quered be the lion in his den,—the burning sun of the arid desert,-or the tempestuous waves that surge beneath the wanderers on the distant ocean.

Meanwhile, Millicent and Sarah Langton had progressed into oldish young womanhood, and as yet no partnership of the kind long since anticipated by the Doctor had been more than talked about for either of them. They were handsome, showy girls, well dressed, and what men call 'jolly;' and for awhile (blessed with rude health, high spirits, and an utter absence of sensitiveness) they went on their way rejoicing. But unfortunately for them and for their future prospects, troops of Dragoons, at once light and heavy, fast and slow, were accustomed to make periodical descents upon their native city, coming and going like the swallows, bringing with them a summer of hope, but leaving nothing but a winter of discontent behind.

Many a 'smart young civilian,' well-to-do and eligible, would have gladly shared his future

prospects-clerical, medical, or legal (as they might chance to be), with one or other of the Doctor's daughters. There was the Curate, whose father (a small landed gentleman of no particular family, but a worthy man withal) having bought a moderate-sized living for his son, was naturally anxious that he should, with as little delay as possible, give, in the shape of wife and children, hostages to fortune. The Curate himself, being sentimental and musical, entered fully into his parent's views, and as a preparation for the mild matrimony he contemplated, sang simple ballads, tinctured with melancholy; and would infallibly have asked for the hand and heart of the melody-loving Millicent, but for the intervention of a fast young Cavalry Captain, who bolted off the course at the first hint savouring of serious intentions, but whose black whiskers and scarlet broad-cloth (the Devil's own colours) drove the mild Curate to seek a wife elsewhere, the moment the cloven foot was seen in the Doctor's drawing-room.

Millicent was the eldest, and perhaps the best of those two ill brought up, and somewhat weak-minded young women. Her matrimonial failures had been frequent and conspicuous; and with every wish to conceal from herself the mortifying fact, she could not but be aware that her beauty was on the wane, and that a ten years' warfare with adverse fate had told upon the roundness of her form, and produced angles where angles should not be.

Under those circumstances, is it surprising that she had her moments of peevishness and her hours of gloom, and that a little jealousy of younger and brighter faces should sometimes bring a cloud upon her own? Faults and failings such as these might too truly be laid to the charge of Millicent Langton; but let us have patience with her, oh! my Reader, for with a woman's weaknesses she has a woman's heart, and unless exasperated overmuch by the sneers of her own unsympathizing sex, she will pass

bravely through the hard trial of incipient old maidenism, and come forth again the better and the wiser for the struggle. Give her a few more years of painful transition, and then then the sight of the silver lines traced on the dark hair having ceased to grieve her, and the first wrinkles having done their worst, she will gather her garments over her shoulders, and, bidding adieu to vanity, will let her youth die decently.

Meanwhile Helen, as the Cinderella of the family, would but for the solace of her beloved books have led a rather unhappy, as well as an unprofitable existence. She was a useful, handy little being, doing diligent service with her small fingers, and spending many a weary hour among heaps of faded finery, listening to talk of lovers and to readings of romance. Of what was said or done, read or thought in that secluded little upper chamber, the father never inquired. The pulse of the heart, though

beating in the breasts of his own fair daughters, he had no leisure to feel, nor was the 'unruly member' a thing of interest to him, save as a guide to the internal condition of a profitable patient. In short, it may be doubted whether concern for his children could have been fairly awakened by anything short of the chance fracture of their bones, or the breaking out of a malignant fever in the household.

When Edward Burrowes returned to Warminster for his last Christmas holidays, he was seventeen, and his cousin Helen thirteen years of age; but though in years he was fully four her senior, in demeanour, in experience of life, and in knowledge of character she was double that number in advance of him. Being at that uncertain age usually denominated 'awkward,' he was by no means improved either in person or manners; having all a greyhound's bony length of limb, with none of the grace that characterizes the canine