Stockham-Magna, had, some years after the arriled her to her aunt. Tom was released, on our val of the Allahbad Bethels, settled in the neighjoint pleading-an amnesty was proclaimed-and boring town of Wincham, to be near their brother, Frau Jansen, like one of the wantonly-sacrificed who, though his nominal residence was the Recminor powers at a general pacification, was made tory, oftener lived with them. These respectable a bonfire of. old maiden ladies, the daughters of a deceased We left the Rectory next morning, Fanny weep-clergyman, were, of course, as near in degree of ing abundantly to part with us, while Tom would have been well contented to return to London, which he proposed to do, had his sister not been condemned to remain behind him. I have seldom seen my sister Anne more affected, than when we fairly got out of sight, and when she first gave unrestrained way to her feelings-a tender mother's foreboding feelings for orphan children!

That dear little Fanny!-how perilous to a creature situated like her, were those gifts which nature had so lavishly bestowed-that tenderness and quick sensibility to which the contact of the cold and the selfish must bring either blighting or perversion!

kindred to Mrs. Dr. Bethel as was their brother, though she never seemed to know this. The younger, Miss Rebecca Whitstone-though younger was here but a relative term, for she was almost fifty-was merely a good, plain, useful, and active person, sincerely devoted to her brother and her eldest sister, Miss Hannah, who had obtained over her the influence which a strong mind is said to hold over a feeble one within its range. The latter lady had been an invalid from a very early age, in consequence of a fall from horseback; and, to afford occupation and exercise to an uncommonly active intellect, she had afterwards received from her father what is termed a learned education, which, however, had none of the effects that learning is said to produce upon female minds. She did read the classics in the originals

Turbulent and rebellious as Master Tom continued to be-a care and often a grief to his sister-I believe he was her greatest blessing too; for, with all his faults, he sincerely loved her, and he was for that was her solace as she lay the livelong one being on whom her affectionate feelings could day upon the couch to which her helpless lameexpand themselves unchecked. No one, I believe, ness confined her; and she studied the sciences; brings into this world a heart like Fanny's, with- and in astronomy, in particular, was believed, out finding something to love, even in the very even by her brother's old college companions, to worst circumstances: but Fanny found so much to have made astonishing progress; and not "for a love in every one with whom she came in contact, woman :"-that mortifying qualification was, in until Tom, as he grew up, began to despise the her case, withheld. Simply, she had made asaffection she bore to many persons whom he hated,|tonishing progress and even discoveries, in sci

ence. With all this deep learning, and a taste for refined literature, Miss Whitstone was a woman of magnanimous feelings and high principles; pleasant, kind, and social in her manners: tinctured with high-souled romance, and yet not above her surrounding world of Wincham. She also possessed a flexible vein of humor, which had made her conversation exceedingly captivating to young and old, before her acquirements had risen in judgment against her; and Miss Whitstone's invalid chamber came in time to be, after a certain hour of the morning, the leveeroom of the privileged talent and modest worth of Wincham. It was the rallying point of its best, if not its finest society; though, this being a small town where no one was liable to be compromised, the very finest-yea, even stray specimens of the "county people" were among Miss Whitstone's occasional visitors. It was even said that matches had been, if not made, yet certainly helped on, around her invalid chair; though the parties were not of such consideration as to make Mrs. Dr. Bethel desirous (now that Harriet was twenty, and her own Fanny seventeen) that her daughters should often appear among the learned lady's bonny blue belles.

and thus an opportunity might be lost such as was never likely to recur-for when would so masterly an artist again appear in Wincham? Besides, Fanny had a decided genius for painting. Miss Whitstone had, indeed, a knack of discovering natural genius for everything high and amiable in Fanny. Her first delightful discovery had been Fanny's exceeding genius for loving, and especially for loving her brother Tom; while to Fanny, Miss Whitstone's earliest, and still dearest charm, was discovering good qualities in "Poor Tom," even in his perverse early boyhood; which no one else would allow. "Give a dog an ill name and hang him," says the proverb; and the converse holds as strongly. Miss Whitstone was ever anxious to find out, and place in the proper light, young Bethel's good qualities; and they germinated and expanded in the warmth of her generous culture and encouragement, while others could only perceive the ill weeds waxing apace. Fanny, who had, for several years, been her amanuensis, never performed that duty with more good will, than when Miss Whitstone wrote to Eton to Tom, sending him those affectionate counsels which his respect for her made effectual for the moment, and which, in tenderness, only a mother could have exceeded; and those directions for his subordinate studies which few mothers have the power of giving, and not many fathers.

