be a desirable match for Letitia, and she promptly determined that no remissness should stand in the way of her daughter's interest. Edmund was accordingly invited frequently to the house, and Miss Letitia put in practice all those little arts which are often, in similar instances, successful, but which, perhaps, in the present were unnecessary. Edmund, I believe, loved her with an ardent and enthusiastic admiration. I know that the casuists of love have said that it is easier for a woman to win a lover than to retain him; but I, in my simplicity, as I watched Letitia's complicated movements, could not help thinking that it was an unnecessary display of coquetry to employ artifice towards one who had already yielded to her the spontaneous homage of a generous and confiding heart.

But I am not about to present my readers with the details of a fashion able flirtation; and yet, in calling it so, I am doing one of the parties injustice. Edmund Connor loved, loved deeply; but then at least his love was not returned. It was a strange thing to see him thus squandering all the young affections of his heart upon one who thought of them but as they affected her interest. It was strange to see the deep devotion of his soul contrasted with the cold and calculating selfishness of her who valued him not for what he was, but for what he possessed: it was a picture that had the lights and shadows of the human heart; it was just the development of the two great principles that set all life in motion, and actuate the generous or the prudent deeds of men. There was selfishness and feeling--romance and prudence. But we must soon turn another page in Edmund's history, and we will find the next a darker one.

"Give me neither poverty nor riches," is an obsolete, but yet, perhaps, a wise prayer. I am not sure that fortune is an advantage to a young man. In my last chapter I was called on to paint the ills of poverty-to describe a noble spirit crushed by the influence of want -a mighty heart made sick by that hope that is long deferred-a proud mind smitten to the earth, and sinking exhausted by its struggles with the cruellest of all antagonists, WANT;

and now I am speaking of one who was nursed in the lap of prosperity, and one to whom fortune had been kind; and yet it would seem as if, to the young man, her smiles were as fatal as her frowns. If the young man whose companion is poverty, must bear with the contempt of a heartless world, must endure that which David felt long ago, when he said that "his soul was exceedingly filled with the scorning of those that are at ease"-ab! there are trials of another kind around the paths of the rich-the flatterer to lead astray-the seductions of pleasure to entice the sharper to entrap.

Edmund became intimate, I know not how, with a young man of the name of Nolan. Nolan was a man who, without a patrimony or any visible means of support, contrived to spend money as if he were a man of fortune. He was unquestionably a man of some talent, and in manner and address a perfect gentleman. As a companion he was almost fascinating: there was a brilliancy about his conversation that made the time pass quickly in his society; and if you could forget that which was but too manifest-that he was straining after display, and anxious to show off his own superiority, real or fancied-you could not have a more agreeable companion of an idle hour; but he was nothing more. With a vast deal of pretension, both to infor mation and originality, he knew little, and he had thought still less. His information was all superficial, and his most pointed observations flippant; and though an assurance of manner gained him, with all who knew him but little, the reputation of talent, as did an affectation of sentimentality, that of a man of feeling-the more you knew of him, the more you discovered the shallowness of his intellect and the hollowness of his heart. He prided, or affected to pride himself very much on his punctiliousness of honour-that monstrous anomaly, a gambler's honour! for Nolan was a gambler; and unless report erred very far, it was the gambling-table that supplied him with those sums which he spent, without having any legitimate means of procuring them. Indeed his constant attendance at the billiard-tables where he was always seen playing for

large bets, was, even without the hints that rumour spread of darker doings, sufficient to justify the surmise, that be nearly, if not altogether, depended upon this comfortable and reputable source for his support.

With this man Edmund contracted an intimacy, and his new friend was not slow in introducing him to the employments which formed the chief occupation of his own time. He became his instructor in billiard playing, and Edmund made a progress that shewed him an apt pupil. When he saw me, he was always full of accounts of his rapidly improving skill at the game which he described, and I believe justly described, as most fascinating. He liked it," he said, “because it was not a game of chance, and it combined exercise with amusement. The principles of the game, too, were strictly scientific; the rules that determined the impulse and rebound of the balls, were all matters of mathematical investigation." I told him that I knew all that, but that he might find them all in his books with less trouble and more precision at the time, I suspected that his devotion to the study was rather that of a gambler than a mathe

matician.

I do not know whether I should relate here a circumstance which occurred to myself. It is, perhaps, scarcely worth repeating; and yet, trifling as was the occurrence, it is one upon which I often have reflected with gratitude to Providence. Our destiny often turns upon little things; and I cannot help thinking that the circumstance which I am about to relate, may have been the means of saving me from a fate as dark as any that in these pages I may describe. Persuaded by Edmund's solicitations, I consented to accompany him to the billiard-table one evening, and to learn to play. I remember well the feelings with which I went. I had been brought up with a horror of billiard playing. An uncle of mine had devoted all his time to it --had become the best billiard player in Europe and had died a beggar. I believe my poor father would rather have seen his son a Jesuit or a ratcatcher than a billiard player. It was no wonder if I inherited or imbibed something of his aversion. I was very

