lars, the only one professing respectability of his acquaintance, was showing a system of reformation, previous to his marriage, by gently cutting him. "Ed io anche sono pittore - that is to say I, too, will be married," muttered Fitz-Henry, as he entered the drawing-room of the pretty Jennie de Meranville, who was industriously winding a skein of netting-silk, thrown over the dumpy fingers of Theophilus Rushford, Esq. the rich heir of some doughty stockbroker, dead some two years back, and who left him everything but the requisites for a man of fashion; which character, unfortunately, was the only one that he ambitioned.

Removing the skein of silk from his fingers, with much coolness and more rudeness, FitzHenry soon drove the rosy-cheeked millionnaire from the apartment, who felt that he could stand effrontery of any kind but that of a nobleman. He was no sooner gone, than FitzHenry, throwing himself on the sofa by the side of the somewhat irritated Jennie, com

menced his first step towards retrieving his evil ways, and said, "Jennie, ma petite reine, the governor is going to be married'; suppose you and I follow so noble an example. Will you marry me, Jennie, and become a miladi and an honest woman? here's a cheque for five thousand. We'll pass our honeymoon at Vienna, and you shall have your diamonds fresh set the money will just serve our turn. Come, Jennie, will you not blush a kind con

sent ?"

Jennie did blush; but it was with the earnestness by which she sought to turn Fitz-Henry from this folie, as she termed his new-formed wishes. They would have interfered most direfully with her present views; she saw the health of ce cher Fiche-Henri fast failing she knew that his finances had failed long since; with no very great vocation for the empty title held out to her, she thought more seriously than ever of certain propositions made by Mr. Rushford, whose cherry cheeks and

staring blue eyes rendered him un veritable amour in her estimation. Jennie was not one to be long at coming to a decision; she soothed a great deal of the perturbation evident in the manner of Fitz-Henry; and temporizing, rather than opposing his wishes, she sent him forth in search of his friend Villars; while, by the aid of her maid, the infallible Mademoiselle Victorine, she arranged matters so well, that in a week from that day, Theophilus Rushford, Esquire, was to be seen by the admiring Parisians, driving a smart yellow telegraph in the Bois de Boulogne, with the splendidly-dressed Jennie inside-his newly-wedded wife!

CHAPTER XVII.

"Tears on thy bridal morning! Tears, my love! It ought not thus to be. Come, sweetest, come! The holy vow shall tremble on thy lip,

And at God's blessed altar shalt thou kneel,

So meek and beautiful, that men will deem
Some angel there doth pray."

THE day appointed for the marriage of the Duke of Strathhaven at length arrived, and Nature herself appeared to take part in the rejoicings of that bright May day, and shed further gladness over the scene which presented itself at Riversdale. The old Abbey, with the rays of the sun shining brightly on its painted windows and their Gothic framework, seemed to divest itself of its gloom; while the sparkling river, as it glided swiftly by, with

its bosom adorned with pleasure-boats, from which were streaming the brightest colours, added to the animation of the scene. There was a joyful bustle throughout the village, and in every cottage a toilet was going forward that all might be smart and neat to salute the wedding cortége as it passed on its way to the church.

Neither did the interior of the Abbey present much tranquillity while feelings of a varied nature throbbed in the bosoms of its inhabitants; and although this was a proud, a joyful day to the parents, it was also one of anxiety and agitation only known to the heart of a father or mother.

Captain Cecil was very pale, very nervous; for beneath the exterior of a manly bearing, his heart was open to every tender feeling. He had that day to relinquish his own; his most darling child, into the hands of another; and though that other was the good, the perfect Strathhaven, still his heart sunk with dread