If there be such a thing as sympathetic attachment-and I am sure there are spontaneous feelings which are quite equivalent to it-such had grown up between the invalid Miss Whitstone From the time that he had, at three years' old, and the orphan Fanny. The rector himself came, traversed so much of the wide ocean, Tom's dein time, to partake of an affection so warmly felt cided vocation had been the sea. This would by his favorite sister; and the notable Miss Re-seem almost an instinct with some boys, as if imbecca, moved by these considerations, and the gentleness and good looks of the child, early and kindly began, characteristically, to attend to little omissions and flaws in gloves and ribbons, and shoes and stockings, which a mother's eye prevented from appearing in her cousins. During a year that those young ladies were sent to a firstrate finishing seminary near London, Fanny, who had often spent happy days, weeks, and months, with the poor Miss Whitstones, lived with them altogether, to enjoy the advantage of such masters as chance and the London holydays relieved, by changing the scene of their professional fagging, from a very great town to a very small one.

planted by nature to facilitate the intercourse and promote the civilization and happiness of mankind; and Tom Bethel was of the predestined salt-water number. But this uncle, who had never yet seen him, had decided that Tom, the would-be sailor, should be Thomas the forced divine; and the boy had no choice save submission or running away to sea, which he would willingly have done at every school vacation, save for Fanny's sake; but, as Tom advanced nearer the years of discretion, he began to think better of a mode of life which, as soon as he got through the university, and one of the family livings fell vacant, opened a home to that gentle sister. He would even have submitted to the death of Mr. Whitstone as soon as he had obtained orders himself, and have felt no remorse at depriving his aunt of her alleged simoniacal share of the great tithes; because he squared this want of affection to his own conscience, by arranging that Miss Whitstone and Miss Rebecca could then live with Fanny and himself at the Rectory, like gentlewomen; and give up letting first-floors to itinerant painters and drawing-masters. Tom, as a male branch of the house of Bethel, though one of the barest, had not been for seven years at a public school, without acquiring ideas of family consequence and of style quite beyond those of his sister; though, on some points, they were qualified by generous exceptions for plebeian friends.

One of these was a drawing-master whom I had introduced by letter to the Miss Whitstones. It was certainly a misfortune-but, in this locality, no ineradicable blot-that the rector's sisters, for a certain part of the year, let their first floor to such respectable lodgers, as being single men-and certainly gentlemen-were well recommended to them. Mr. Edmund, the gentleman I had recommended, was a painter, and a gifted one, as was proved by the beautiful contents of his portfolio, and a few finished cabinet specimens which he carried down; but he seemed to receive little or no encouragement in Wincham to open classes for teaching his art; and he spent his time, either in reading or rambling about the surrounding country, of which one of the most attractive spots, to an artist, was the beautiful park of Bethel's court. Miss Rebecca was concerned that a lodger so reg-Wincham as a portrait-painter without sitters, and ular in all his habits, so gentlemanlike in his manners, so nice in his linen, and so punctual with his bills, should find no pupils; and Miss Whitstone, stretched upon her invalid couch, was doubly vexed, first, because it must be annoying to a man whose business is to teach drawing, to have no one to teach; and secondly, that she could not afford to engage his services wholly for Fanny,

In the first season of Mr. Edmund appearing at

a drawing-master without pupils, he had been tolerated by the lively Eton lad, in consideration of Miss Whitstone's esteem, what Tom reckoned his unobtrusive modesty, and the quiet refinement of his manners; but, in the second summer, when Tom found him almost domesticated in the family parlor, and the companion of Fanny in sketchingpractice excursions round the country, the young