unwilling to comply with Edmund's request: he laughed at me; he said that every thing in excess was vicious; but I would not refuse to take a glass of wine after dinner, because my great grandfather had died in a fit of drunkenness. It might have been very natural in my father to have disliked billiard-playing; but it was mere superstition in me to suppose that I must be heir to all his aversions. My poor father had not left me much else to be heir to. I suffered myself to be overcome by his argument, although, indeed, I was not convinced by his reasonings. I accompanied him to a billiard-room which he had told me had been just set up by a very honest man, and which he and Nolan had determined to patronize, because it was quiet, and frequented by but few. It was about an hour after nightfall, of a lovely moonlight night in April, that we went out together. I say I remem ber well my feelings: the soft haze of the moonlight was shed upon the streets as we went along; and I knew not why, I fancied that its peacefulness, as it seemed to slumber upon the flags and the houses, was a reproach to me. I could not divest myself of the persuasion that I was doing wrong-a persuasion which, perhaps, was altogether disproportioned to the reality, at least the apparent reality, of the occasion. But who can calculate the strange and unhidden emotions of the human heart? who will dare to say, that in the deep workings of the human spirit, starting as it does into mysterious emotion where nothing seems to call them forth, there may not be a something that communes with remote events, and unseen contingencies of which there is no other indication than the mental disturbance that they mysteriously excite?

We struck off street, and went a short way down a narrow alley, which led us into a small square or court. The court was so small that the high houses altogether hid the moonlight; and the upper stories of the houses on the side fronting the moon, throwing back her beams in a thousand lustrous and diamond-like reflections, from the panes of glass in the windows, formed a strange contrast with the deep shadow in

which the rest of the court was wrapped. On the dark side of the court there was a door standing open; over it a candle placed in a glass receptacle so dimmed with grease and dirt as almost to render it opaque, or, at least, to give it the appearance of a dark lanthorn, shed down on the entrance a dull and ambiguous light. Through this door we entered; a short passage with boarded sides, led to another door covered over with green baize. Edmund pushed this open, and my eyes were dazzled with a strong glare of light; and I found myself in the billiard-room.

I

I remember still the appearance of the room; my own feelings magnified everything into an importance that fixed it on my memory. At one end of the room there was a fire-place; near this sat a little, ill-looking man, who was to act as marker; a large fire was burning in the grate; an individual stood with his back to it, apparently wishing merely to pass time. use the term individual, because his claims to the appellation of gentleman, on the score of appearance, were somewhat ambiguous, as my readers will presently perceive. I was surprised to see him presently take his pipe out of his mouth and address Edmund most familiarly. This drew my attention a little more to his dress. He wore a white hat, considerably dinged at one side; a blue frock coat, in which the whiteness of the seams had already caused an agreeable variegation of its proper hue; and a pair of white trousers, that is, with many colours diffused over a white ground, not long enough to conceal much of a clumsy pair of boots that were bursting at all their seams; these, with a formidable pair of mustachios and a party-coloured cravat, somewhat the worse for wear, completed the contour that presented itself to my narrow scrutiny.

"Are you for a match tonight ?" asked he, again taking the pipe out of his mouth, and at the same time spitting on the floor.

No," answered Edmund; "I am going to teach this gentleman to play." "To teach him!" said the other with an oath, laying an emphasis on the word, and the habitual leer of his

features increased to a malicious grin. "If you wish"-with another tremendous imprecation-"to oblige a friend I'll save you the trouble."

"And the devil a better instructor than yourself, captain, the gentleman could get within the four walls of the city," chimed in the little wretch whom I have already described as marker, casting a peculiarly knowing look at the somewhat ambiguous personage whom he thus addressed by the military title of captain; the other puffed a larger volume of smoke from his pipe, which he had duly returned to his mouth, looked a peculiar look, and made no reply.

It was, however, ultimately arranged that for that night at least, I was not

to be handed over to the kind instruc

tions of the captain: the marker volunteered me a few pieces of advice; and I was beginning, after a few strokes, to handle and to give the balls good smart cue with some adroitness, my

blows.

tion, a long reef ran half-way across the green cloth which covered the table.

"Tare-an-ouns, sir!" cried the marker, "how did you do that?"

D-n it, man," cried Edmund, could not you mind yourself?"

"I think, sir," said the captain, sarcastically, "Mr. Connor's tuition does not thrive with you.”

I heard a loud, although a suppressed laugh, from two young men who had just entered the room, and the whispered epithet of "spooney" saluted my ears.

"This is a terrible thing entirely," said the marker, as he looked unmeaningly at the reef of my handiwork; "it was an elegant new cloth ;" and he began laying down the torn parts with a cue which he carried in his hand. "It will take another needle than that to sew it, Jack," said one of the new-comers; and the whole company laughed, or affected to laugh, at this sally, the wit of which I did not ex. actly understand.

Jack, however, took care that I should understand and feel its point: this he did effectually, by intimating that I was to pay two guineas for tearing the cloth, adding, "that by rights I should pay three; but he would not be hard on me."

