the cabman; for she had purposely left her house on foot, and hastened back to Gallipoli Villa. She rushed upstairs to her bedroom, keeping the cab at the door; and an hour afterwards Madame Schumakers, alias Van Tromp, alias De Ruyter, alias Co., was in possession of MRS. MELLOR'S DIAMONDS. but most pressing inquiries from, among other | wheeler. This time she did not haggle with West-end tradesmen, Messrs. Tulle and Tabbinet of Regent Street, Messrs. Goer, Gauffer, and Gigot of Mount Street, Grosvenor Square, and Madame Coraline of the Burlington Arcade -as to whether Mrs. Surbiton P. Mellor would at once forward them cheques for the amounts as per margin, or whether they should instruct their solicitors to make application to Mr. Surbiton P. Mellor. The poor woman was in despair. She had spent her last quarter's pinmoney to the last farthing weeks before. Only five days previously her husband had presented her with a cheque for fifty pounds, "for the missionaries," as he jocosely said. Alas! she had paid five-and-forty pounds at once to the cannibals, and they were still hungering for her flesh and her blood. "How am I to find a hundred pounds?" she cried desperately. "I could as easily find a hundred millions. I can't give you a hundred pence; and if you speak to my husband I shall be utterly and entirely ruined." "Bah!" replied the Dutchwoman; "fat vor you drubble yourself so moch, mein tear! It is easy enov. De moneys is comeatterful. You af your tiamonds." "My diamonds!" "Yes, surely. De peautiful tiamonds Mr. Mellor (de gind shentlemans!) he puy you only last year, an' gif you on your boffday when you vash dwenty-doo." "But Mr. Mellor likes me to wear those diamonds. He was looking at them in my jewel-case only this morning, and admiring them; and I am to wear them this very night at the French plays." Now these diamonds, the birth-day present of Surbiton P. Mellor, Esq., and which had cost at Messrs. Hancock's no less a sum than seven hundred and fifty pounds, consisted of a necklace, two bracelets, a locket, a spray for the hair, and a pair of ear-rings, all in brilliants of the purest water. They were to be held in pledge by Madame Schumakers for the sum of four hundred pounds, which she alleged to be due to her, and were to be restored to Mrs. Mellor on the payment of four hundred and fifty pounds; the balance being advanced to that demented woman in cash, and Madame Schumakers very generously charging nothing at all for interest. Meanwhile Mrs. Mellor took home a morocco-case, containing a suite of diamonds, which certainly appeared to be the exact counterpart of her real gems; and in this suite she attended, as previously arranged, the performance of the French plays with her attached husband, and was infinitely admired for the splendour of her parure. A few evenings afterwards-they were to dine at home and alone- Mr. Mellor was, contrary to his established habits, fully threequarters of an hour late. When he did come, it was in a state of great disorder, and with a pale and disturbed countenance. For a long time he remained silent, and the dinner was sent down untasted. Then he hastily swallowed a glass of sherry; and after pacing the room for some time, thus addressed himself to speech: 66 'Mall"-this was her petit nom-"I have some terrible news to tell you." "Bah, I say agen. Fat a tear liddle stoopid lof of a laty you are! Dere is tiamonds and tiamonds. Bring me de britty liddle dings, and I vill ged dem match by vour o'glock dis fery avternoon; and I vill lent you vivdy bounds more, and geep them in bledge, and lent you de oders vich is baste, and your hovspond he not know nefer one tam ding aboud de drick ve blay. Ah, ah! Ha!" And Madame Schu- | makers took snuff like an ogress-if ogresses as her husband was concerned, even a worse ever took snuff, which I believe they did. She turned pale, and felt ready to swoon; she thought for a moment that the bank had broken. It was not that, however, Lut, so far calamity. He explained that he had recently What was the wretched Maude Matilda embarked in very hazardous speculations, and Wilhelmina to do? What but bow down be- that those speculations had proved unlucky. fore the demon and obey her? This interview, He was, he said, on the very verge and brink I may observe, took place about noon in the of ruin. He had embezzled a large amount of upper room of a house in Newman Street, the funds of the bank, and an investigationOxford Street, where Madame Schumakers, which might take place at any moment-would trading under the name of Van Tromp, De inevitably lead to his arrest on a criminal Ruyter, and Co., announced herself, with her charge. He had raised money, he said, on all partner and the company, to be dealers in his available property. There was a bill of articles of vertu. Her victim took a four-sale on the fine furniture in Gallipoli Villa, 296 the lease of the house was mortgaged; but he stil lacked four hundred pounds to complete, the deficiency in his accounts. "Four hundred pounds," he concluded, would After a night spent in infinite and sleepless This paid over the amount at once in crisp bank- She went home half-distracted. In the Somebody lived in very grand style in the she must brave it. Albany-and in very grand style too-and was highly curled, oiled, ringed, chained, Mossby-Mr. Algernon Mossby; and somepinned, and locketed. Somebody's name was body else-by whom may be meant everybody or anybody-declared that the name of Algernon Mossby was only an elegant paraphrase of Moses. Mr. Mossby was a frequent visitor at the less aristocratic appellation of Abraham Gallipoli Villa; Mr. Mossby had horses and carriages and a yacht; Mr. Mossby was a gay man, a fashionable man; and Mr. Mossby admired Mrs. Surbiton P. Mellor to distraction, and had frequently insinuated that not only was his heart laid at her feet, but that his purse was at her command. She had been a good and true wife to her husband, and had never given the oily, imShe was determined to give pudent, much bejewelled Jew any undue encouragement. him none now, dire as