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at the same time there was something on his lips that seemed as if it might almost have grown into a smile, had the discourse proceeded. He answered, however, gayly and inspiritingly, "I see how it is, my young friend-I see perfectly well how the matter stands. You've been kicking up a terrible racket among you, and you're wearied of it; but, my man, one cannot sow all the wild oats without turning the furrow-ye'll just go on again, and then stop, and then on again, until the job's done; and then you'll sit your ways down, and have quietness enough when your time's come for it."

"You speak so cheerfully, sir," said Reginald, "because you have reached the time of quiet yourself, and are free from troubles and cares."

"Hoolie and fairly," quoth the Priest-"my bonny young lad, I have my troubles and my cares as well as my neighbours. I warrant you, you have a fine notion of what cares are at your time of day.-What would you think, now, of finding yourself wearing away, going fast down the hill of life, my bird, and seeing a child of your own, or one that you liked as if she was sucha lassie like Ellen Hesketh, we shall suppose-about to be left alone in the world, poor maybe, as she is sure to be at the best of it, and without any body to look after her?-Nay, nay, my dear, your trouble are to begin yet, ye may take my word for that-But keep a good heart-no wisdom in sinking; keep a good stout heart, and do your duty to God and man, and no fears of you."

Miss Hesketh, re-entering the parlour, cut short the lecture of the old gentleman, and gave perhaps a new turn to the thoughts of the young one. There was,

however, no lack of conversation. Keith took a sportive sort of pleasure in making the young man talk of his college, and the girl of her cloister, and in comparing and contrasting the feelings which the several experiences of monastic and demi-monastic life had left upon their minds. Ellen spoke with such regretful enthusiasm of the good Abbess and sisters of St. An

thony's that Reginald could not help seeing the young lady entertained a strong predilection for the religious life; and this very perceptible partiality for what seemed so little worthy of so young and fair a creature, and so little likely to have attracted her imagination, together with some of the hints which Mr. Keith had dropped about her future prospects, was enough to make the young man peruse the pensive lines of her downcast beauty with an ever deepening interest.

Altogether Reginald was so much pleased and so much interested, that he would scarcely have left the Priest's fireside at nine o'clock, had not the old gentleman himself said something about the fatigues of the day, which he could not avoid taking as a sort of hint. He was not suffered to go, however, until he had promised over and over again to be less a stranger for the future; and when he did find himself once more alone upon his way, his fancy still clung to and lingered upon the scene which he had quitted. As he walked through the dark and silent city, he felt as if he had never before been so completely a.one in the world; and yet when he had entered his own College, the glare of lights, and the sounds of jovial mirth which met him there, had that about them which was a thousand times less in harmony with the tone of his thoughts. He could not reach his room without passing close by the windows of that stately refectory where all the young men of *** were celebrating, with wine and wassail, the memory of the Sainted Prelate, who had reared four centuries ago the venerable roof under which they were sitting. The clamour of voices-the boisterous chorus-the drunken laugh, fell upon an ear that had been toned for very different melodies; and the boy, hurrying swiftly beyond the reach of all that odious tumult, locked himself once more in a solitary chamber --where, drawing his chair to the fire-side, he sat down to lose himself in such waking dreams as total silence, and a dim red light, and the memory of Ellen Hesketh, might, among them, be pleased to inspire and prolong.

CHAPTER III.

THESE good dispositions held their sway for a period of greater length than the reader may perhaps have expected to hear of. For three weeks our youth devoted himself zealously and passionately to his studies, and seldom left his apartment except when his duties required him to do so. Mr. Chisney, the great tempter, never met him without doing all he could to induce him to join some gay party; but he resisted all his arguments, and, which was far more difficult, all his jeers.

