against the night air-hoped she should escape cold, and wished a most cordial good-night, with a promise of seeing her early the following day.

Notwithstanding Power's ambition to engross the attention of the lady, Sir George himself saw her to her carriage, and only returned to the room as a group was collected around the gallant Captain, to whom he was relating some capital traits of his late conquest; for such he dreamed she was.

"Doubt it who will," said he, "she has invited me to call on her to-morrow written her address on my card told me the hour when she is certain of being alone. See here!" At these words he pulled forth the card, and handed it to Lechmere.

Scarcely were the eyes of the other thrown upon the writing, when he said; "So, this isn't it, Power."

"To be sure it is, man," said Power; "Anne street is devilish seedy; but that's the quarter."

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Why, confound it, man," said the other, "there's not a word of that here."

"Read it out," said Power, "proclaim aloud my victory." Thus urged, Lechmere read:

"DEAR P., - Please pay to my credit, and soon, mark

ye,

the

two ponies lost this evening. I have done myself the pleasure of enjoying your ball, kissed the lady, quizzed the papa, and walked into the cunning Fred Power.

"Yours,

"FRANK WEBBER.

"The Widow Malone, ohone, is at your service."

Had a thunderbolt fallen at his feet, his astonishment could not have equaled the result of this revelation. He stamped, swore, raved, laughed, and almost went deranged. The joke was soon spread through the room, and from Sir George to poor Lucy, now covered with blushes at her part in the transaction, all was laughter and astonishment.

"Who is he? that is the question," said Sir George, who, with all the ridicule of the affair hanging over him, felt no common relief at the discovery of the imposition.

"A friend of O'Malley's," said Power, delighted, in his defeat, to involve another with himself.

"Indeed!" said the General, regarding me with the look of a very mingled cast.

66

Quite true, sir," said I, replying to the accusation that his

manner implied, "but equally so that I neither knew of his plot nor recognized him when here."

66

"I am perfectly sure of it, my boy," said the General; "and, after all, it was an excellent joke, carried a little too far, it is true; eh, Lucy?"

But Lucy either heard not, or affected not to hear; and, after some little further assurance that he felt not the least annoyed, the General turned to converse with some other friends; while I, burning with indignation against Webber, took a cold farewell of Miss Dashwood, and retired.

QUATRE BRAS AND WATERLOO.

I PUT spurs to my horse, cleared the road at once, and dashing across the open space to the left of the wood, rode on in the direction of the horsemen. When I came within the distance of three hundred yards I examined them with my glass, and could plainly detect the scarlet coats and bright helmets. Ha, thought I, the First Dragoon Guards, no doubt. Muttering to myself thus much, I galloped straight on, and waving my hand as I came near, announced that I was the bearer of an order. Scarcely had I done so, when four horsemen, dashing spurs in their steeds, plunged hastily out from the line, and before I could speak surrounded me, while the foremost called out, as he flourished his saber above my head: "Rendez vous prisonnier." At the same moment I was seized on each side, and led back a captive into the hands of the enemy.

"We guess you mistake, captaine," said the French officer. before whom I was brought. "We are the regiment of Berg, and our scarlet uniform cost us dearly enough yesterday."

This allusion, I afterward learned, was in reference to a charge by a cuirassier regiment, which, in mistaking them for English, poured a volley into them, and killed and wounded above twenty of their number.

Those who have visited the field of Quatre Bras will remember that on the left of the high road, and nearly at the extremity of the Bois de Boussu, stands a large Flemish farmhouse, whose high pitched roof, pointed gables, and quaint oldfashioned chimneys, remind one of the architecture so frequently seen in Tenier's pictures. The house, which with its dependencies of stables, granaries, and out-houses, resembles a little

village, is surrounded by a large straggling orchard of aged fruittrees, through which the approach from the high road leads. The interior of this quaint dwelling, like all those of its class, is only remarkable for a succession of small, dark, low-ceiled rooms, leading one into another; their gloomy aspects increased by the dark oak furniture, the heavy armories, and old-fashioned presses, carved in the grotesque tastes of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Those who visit it now may mark the traces of cannon shot here and there through the building; more than one deep crack will attest the force of the dread artillery; still the traveler will feel struck with the rural peace and quietude of the scene; the speckled oxen that stand lowing in the deep meadows; the splash of the silvery trout as he sports in the bright stream that ripples along over its gravelly bed; the cawing of the old rooks in the tall beech-trees; but, more than all, the happy laugh of children—speak of the spot as one of retired and tranquil beauty; yet when my eyes opened upon it on the morning of the seventeenth of June, the scene presented features of a widely different interest. The day was breaking as the deep, full sound of the French bugle announced the reveille; forgetful of where I was, I sprang from my bed and rushed to the window; the prospect before me at once recalled me to my recollection, and I remembered that I was a prisoner. The exciting events around me left me but little time and as little inclination to think over my old misfortunes; and I watched, with all the interest of a soldier, the movements of the French troops in the orchard beneath.

A squadron of dragoons, who seemed to have passed the night beside their horses, lay stretched or seated in all the picturesque groupings of a bivouac; some already up and stirring; others leaned half listlessly upon their elbows, and looked as if unwilling to believe the night was over; and some stretched in deep slumber woke not with the noise and tumult around them. The room in which I was confined looked out upon the road to Charleroi; I could, therefore, see the British troops; and, as the French army had fallen back during the night, only an advanced guard maintaining the position, I was left to my unaided conjectures as to the fortune of the preceding day of battle. What a period of anxiety and agitation was that morning to me, and what I would not have given to learn the result of the action at the moment of my capture! Stubborn as our resistance had been, we were evidently getting the worst of it; and, if the