gentlemen-and he was not quite sixteen-took an her graceful pliant figure overtopped all the feaffair in dudgeon, which had already been seriously males of her family, was beyond comparison a discussed in Miss Collins the milliner's back-shop, lovelier, and far more loveable girl, than either the by her best customers, and at more than one teatable of the town. Now, in Wincham, Allahbad Fanny was a general and a great favorite; which was the more remarkable, as she had never courted popularity, and was in no condition either to grace with her favor, or patronize by her interest. Howsoever it may fare with other country towns, I can assure my readers that a young lady who enjoyed the united suffrages of Wincham, was in circumstances as rare as enviable. And even now there was censure; but Miss Whitstone, with her learning and her odd ways, was more blamed than Fanny Bethel, for those rural outbreaks which were held a gross and daring innovation on all the ruled proprieties of this community. That the curate's orphan daughter, Patty, whom her aunt, Miss Collins, was educating for a governess, shared in Fanny's lessons, and generally in her sketching excursions, was a shallow blind, at which they and Tom Bethel laughed outright, the latter angrily.

cold, stately, fashionable-looking Harriet, or the vivacious, pretty, petulant Fan, he was most reluctant to doubt; but then, schoolboys imagining themselves youths, and college-lads fancying themselves men, had admired the thorough-bred air and style of the Rectory Bethels, at a music meeting, and had altogether passed over Allahbad Fanny, who had been left to the attentions of Mr. Edmund her drawing-master, and a little good-natured notice from her cousin Henry, who had always been kind to her. Now, the above were immutable authorities with Tom in all questions of taste. It is true, Henry Bethel, who was also becoming a judge of ladies, wines, and horses, and who, moreover, was now of Christ Church, made some atonement, by declaring, after a couple of bottles of wine, that, though his sister Harriet was certainly a showy, dashing girl, and Frances a pretty creature enough, neither were to be compared in a summer's day with little Allahbad Fanny; and he concluded by wishing that he were a rich man As for Miss Whitstone sanctioning this kind of for her sake-though his mother must not hear of intercourse-learned, clever, and excellent woman, this. Tom, both gratified and resentful, was comas she undoubtedly was-how, as Tom justly pelled to gulp as much of this declaration as his thought, was any provincial elderly lady, such as pride could not swallow; and now he fancied he she, to know the world and mankind like an Eton had found a cue to Mrs. Dr. Bethel giving up so scholar? As the natural protector of his sister, it much of her niece's society to " poor cousin Whitwas become Tom's duty to interfere, and to assume stone, to whom little Fanny was always such a a part which female guardians and friends had so comfort." It is probable that Mrs. Bethel had not obviously neglected. No time was to be lost. very overwhelming fears of immediate danger But how was Tom to scold Fanny-that dear, from a constant domestic intercourse between her kind, generous, and most disinterested creature, niece and her son-still, it was prudent to be whom every one loved-yes! even worldly Aunt guarded. Her daughters were now to be introBethel-who, from infancy had had no hope, no duced into life; and she felt that two marriageable joy, no being save in him? No! Tom could not young ladies were quite enough at a time in one scold, nor even remonstrate; but he heartily family. Two young ladies might be admissible abused both the Mesdames Bethel, who so im- into small social parties, where three could not be properly deserted their duty to their orphan niece; thought of. Besides, Mrs. Bethel was prudently and then playfully, or at least in a way Tom doubtful, how far it was proper to give Fanny a meant to be playful, he rallied Fanny first upon taste for gaieties and a condition of life that she her intimacy with all the vulgar spinsters and had so slender a chance of permanently enjoying. dowagers of Wincham, and next upon her new Of her personal attractions she really was not passion for sketching from nature. Fanny's blushes and evident distress stopped the current of Tom's wit, and quickened his fears; and now he reminded her, still with affected pleasantry, (for Tom was very sly,) of her birth as a Bethel, beggar Bethel as, in the mean while, she was; and of the matrimonial distinctions her eminent personal advantages and family connexions entitled her to look for, were she only placed where she ought to be, and thus seen, admired, and courted by the noble, the wealthy, and the honorable. Fanny laughed now, and Tom was displeased. There was implied ridicule of his judgment and knowledge of life, in the tone of her laughter; and these were points on which Tom was at this time very susceptible; yet he would have forgiven this in consideration of her secluded education, and innate modesty and humility of character, save for the many cross accidents that were arising to mar her splendid fortunes. Her cousins had lately returned from their finishing school, and lengthened visits to fashionable friends and relatives; with much of that hightoned air, that manner and style, so captivating to Tom and his brother Etonians; and in which Fanny, retiring, shy, sensitive, was still so lamentably deficient. That his own sister, "Little Fanny," as she continued to be named, long after