During this period of virtuous retirement, Reginald called twice or thrice at Mr. Keith's; but it so happened, that he always found the old Priest from home, and he did not venture to inquire for Miss Hesketh in his absence. He did not think it right for him to intrude upon them in the evening; but more than once, after a laborious day, he walked out in the dusk, and came near enough the windows to catch the echoes of Ellen's voice, as she was accompanying her guitar for her uncle's amusement. That voice once heard,

need it be said, that the boy lingered until it could be heard no more? But even when all was silence, often would he linger there, or walk alone in the star-light, beneath the wintry elms of Heddington, keeping his eye upon the small obscure roof beneath which he had once been so happy.

However, this life lasted, after all, for no more than three weeks. By this time Reginald had acquired so much confidence in himself, that he ventured to accept of an invitation from Stukeley-who, by the way, had made, after he learned the true history of poor Dinah Gray, many generous but vain efforts to force back Reginald's money upon him.-Alas! that invitation led to others, and, the broad barrier once removed,

the interior fortifications made but a slender defence. In brief, he soon plunged more deeply than ever into the stream of dissipation-and, not to waste many words upon a disagreeable subject, he found himself ere long involved in an inextricable maze of such difficulties, as that precocious dissipation seldom fails to heap on those who indulge in it.

It must be confessed, even by the austerest who reflects calmly upon his own experiences, that there are few situations wherein poor human nature is exposed to a more engaging species of seduction, than that in which our young man found himself. There is a kindness, a genuine openness of heart, about such youthful votaries of pleasure, as those who surrounded him, much more difficult to be repelled with coldness, than all the finished blandishments of fashionable and practised voluptuaries. The total absence of all art and all concealment-the readiness with which every thought is revealed-the warmth with which every disappointment is partaken--the unfettered intercommunion of all feelings, gay or serious-there is a charm about these simple snares, effectually to baffle which, requires perhaps either a colder temper than nature had bestowed upon young Dalton, or a much sadder burden of experience, than had as yet been pressed upon him by the doings of the world. His temperament, sanguine to excess, fitted him to be the plaything of his passions. His quick imagination heightened indeed the severity of his occasional regrets; but it was equally ready to heighten the promise of the coming, or the relish of the present, indulgence. His brilliant spirits made him the favourite of all in the hour of enjoyment, and they made him the favourite object of every seductive art, in those calmer hours when his own reflections were gloomy. The new excitement was ever near to chase the languor which that of yesterday had bequeathed—and he had not as yet" descended into himself," as the philosopher phrases it-he had not bought the skill to trace his own actions to their secret springs; and if the

stronger impulses were things he sometimes dreaded, he certainly had not taught himself to guide those more easy of guidance, less violent indeed in their operation, but sometimes not less dangerous in their remote effects.

Had Reginald been possessed of a fortune, or had he been the son of a rich man, such boyish extravagances as he was ere long led into, might have been well repaid in the main by the lessons of various kinds which, in spite of himself, he must have been taught even during the period of these indulgences. Nay, had Oxford been like almost any other city in the world, a boy, such as he was, could scarcely have found the means to carry his extravagances to any thing like a dangerous, not to say, a ruinons extent. But whoever knows the place, is well aware that no limit is affixed by tradesmen to the credit which they grant, and while the honourable conduct which has established this system cannot be too highly praised, it must be admitted, that, in regard to the young men themselves, such a system, so thoroughly established, is fraught with temptations very hard to be resisted, and, when not resisted, entailing consequences that too often cost hard enough after-struggles, ere they are altogether got rid of. He, entirely unaccustomed as he had been to the management of money, and of course extremely ignorant as to its value, did what ninety-nine out of a hundred, in a similar situation, would have done, and, it is to be feared, always will. do-he yielded to temptations, the consequences of which he had had no previous opportunity of estimating; and long before the season when he was to return to Lannwell came round, he had incurred a debt which he knew, on reflection, must be great, but which he had not the courage to calculate exactly. It must be quite unnecessary to descend into particulars. He had drank and rioted-he had hunted-above all, he had betted and gamed at cockpits and bull-baitings, and sparring-matches, and I know not what besides. No man, the first year he spends in Oxford,