"And

"A popular fallacy!" rejoined Edgar. you forget, my dear uncle, that this great kingdom, as you call it, is not the great kingdom of your youth.-By the aid of steam, the Gods have annihilated both time and space; so that Nat Lee's bombast has become converted into common sense. But they have annihilated, by the same agency, half the pleasures of our forefathers. Fox-hunting, pheasant-shooting, travelling post, are ruined by railroads; and the Anglo-Saxons are humiliated into recognition of the littleness of their great kingdom,' by being able to breakfast at Brighton and dine at Edinburgh. Several projected railways, I have been assured, were abandoned, because, owing to insular limitation, there was much danger of the express trains precipitating themselves, like the Gadarene swine, into the sea."

Sir John was about to attempt a rounded period or two, about moral grandeur and con

comitant colonial extension. But he stopped short. Perhaps he considered his presumptuous nephew unworthy of his eloquence.-Perhaps because he was already bottling it up for his maiden speech.

"I have even heard speculative people assert," added young Molyneux, assuming a graver face, "that it would have been far more advantageous for the descendants of George III., had that obstinate monarch, instead of goading America into rebellion, embraced its interests, cut the English concern, embarked his court and family in an ark built at Blackwall; and established the seat of government on that mighty continent, whose mines were yet unexhausted and whose fields still fertile ; - leaving peevish thievish little Britain to subside into a colony.Who knows?-His Majesty might have created, perhaps, penal establishments in Lincolnshire, and transported his transatlantic felons to Ireland or Wales. Think of the monster nation, into which by this time, we should have, progressed."

:

Luckily for Edgar Molyneux,-if as desirous as he expressed himself to retain a friendly footing at Harrals,-luncheon was at that moment announced that pleasant meal, without which the day of the English country-house would, like the needless Alexandrine or the wounded snake," drag its slow length along;" tedious as the speeches of more than one M.P., or the visitation sermons of D.D.s without limitation.

CHAPTER VII.

SIR JOHN WRAYSBURY had already made such progress in paternal strategy, as to understand the fatal charm of prohibition.-Instead, therefore, of denouncing his nephew as an intolerable puppy, and expressing to Netta an intention of excluding him from his house, he spoke of him, when they were chatting together the following day, as "a rattling young fellow, who would probably grow more steady in time."

"In time to marry dear little Nonny, perhaps?" replied Netta, busily plying her crochet needle. Eight years' experience of the world should be able to mature even him."

VOL. II.

L

Sir John was not a little edified to find his daughter thus inferentially settle eighteen,―her own present age, as the exact moment for

marrying. He contented himself, however, with

inquiring what was the subject of her argument with her cousin, apparently a very discordant one, during their stroll in the garden.

"Discordant indeed, papa ;—almost a quarrel! Edgar chose to maintain that my cousin Olave is not, has never been, and never will be a gentleman. Mr. Harpsden, it seems, after bringing up his son as a gown-boy at Eton and sizar at college, has made an usher of him at some grammar-school, with a view to becoming head-master hereafter."

"A very suitable education and prospect for the son of Mr. Harpsden," said her father, drily.

"Then why do people say, papa, (which Edgar admits to be the case,) that he has done all this only to annoy and mortify our family?" "Who told you that they said so?"—

"Lord Dinton, during your illness at Nor