Sir Charles. I can hold it no longer. Charles, Charles, how hast thou deceived me! Is this your indifference, your uninteresting conversation? Hard. Your cold contempt; your forImal interview? What have you to say now? Marl. That I'm all amazement! What can it mean? Hard. It means, that you can say and unsay things at pleasure. That you can address a lady in private, and deny it in public; that you have one story for us, and another for my daughter. Marl. By heaven, madam, fortune was Your ever my sinallest consideration. beauty at first caught my eye; for who could see that without emotion? But every moment that I converse with you, steals in some new grace, heightens the picture, and gives it stronger expression. What at first seemed rustic plainness, What Marl. now appears refined simplicity. seemed forward assurance, now strikes me as the result of courageous innocence and conscious virtue. Sir Charles. What can it mean? He amazes me! Hard. I told you how it would be. Hush! Marl. I am now determined to stay, madam; and I have too good an opinion of my father's discernment, when he sees you, to doubt his approbation. Miss Hard. No, Mr. Marlow, I will not, cannot detain you. Do you think I could suffer a connection in which there is the smallest room for repentance? Do you think I would take the mean advantage of a transient passion, to load you with confusion? Do you think I could ever relish that happiness which was acquired by lessening yours? Marl. By all that's good, I can have no happiness but what's in your power to grant me. Nor shall I ever feel repentance, but in not having seen your merits before. I will stay, even contrary to your wishes; and though you should persist to shun me, I will make my respectful assiduities atone for the levity of my past conduct. Miss Hard. Sir, I must entreat you'll desist. As our acquaintance began, so let it end, in indifference. I might have given an hour or two to levity; but seriously, Mr. Marlow, do you think I could ever submit to a connection where I must appear mercenary, and you imprudent? Do you think I could ever catch at the confident addresses of a secure admirer? Marl. (Kneeling.) Does this look like security? Does this look like confidence? No, madam; every moment that shows me your merit, only serves to increase my diffidence and confusion. Here let me continue daughter! Daughter!-this lady your Hard. Yes, sir, my only daughter; my Kate. Whose else should she be? Marl. Oh, - ! very Miss Hard. Yes, sir, that identical tall, squinting lady you were pleased to take me for. (Curtseying.) She that you addressed as the mild, modest, sentimental man of gravity, and the bold, forward, agreeable Rattle of the ladies' club; ha! ha! ha! Marl. Zounds, there's no bearing this; it's worse than death. Miss Hard. In which of your characters, sir, will you give us leave to address you? As the faltering gentleman, with looks on the ground, that speaks just to be heard, and hates hypocrisy; or the loud confident creature, that keeps it up with Mrs. Mantrap, and old Miss Biddy Buckskin, till three in the morning? ha! ha! ha! Marl. Oh, my noisy head! I never attempted to be impudent yet, that I was not taken down. I must be gone. Hard. By the hand of my body, but you shall not. I see it was all a mistake, and I am rejoiced to find it. You shall not, sir, I tell you. Won't you forgive him, Kate? We'll all forgive you. Take courage, man. (They retire, she tormenting him to the back scene.) and the girl could not have made a more prudent choice. Hard. Then by the hand of my body, I'm proud of the connection. Mrs. Hard. Well, if he has taken away the lady, he has not taken her fortune; that remains in the family, to console us for her loss. Hard. Sure, Dorothy, you would not be so mercenary. Mrs. Hard. Ay, that's my affair, not yours. Hard. But you know, if your son, when of age, refuses to marry his cousin, her whole fortune is then at her own disposal. Mrs. Hard. Ay, but he's not of age, and she has not thought proper to wait for his refusal. Enter HASTINGS and MISS NEVILLE. Mrs. Hard. (Aside.) What! returned so soon? I begin not to like it. Hast. (To HARDCASTLE.) For my late attempt to fly off with your niece, let my present confusion be my punishment. We are now come back, to appeal from your justice to your humanity. By her father's consent, I first paid her my addresses, and our passions were first founded on duty. Miss Nev. Since his death, I have been obliged to stoop to dissimulation to avoid oppression. In an hour of levity, I was ready even to give up my fortune to secure my choice. But I am now recovered from the delusion, and hope, from your tenderness, what is denied me from a nearer connection. Mrs. Hard. Pshaw, pshaw! this is all but the whining end of a modern novel. Hard. Be it what it will, I'm glad they're come back to reclaim their due. Come hither, Tony, boy. Do you refuse this lady's hand whom I now offer you? Tony. What signifies my refusing? You know I