afraid. A mother's vanity had probably blinded her to what to every one else appeared her main reason for rarely producing her niece along with her daughters. The master of the Free Grammar School of Wincham, a protegé of Miss Whitstone's and an estimable young man, who had lately obtained the Lectureship of St. Nicolas, was understood to admire Fanny, and only to wait for some better piece of preferment to make his proposal in form; and Mr. Edmund, the artist, also a highly respectable young man, with remarkable talents, and one, who, if properly introduced and pushed in London in the portrait line, could not fail to realize a handsome income, and probably to keep a carriage, was believed to be deeply attached to his pupil; though Fanny herself, when questioned, denied the possibility of this attachment, even with tears. Mr. Edmund, she said, though at first he seemed to like her society, probably for the sake of Miss Whitstone's conversation, and from the love of his art, to which Fanny was for the time enthusiastically devoted, had been silent, distant, and almost studiously cold in his manners to her, particularly of late. He could have no thoughts of her.

"Well, child, there is no use crying about it, at any rate," said the aunt; "but, as I do not, on such grounds, give up my own opinion, I shall

am sure you understand quite well what I mean." "Indeed, I think I do-but cannot be sure. But here comes Tom, who may help me. Do you know that all the gossips of Wincham are obligingly giving vour sister Mr. Edmund as a lover, Tom?" "And that she disclaims him as such, and the honor altogether," cried Tom, petulantly.

write to-night to Mr. Richard Taylor, inquiring Fanny wept from vexation. "Dear ma'am, I farther about the gentleman." Fanny, horrified by the indelicacy of this proceeding, implored her aunt's forbearance, and protested again and again that Mr. Edmund's attentions to herself had been only those of a friend and amiable instructor, to one whom he considered merely as a child; but she betrayed so much emotion in her denial, that Mrs. Bethel, with one of her discomforting, keen, worldly, penetrating looks, abruptly turned from her, and went to Miss Whitstone in the next room, whom she bluntly taxed with having suffered Fanny to entangle her affections with this "paragon painter." The accused lady as flatly disclaimed the instrumentality as Fanny herself could have done the deed; but she acknowledged that, if old signs held, Mr. Edmund, into whose praise she launched with animation, did seem, and that, indeed, for successive years he had seemed, to feel a very deep interest in her young friend; and, moreover, that Fanny did not appear indifferent to his opinion of her.

"I do!-I do!" exclaimed Fanny. "Mr. Edmund think of me! Good heavens !-With his fine talents and genius, and thousand, thousand amiable qualities, to think of poor little me!foolish me, who always feel like a child beside him, and who was never so happy as when, long ago, he treated me as one!"

"Confound your humility, Miss Fanny Bethel!" cried the Etonian. "It is somewhat out of place." "How was it possible that Fanny could believe any man could admire so disagreeable and plain a little girl as herself?" said Miss Whitstone, laughing. "Yet, even in the case of Mr. Edmund, it is, in my humble judgment, a conquest she may very well be proud of, yet without doubting its absolute possibility."

Mrs. Dr. Bethel did not lose a post in inquiring into the character and professional prospects of Mr. Edmund; and I did not keep her an hour in "Proud, ma'am !" returned the fuming Etosuspense. The character of the gentleman was nian, only restrained from the violent expression everything that could render a reasonable and of anger by his deep respect for Miss Whitstone. amiable woman—and, above all, one of the quiet, "Give me leave to say, ma'am, that, though any affectionate, and humble character of little Fanny man-ay, any man in all England-might be Bethel-perfectly happy. His talents, as an art- proud of gaining the affections of Captain Bethel's ist, spoke for themselves-they were eminent-daughter-of my sister Fanny, ma'am-I see no but his professional prospects depended entirely occasion for her being overpowered with gratitude upon his own industry and perseverance. The for the attentions of any gentleman whatever, even answer was perfectly satisfactory to Mrs. Bethel; although his birth and station in society entitled and she resolved to have an explanatory commun- him to address her." ing with Mr. Edmund next day; and wrote to him that, if everything was as she imagined, she would not hesitate to give her sanction to his addresses to her niece, which she had no doubt would be followed by that of the family abroad.