"Whatever the cloth costs, of course I must pay," said I, proudly pulling myself up, with a dignity that I meant to silence the jeers in which some of the company appeared disposed to indulge.

Two guineas, however, was the ultimatum of Jack's demands; and here was a new difficulty. I had not so much about me; this, of course, gave rise to new sallies of wit on the part of the knowing ones, who seemed disposed to retaliate on me for the mock dignity I had assumed the minute before.

"At least, sir," said I, meaning to be very good-humoured, "not to make any offer that I have not money to pay."

A loud laugh ran round the room, and the captain's discomfited look told me that I had unintentionally made a hit of the nature of it I am unfortunately still ignorant; but it was evident that the object of it was a little sore.

I

The matter was ended, however, by Edmund lending me the two guineas, which he did promptly enough. paid dearly for my sport, and we left the room. As we passed through the boarded passage I have already mentioned, I heard a loud burst of rude laughter, mingled occasionally with oaths, and cries of "spooney."" I was glad when we were once more in the still court, and more glad when I found myself again in the bustle of the street. And this was my first and last essay at billiard playing.

It seemed, however, as if having to the billiard-table, I was to be repaid thus dearly for my introduction quited by a more extensive acquaintance with its mysteries than is generally made in the course of a single evening. It happened that Edmund wished particularly to see Nolan, and I accompanied him in quest of him. Edmund said that we would be almost sure to find him in another billiardroom in street, and thither accordingly we directed our steps. It seemed altogether a much more respectable place than the one we had just left. It was within a few feet of one of the best streets in the city. We turned down a lane, which I knew as leading to the livery stables of one of the fashionable hotels. Along one side of this lane ran a dead wall, the other was occupied with houses of an inferior description; a door opened just where the dead wall joined the gable of the house that fronted the street. On entering this door, you went a little way along a narrow passage inside the wall, and a flight of stone steps conducted you up to large and spacious billiard

rooms.* I well remember there were two small glass windows, perhaps I should say peepholes, in the door, through which you could see what was passing inside. Edmund stopped an instant, as if to reconnoitre, and then we both went in.

There were a good many persons in the room. Nolan was engaged at play with a stranger; the progress of the game appeared to excite very considerable interest in the minds of the spectators; and if I was to judge by Nolan's demeanor, he felt very anxious as to its result. His face was quite flushed, although he had taken off his coat; and every time when it came to his adversary's turn to play, he rubbed a bit of chalk to his cue with a violence that was, perhaps, the only symptom of agitation which he showed.

Edmund and I took our seats upon a bench that ran along the wall and was allotted to the spectators. Nolan took hardly any notice of our entrance. When we had been some minutes seated, he addressed some words to Edmund, which I did not hear. I soon, however, became sensible that this was a particular match, upon which large bets were depending. Nolan had very much the worst of the game. His manner now became visibly agitated; that of his opponent was perfectly cool. There was a profound silence throughout the room, only broken by the shrill voice of the marker as he told the game, and occasionally a stamp on the floor and an imprecation from Nolan, as he cursed his bad luck, after having attempted some unsuccessful stroke.

The stranger, who was a middleaged, gentlemanly man, seemed now quite confident of success; and I soon discovered that the spectators had a deeper interest in the game than that of mere curiosity. In fact, they had bet largely on the issue. Odds were now offered against Nolan: his opponent had just counted-I believe I should say scored -a considerable number of points. Nolan flung his cravat with vehemence from his neck, and seemed for a few minutes ponder

ing on the balls; his eye lit up, and he seemed just about to make a stroke, when a large, vulgar-looking man, who sat in a corner, exclaimed

"Five to one against the striker !” Nolan paused, and looked still more attentively at the balls.

"Five to one against the striker!" repeated the gentleman in the corner. "I'll take you, sir,” said Nolan, looking calmly round.

"Done, sir!" said the other.

"In pounds," said Nolan; and as the other assented, the flush upon his cheek kindled to a hectic brightness. A murmur ran round the room; a tall, fashionably dressed young man, who was smoking a cigar, said,

Nolan, you are a fool."

"If you think so," said Nolan, “I'll take you the same bet." Done, by

66

-!" said the other; and he pronounced the oath with a heartiness of intonation that made my blood run cold.

It is

Nolan played, and I could understand by the buzz of applause which followed, that he had executed some very difficult stroke. He seemed inspired by his bet-he gained rapidly upon the scores of his antagonist, and the result of the game appeared still to be questionable. I felt myself take a deep interest in his success. strange how ready we are to sympathize with the exertions of those who seem struggling against defeat. I disliked Nolan. If my feelings towards him influenced me, it was to make me wish to see him lose; and yet I felt rejoiced as each successive stroke diminished the majority of his antagonist. At last they came to an equality; they were within four of counting game; it was the stranger's play, and Nolan shook his head as if all was lost. Not a word was spoken as the player aimed with all the appearance of unerring certainty. Nolan's eye rested on his adversary's cue; his lips were white-his eye kindled up as the balls rolled away from the stroke of his opponent. and, after many rollings, rested harmless on the table.