can't refuse her till I'm of age, father. Hard. While I thought concealing your age, boy, was likely to conduce to your improvement, I concurred with your mother's desire, to keep it secret. But since I find she turns it to a wrong use, I must now declare you have been of age these three months. Tony. Of age! Am I of age, father? make of my liberty (Taking MISS NEVILLE'S hand)-Witness all men by these presents, that I Anthony Lumpkin, Esquire, of blank place, refuse you, Constantia Neville, spinster, of no place at all, for my true and lawful wife. So Constantia Neville may marry whom she pleases, and Tony Lumpkin is his own man again. Sir Charles. Oh, brave squire! Hast. My worthy friend! Mrs. Hard. My undutiful offspring! Marl. Joy, my dear George; I give you joy sincerely. And could I prevail upon my little tyrant here, to be less arbitrary, I should be the happiest man alive, if you would return me the favour. Hast. (To MISS HARDCASTLE.) Come, madam, you are now driven to the very last scene of all your contrivances. I know you like him, I'm sure he loves you, and you must and shall have him. Hard. (Joining their hands.) And I say so too. And Mr. Marlow, if she makes as good a wife as she has a daughter, I don't believe you'll ever repent your bargain. So now to supper. To-morrow we shall gather all the poor of the parish about us; and the mistakes of the night shall be crowned with a merry morning. So, boy, take her; and as you have been mistaken in the mistress, my wish is, that you may never be mistaken in the wife. END OF SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER. AN AWKWARD COMPLIMENT. The Empress Marie Louise had never been popular in Paris, as Josephine was to the last, nor had she the fine instincts which so especially distinguished the first consort of Napoleon, who was, indeed, his better angel. For example, one day Napoleon, having been provoked by her father, the Emperor of Austria, declared to Marie Louise that he was an old ganache" (blockhead). Her majesty asked one of her ladies-in-waiting,-as she said the Emperor had called her father by that name,-the meaning of the word ganache, and the lady, not knowing what to say in reference to the empress's own father, answered that it meant venerable old man." Marie Louise believed this; and afterward, when Cambaceres came to pay his respects to her, she, wishing to be very complimentary to him, said, "Sir, I have always regarded you as the chief ganache of France." a JIMMY BUTLER AND THE OWL. It was in the summer of '46 that I landed at Hamilton, fresh as a new pratie just dug from the "ould sod," and with a light heart and a heavy bundle I sot off for the township of Buford, tiding a taste of a song, as merry a young fellow as iver took the road. Well, I trudged on and on, past many a plisint place, pleasin' myself wid the thought that some day I might have a place of my own, wid a world of chickens and ducks and pigs and childer about the door; and along in the afternoon of the sicond day I got to Buford village. A cousin of me mother's, one Dennis O'Dowd, lived about sivin miles from there, and I wanted to make his place that night, so I inquired the way at the tavern, and was lucky to find a man who was goin' part of the way an' would show me the way to find Dennis. Sure he was very kind indade, an' when I got out of his wagon he pointed me through the wood and tould me to go straight south a mile an' a half, and the first house would be Dennis's. "An' you've no time to lose now," said he, "for the sun is low, and mind you don't get lost in the woods." "Is it lost now," said I, "that I'll be gittin', an' me uncle as great a navigator as iver steered a ship across the thrackless Say! Not a bit of it, though I'm obleeged to ye for your kind advice, and thank yez for the ride." while the miskaties bit me hands and face to a blister; an' after tumblin' and stumblin' around till I was fairly bamfoozled, I sat down on a log, all of a trimble, to think that I was lost intirely, an' that maybe a lion or some other wild craythur would devour me before morning. Just then I heard somebody a long way off say, "Whip poor Will!" Bedad," sez I," I'm glad that it isn't Jamie that's got to take it, though it seems it's more in sorrow than in anger they are doin' it, or why should they say, 'poor Will?' an' sure they can't be Injin, haythin, or naygur, for it's plain English they re afther spakin'. Maybe they might help me out o' this," so I shouted at the top of my voice, "A lost man!" Thin I listened. Presently an answer came. "Who? Whoo? Whooo?" "Jamie Butler, the waiver!" sez I, as loud as I could roar, an' snatchin' up me bundle and stick, I started in the direc tion of the voice. Whin I thought I had got near the place I stopped and shouted again, “A lost man !” "Who! Whoo! Whooo!" said a voice right over my head. "Sure," thinks I, "it's a mighty quare place for a man to be at this time of night; maybe it's some settler scrapin' sugar off a