Poor Fanny had never in her life felt so selfabased as by this attempt to exalt her; and, almost inarticulately, she implored her brother to say no more on the subject, and gave way to another burst of tears; while Miss Whitstone, frankly Poor Fanny was in an agony of distress. She extending her hand in amity to Tom, declared would at the moment, have gladly consented never that they had come exactly to the same conclusion, to see Mr. Edmund again in this world; never though from different premises-"There was, inlisten to his delightful conversation with Miss deed, no man in England, whatever his rank or Whitstone; never again enjoy one of their social fortune, who might not be proud of gaining the reading evenings, or one of those charming sketch- heart of little Fanny-by her own self, Fanny." ing rambles, in which his conversation was, if pos- Upon this, Tom kissed his sister, and playfully sible, still more captivating than at other times-adopting the language of their childhood, promised though it was not easy to recall much of it—rather to be "a good boy, if Fanny would not cry no than that he should imagine her the indelicate, more.' forward, unwomanly, vain girl, who had so grossly misconstrued and misrepresented his attentions, that he must now be subjected to the coarse questioning of her relatives.

There was thus the appearance of sunshine after showers, when Fortune, who delights in games of cross purposes, sent Mr. Edmund himself into the apartment, which he entered in some This was certainly the most wretched day of haste. Tom was still hanging over Fanny's Fanny Bethel's whole life. Twenty times she be-chair, and Fanny had been in tears. The painter gan to write to Mr. Edmund, protesting her own looked with interest to the brother and sister, and innocence, and her horror at the course her aunt with meaning to Miss Whitstone, as if he required had followed; but natural timidity, and the same her permission to remain. She invited him to sit delicacy of feeling which prompted this bold step, down; and Tom, with a sudden assumption of prevented its execution. She applied to Miss the dignity becoming the presumptive heir of the Whitstone, who was also become uneasy and per-mortgaged acres of Bethel's Court, drew his sister's plexed between her young friends, though, upon arm within his own, and, bowing slightly to Miss the whole, pleased with the prospect of an expla- Whitstone, said, "I require Miss Bethel's presnation, which, she was assured, would produce ence in another apartment, ma'am." The lady satisfactory results. smiled in mingled pity and amusement; but anxiety for Fanny was predominant over every other feeling, and she was glad when Mr. Edmund very naturally led to the subject, by remarking, with a smile, "Tom Bethel is in his altitudes to-nightbut I am sure he loves his sister."

"But, my dear Fanny," said this lady, with a certain air of benevolent humor-"let me exactly understand what I am to say to Mr. Edmund :That you are not in love with him?-but that might have been left to my own discretion. Or is it that you do not believe-never did believe-nor ever will believe, that he is in love with you?"

"More than his life-I'll say that for him," returned Miss Whitstone: and a conversation was

begun which Fanny fancied would never end, and | married, and if Tom obtained one of the family during which Tom returned to his present head- livings, there might be a pis aller for her youngest quarters at the Rectory. When Fanny, after Mr. daughter. But, at present, she had a first duty to Edmund had withdrawn, ran in to say good-night perform, and, snatching a pen, she instantly wrote to her friend, and, perhaps, to hear all she could her full consent and approbation of Mr. Edmund's hear without the direct inquiry she could not addresses to her niece, with many well-turned venture to make, Miss Whitstone informed her compliments to himself, and phrases of maternal that Mr. Edmund was suddenly called away, and endearment in relation to Fanny. Miss Whitstone, had left his farewell compliments for her, as he having twice hinted, "Are you not precipitate, was to set off by the mail at midnight. Poor cousin, with the death of Mrs. Bethel so récent ?" Fanny Miss Whitstone was too generous to looked silently on, until the letter was folded, look at, much less to speak to her. She sent her when she obtained an answer. Not a bit too away to search for a book; and Fanny returned precipitate, cousin. The sooner little Fanny is in ten minutes, protesting that she was so thankful settled the better. The small-the very small Mr. Edmund was to go, as this would disconcert allowance her uncle has hitherto made me for her, the horrid scheme of her Aunt Bethel. must stop with the death of his wife; and this Mr. Edmund says, he must have three or four months to look out for a proper house, and so forth :-even if he be so far fortunate as to obtain the consent of my niece-of which, by the way, I dare say, he fancies himself tolerably certainand the approbation of her relations-of which I now give him joyful assurance.”

