design to follow the "way of the world;" so Villiers is introduced without prefixing any ensigns of angelship; to detail some very trite facts-so he may, perhaps, improve upon acquaintance, by" advice of friends," or "particular desire of several persons of distinction," and to upset those short-sighted, however sage, presumptions, by recording matters enacted sempiternally within eye-shot, which, nevertheless, shall be done with due consideration for their wise although imperfectly-visioned holders. Thus, as in existence, so here, though the knowledge of every day refutes the statute's falseness, the best even have primarily to succumb to distrust or inculpation beyond desert: whence Villiers, in this preliminary stage-his faultier side presented to criticism-must peregrinate under the most unfavorable impressions. No. 6.-The portrait grows distincter, though with a difference. Ah! que j'aime la solitude! Mon Dieu! que mes yeux sont contents De voir ces bois (qui se trouvèrent A la nativité des temps, Et que tous les siècles révèrent,) Estre encore aussi beaux et verts Qu'aux premiers jours de l' univers! BOILEAU. Precisely two years and a half ensuing-or, more categorically, the month of January, -42 -Villiers, at a bed-chamber window, might have made discoveries amongst the stars, but that he was absorbed in self-meditation. An access of gravity, if not grief, had since paled his brow. Despondence shadowed his glance's joyance. His lip, too, wore a curl: of scorn, pride, or sensibility ?—perhaps of all. In brief, there was that about him which those manifest, who have toiled long without deriving fruit, and whose perceptions are still quick enough to annex the liveliness of regret to languor. He spoke not, certes, aloud; but his broodings, vocally rendered, would have been : "What have I to live for? nothing woos; incessantly some emotion blunts. And should I contravene it? where have I felt, that has not been to my detriment! But was ever system created more to feel? That's over dulness lades my feelings: their freshness is buried: it shall never gain resuscitation." A light from the antiquated Abbey disturbed not his mental torpor-nor a white object fluttering into the obscurity of the far copse. At last, he muttered, "Books;" re-lit his candles; and sat down at a desk. There was no mistaking it; this lad (for lad he abided, though at twenty) had forgone his natal temperament, and, predisposed of yore to spiritedness, paralysis was upon him now-overburthened by that numbing unregard, when nothing more subsists to interest, and all that would be asked-for is repose. From Mary Travers' dénouement, he had adjourned to Oxford, whence, six months since, with failing health, he had been recalled to Woodley. It was noticeable that, in those months, his melancholy augmented, though his health acquired confirmation: Lord Camell took the credit of the latter himself cultivating, with laborious assiduity, the chase, and sparing no exhortations for the continual copartnership of Emile. About this Emile, there was certainly something curious: not in his bare addiction to out-ofdoor exposure: but that, shunning all of social commerce he possibly could-when housed, resorting to his reading-when abroad, to the loneliest tracts-he, notwithstanding, in one instance, courted that very position, from which, elsewhere, he recoiled. The cottagers constituted the exception; and those, on Dalyell's and the adjacent estates, experienced his beneficence and concern, coun Do the Fetches flourish still? at least 66 terpart presentments" do. For, Miss Evrett's name was coupled with kindred exhibitions. She had tended the sick, cheered the oppressed, healed dissention, and reclaimed the vicious. But, if there was something curious in him, there was something unaccountable in her. They could not clash. Perchance the same walls would have enclosed either within an hour of the other. Then, the Evretts' circle, the Colonel's instability of frame and widowhood restricted much to their own mansion. Villiers' vague fancy-sketching accommodated her with traits perhaps more eminently applicable to plain-visaged ladies of a certain age, soberly attired, very good-humored, a little dry-tongued, but prompt to kindly offices. But surely they were not Animated Parallels? A neighboring Justice of the Peace (whose hand was against every man's), breakfasting at the Abbey, adverted to an impending execution for debt which, through illness, a laborer had contracted. Emile determined to interpose, though beyond his usual limit: and, the succor afforded, was retrograding through an acclivitous mead, when, from a beech clump's base, charged growlingly at him a Newfoundland dog, as if perpetual feud (or, in "the day's" more elegant phraseology |