sugar-bush for the children's breakfast in the mornin'. But where's Will and the rest of them?" All this wint through me head like a flash, an' thin I answered his inquiry. "Jamie Butler, the waiver," sez I; "and if it wouldn't inconvenience yer honor, would yez be kind enough to step down and show me the way to the house of Dennis O'Dowd?" again. Whooo!" sez he An' with that he drove off an' left me alone. I shouldered me bundle bravely, an' whistlin' a bit of tune for company like, I pushed into the bush. Well, I went a long way over bogs, and turnin' "Who! Whoo! Whooo!" sez he. round among the bush an' trees till I be- "Dennis O'Dowd," sez I, civil enough, gan to think I must be well nigh to" and a dacent man he is, and first cousin Dennis's. But, bad cess to it! all of a to me own mother." sudden I came out of the wood at the very "Who! Whoo! identical spot where I started in, which I knew by an ould crotched tree that seemed to be standin' on its head and kickin' up its heels to make divarsion of me. By this time it was growin' dark, and as there was no time to lose, I started in a second time, determined to keep straight south "Paddy McFiggin! bad luck to your this time and no mistake. I got on brave-deaf ould head, Paddy McFiggin, I sayly for a while, but och hone! och hone! do ye hear that? An' he was the tallest it got so dark I couldn't see the trees, and man in all county Tipperary, excipt Jim I bumped me nose and barked me shins, Doyle, the blacksmith." "Me mother!" sez I, "and as fine a woman as iver peeled a biled pratie wid her thumb nail, and her maiden name was Molly McFiggin." "Who! Whoo! Whooo!" "Who! Whoo! Whooo!" "Jim Doyle, the blacksmith," sez I, "ye good for nothin' blaggard naygur, and if yez don't come down and show me the way this min't, I'll climb up there and break every bone in your skin, ye spalpeen, so sure as me name is Jimmy Butler !" "Who! Whoo! Whooo!" sez he, as impident as ever. I said niver a word, but lavin' down me bundle, and takin' me stick in me teeth, I began to climb the tree. Whin I got among the branches I looked quietly around till I saw a pair of big eyes just forminst me. Whist," sez I, "and I'll let him have a taste of an Irish stick," and wid that I let drive and lost me balance an' came tumblin' to the ground, nearly breakin' me neck wid the fall. Whin I came to me sinsis I had a very sore head wid a lump on it like a goose egg, and half of me Sunday coat-tail torn off intirely. I spoke to the chap in the tree, but could git niver an answer, at all, at all. Sure, thinks I, he must have gone home to rowl up his head, for by the powers I didn't throw me stick for nothin', Well, by this time the moon was up and I could see a little, and I determined to make one more effort to reach Dennis's. I wint on cautiously for a while, an' thin I heard a bell. "Sure," sez I, "I'm comin' to a settlement now, for I hear the church bell." I kept on toward the sound till I came to an ould cow wid a bell on. She started to run, but I was too quick for her, and got her by the tail and hung on, thinkin' that maybe she would take me out of the woods. On we wint, like an ould country steeple-chase, till, sure enough, we came out to a clearin' and a house in sight wid a light in it. So, leaving the ould cow puffin' and blowin' in a shed, I went to the house, and as luck would have it, whose should it be but Dennis's. He gave me a raal Irish welcome, and introduced me to his two daughters-as purty a pair of girls as iver ye clapped an eye on. But whin I tould him my adventure in the woods, and about the fellow who made fun of me, they all laughed and roared, and Dennis said it was an owl. "Sure "An ould what?" sez I. "Why, an owl, a bird," sez he. "Do you tell me now?" sez I. it's a quare country and a quare bird." And thin they all laughed again, till at last I laughed myself, that hearty like, and dropped right into a chair between the two purty girls, and the ould chap winked at me and roared again. Dennis is me father-in-law now, and he often yet delights to tell our children about their daddy's adventure wid the owl. UNCLE DAN'L AND THE STEAMBOAT. Whatever the lagging, dragging journey may have been to the rest of the emigrants, it was a wonder and delight to the children, a world of enchantment; and they believed it to be peopled with the mysterious dwarfs and giants and goblins that figured in the tales that the negro slaves were in the habit of telling them nightly by the shuddering light of the kitchen fire. At the end of nearly a week of travel, the party went into camp near a shabby village which was caving, house by house, into the hungry Mississippi. The river astonished the children beyond measure. Its mile-breadth of water seemed an ocean to them, in the shadowy twilight, and the vague riband of trees on the further shore, the verge of a continent which surely none but they had ever seen before. "Uncle Dan'l" (colored) aged forty; his wife, "Aunt Jinny," aged thirty; "Young