Next morning, rather earlier than her usual hour, Fanny appeared at the bedside of her friend, looking pale, perhaps, though she seemed almost in flighty spirits, while she craved leave of absence for a morning's ramble in the woods of Bethel's Court, with only Patty Collins.

Before this plan-to which Miss Whitstone consented, with silent, meaning caresses, that drew grateful tears from her favorite-could be put in execution, Mrs. Bethel's carriage drove up to the door, with the whole family of the Rectory. Letters had been received that morning, announcing the death of Mrs. Bethel at Aix-la-Chapelle, an event which changed the whole prospects of the family, to whom her large independent fortune was thus completely lost. And Mr. Bethel might marry again, and Tom and Henry thus be thrown back in the succession to even those poor remnants of the original property, which, meanwhile how ever, Mrs. Dr. Bethel had a shrewd notion were burdened beyond their yearly revenue.

While despatching notes, receiving condolences, and looking over silks and muslins, crapes and bombazeens, and giving orders for mourning, Mrs. Bethel could yet find time to notice, sarcastically, the precipitate retreat of Mr. Edmund, to whom she had intimated her wish for an interview and explanatory conversation at the Rectory.

"I cannot allow myself to believe that it is indifference to the subject of the intended conversation, which has made Mr. Edmund avoid you at this time, cousin; or anything but the simple reason he has assigned-business. But I may refer to his note for your better information." Miss Whitstone handed the sealed letter, intrusted to her, to the lady to whom it was addressed, and who tore it open without farther ceremony, and rapidly skimmed the contents.

"And, in so doing, you make him a happy man, I am persuaded. But there is Tom Bethel to be consulted next-whose ideas of Fanny's deserts are so high and so just.'

"Tom Bethel!-a headstrong, foolish boy! No, cousin, we may make Tom a bridesman ; but to consult him about his sister's marriage, is entirely out of the question. But here comes Miss Collins. Now, I fancy something very slight and plain may do for Fanny's mourning, as she is so quiet at present with you; and we must save all we can, you know, for the trousseau."

Miss Whitstone allowed the lady to have it all her own way; though Tom, in a rage at afterwards finding his sister's mourning for their aunt, scanty, and much inferior in quality to that of his dashing cousins, remonstrated loudly upon that injustice-threw Fanny into a paroxysm of grief by his violence in her cause-and filled the ladies of the Rectory with such indignation that they upbraided him with ingratitude. This Tom denied; accusing Mrs. Bethel, in turn, of having made a job of his sister, for whom she had a handsome allowance, and a slave of her for so many years. The polite, politic Mrs. Bethel had never met with anything so provoking in her whole life as this schoolboy affair. It became the talk of all Wincham; and Tom found numerous partisans, who seized the present opportunity of reviving the old story of Mrs. Dr. Bethel's secret bargain for the lion's share of the great tithes of StockhamMagna. The controversy even went the length of mysterious paragraphs in the Wincham Journal; and was only ended by Tom becoming convinced, that, if it were carried farther, the affair would be Fanny's death. She was, indeed, looking so wretchedly ill, three months after the remains of her aunt had been brought home to be laid in the family vault, that, when Tom next came from school on a visit, he flew to Miss Whitstone's room, in the deepest distress, to inquire if his sister was not in a consumption. Miss Whitstone hoped not. Fanny had not been well. She was in unequal spirits, and thinner, and paler; but

"Well, this is very proper now; and quite well expressed. He does propose for Fanny, or means to do so, as soon as he obtains the consent of her natural guardians. I can answer for Mr. Betheland as to myself.—Well, I ́am pleased at having brought the man to the point. This late heavy loss makes Fanny's marriage, in almost any respectable way, more than ever desirable. Her uncle will now have more than enough to do with himself. My own children are just at the age when the expenses of a family come to be seriously felt. How Tom's clerical education is now to be carried through, I cannot foresee. Perhaps your brother may get him to the university as a sizar-without any decided ailment. though the sea, to which he seems born, and for which he has so strong an inclination, might be better still."

There was but one reason against oversetting Tom's present views. If Fanny were once fairly

"She is pining for that fellow, Edmund," Tom cried, with a glowing face; "to whom her kind Aunt Bethel, would have given her with so little ceremony; and who does not seem in a hurry to claim the hand he once pretended to value so