Miss" Emily Hawkins, "Young Mars" Washington Hawkins and "Young Mars" Clay, the new member of the family, ranged themselves on a log, after supper, and contemplated the marvelous river and discussed it. The moon rose and sailed aloft through a maze of shredded cloud-wreaths; the sombre river just perceptibly brightened under the veiled light; a deep silence pervaded the air, and was emphasized at intervals, rather than broken, by the hooting of an owl, the baying of a dog, or the muffled crash of a caving bank in the distance. The little company assembled on the log were all children (at least in simplicity and broad and comprehensive ignorance), and the remarks they made about the river were in keeping with their cha- | Lord, dese chil'en don't b'long heah, racter; and so awed were they by the dey's f'm Obedstown, whah dey don't grandeur and the solemnity of the scene before them, and by their belief that the air was filled with invisible spirits, and that the faint zephyrs were caused by their passing wings, that all their talk took to itself a tinge of the supernatural, and their voices were subdued to a low and reverent tone. Suddenly Uncle Dan'l exclaimed: "Chil'en, dah's sumfin a-comin'!" All crowded close together, and every heart beat faster. Uncle Dan'l pointed down the river with his bony finger. A deep coughing sound troubled the stillness, way toward a wooden cape that jutted into the stream a mile distant. All in an instant a fierce eye of fire shot out from behind the cape and sent a long brilliant pathway quivering athwart the dusky water. The coughing grew louder and louder, the glaring eye grew larger and still larger, glared wilder and still wilder. A huge shape developed itself out of the gloom, and from its tall duplicate horns dense volumes of smoke, starred and spangled with sparks, poured out and went tumbling away into farther darkness. Nearer and nearer the thing came, till its long sides began to glow with spots of light which mirrored themselves in the river and attended the monster like a torchlight procession. "What is it? Oh, what is it, Uncle Dan'l?" With deep solemnity the answer came: "It's de Almighty! Git down on yo' knees!" It was not necessary to say it twice. They were all kneeling in a moment. And then, while the mysterious coughing rose stronger and stronger and the threatening glare reached farther and wider, the negro's voice lifted up its supplications: "O Lord, we's ben mighty wicked, and we knows dat we 'zerve to go to ze bad place, but good Lord, deah Lord, we ain't ready yit, we ain't ready-let dese po' chil'en hab one mo' chance, jes' one mo' chance. Take de ole niggah if you's got to hab somebody. Good Lord, good deah Lord, we don't know whah you's a gwine to, we don't know who you's got yo' eye on; but we knows by de way you's a comin', we knows by de way you's a tiltin' along in yo' chariot o' fiah, dat some po' sinner's a gwine to ketch it. But, good know nuffin, an' yo' knows, yo' own sef, dat dey ain't 'sponsible. An' deah Lord, good Lord, it ain't like yo' mercy, it ain't like yo' pity, it ain't like yo' long-sufferin' lovin'-kindness for to take dis kind o' vantage o' sich little chil'en as dese is when dey's so many ornery grown folks chuck full o' cussedness dat wants roastin' down dah. O Lord, spah de little chil'en, don't tar de little chil'en away f'm dey frens, jes' let 'em off jes' dis once, and take it out de ole niggah. HEAH I IS, LORD, HEAH I IS! De ole niggah's ready, Lord, de ole The flaming and churning steamer was right abreast the party, not twenty steps away. The awful thunder of a mud-valve suddenly burst forth, drowning the prayer, and as suddenly Uncle Dan'l snatched a child under each arm and scoured into the woods with the rest of the pack at his heels. And then, ashamed of himself, he halted in the deep darkness and shouted (but rather feebly): "Heah I is, Lord, heah I is !" There was a moment of throbbing suspense, and then, to the surprise and comfort of the party, it was plain that the august presence had gone by, for its dreadful noises were receding. Uncle Dan'l headed a cautious reconnoissance in the direction of the log. Sure enough "the Lord" was just turning a point a short distance up the river, and while they looked, the light winked out, and the coughing diminished by degrees, and presently ceased altogether. "H'wsh! Well, now dey's some folks says dey ain't no 'ficiency in prah. Dis chile would like to know whah we'd a been Now if it warn't fo dat prah? Dat's it! Dat's it!" "Uncle Dan'l, do you reckon it was the prah that saved us?" "Does I RECKON? Don't I know it! Whah was yo' eyes? Warn't de Lord jes' a comin' chow chow chow! an' a goin' on turrible-an' do de Lord carry on dat way 'dout dey's sumfin don't suit him? An' warn't he lookin right at dis gang heah, an' warn't he jes' a reachin' for 'em? An' d'you 'spec he gwine to let 'em off 'dout somebody ast him to do it? No indeedy!" "Do you reckon he saw us, Uncle Dan'l ?" |