was her extremity. She went nevertheless to his chambers in the Albany within an hour after leaving Mr. Scantleberry's establishment; and she fell on her knees before Mr. Algernon Mossby, and besought him to save her from utter ruin and destruction. Mr. Mossby behaved with thorough gallantry. He admitted that eight hundred pounds was a very large sum, but he thought, he said, that he could at once oblige her with a cheque for the amount. For all security he merely required her note of hand, payable on demand for the sum of eight hundred pounds and for "value received." "That is enough, my dear Mrs. Mellor," said Mr. Algernon Mossby, as he handed her the cheque and locked up the promissory note in his cash-box. "I will make my demand all in good time. That little scrap of writing is quite sufficient to ruin your reputation if produced; and I have no doubt, that ere I produce it we shall have arrived at a very satisfactory understanding. Allow me to conduct you to the door; the staircase is rather dark." Half-distraught she hastened to Mr. Scantleberry's, stopping on her way at the bank to get the cheque cashed. She had still the fifty pounds which the Dutchwoman had advanced to her on the previous day; and with the eight hundred lent to her by Mr. Algernon Mossby, she felt that one great peril was at least surmounted. Mr. Scantleberry seemed somewhat surprised to see her; but on her producing the loan-bond and the requisite money, handed her over the diamonds. She hurried then to Madame Schumakers in Foley Street, who was delighted to see her; the more so, she said, as she was starting for Rotterdam that very evening. To her Mrs. Mellor handed the sum of four hundred and fifty pounds, and received her jewel-case and her own diamonds. Now she felt relieved. She would hasten back to Mr. Scantleberry's, re-pawn her diamonds, and then give Mossby back half his money. He would surely wait for the rest. It was four in the afternoon ere she reached Beaufort Buildings, and in a few half-incoherent words explained that, through unforeseen events, she was compelled to renew the transaction of the previous day. The pawnbroker bowed, observed that such things frequently happened in the way of business, and proceeded to examine the jewels-merely, he observed, as a matter of form. Mrs. Mellor felt perfectly at ease as he weighed and tested them; in this, at least, there was no fraud, she thought. Suddenly the pawnbroker fixed upon her a searching glance. "These are not the stones you brought me yesterday, madam," he said. "At all events," Mrs. Mellor faltered out, "they are my own jewels, and fully worth the sum I ask upon them." "I only know," replied Mr. Scantleberry, very slowly and deliberately, and handing her back her " 'diamonds,' "that the stones you brought me yesterday were genuine, and of great value-and that these are FALSE." "False!" "False, madam; you may take them to any lapidary-to any judge of precious stones in London, and he will tell you that they are not worth ten pounds. There has been some very ugly mistake here.' And with a low bow Mr. Scantleberry retired into his back office. She found herself, she knew not how, in the street. She was now utterly, entirely ruined. She had no diamonds at all, either in pledge or in her own possession; and the accursed Mr. Algernon Mossby of the Albany held her note of hand for eight hundred pounds "for value received." She would go home, she thought, and kill herself. "No, my darling," said Surbiton P. Mellor that night, when she had thrown herself at his feet, and with passionate tears and outeries confessed all; "you are not ruined; no harm has come to you at all, or to me either, for the matter of that. I have merely been reading you a little lesson, to cure you of your one fault-extravagance. The diamonds I gave you on your birthday were false. I knew that, sooner or later, they would come into the possession of that Dutch beldame Schumakers; I found the hag out, and took her into my pay; I intrusted to her the real diamonds, which she gave you as imitation ones. They were the real stones we pawned, and the sham ones which you afterwards vainly endeavoured to pledge. As to Mr. Algernon Mossby, he is my very good friend and agent to command. Here is your note of hand; and it may relieve your mind to know, that I was concealed in the next room throughout your interview with that obliging gentleman in the Albany. will come no more to this house, and he has five hundred good reasons for holding his tongue. Now, then, come and give me a kiss, and to-morrow morning I'll give you your real diamonds and your sham ones too. Only, under any circumstances, don't take either the genuine or the spurious ones to Foley Street, to Beaufort Buildings, or to the Albany." He The cure was efficacious and complete. Mrs. Surbiton P. Mellor has since made considerable additions to her jewel-case; but she has ceased to raise money either on the hypothecation of her personal effects or on notes of hand. HOME AT LAST. Sister Mary, come and sit Here beside me in the bay With the last gleams of the day. Steeped in crimson through and through, Look! the rook flies westward, darling, See, in dusky clouds the starling Through the lakes of mist, that lie And each heart is whispering "Home- Mary! in your great gray eyes Young and strong and hopeful-hearted- Yet He was patient-slow to wrath, Though every day provoked And still the same rich feast was spread The clouds drew up, the shadows fled, Of darkness and of doubt. CAROLINE BOWLES SOUTHEY. THE RUSTIC WREATH. [Mary Russell Mitford, born at Alresford, Hampshire, 16th December, 1786; died at Swallowfield, near Reading, 10th January, 1855. The extravagance of her father, Dr. Mitford, dissipated a considerable fortune which her mother had possessed, and also made away with £20,000 which Miss Mitford, at the age of ten, had obtained as a prize in a lottery. It was the pecuniary difficulties of her family which suggested to her the idea of authorship as a profession, and in 1806 she began her literary career with a volume of Miscellaneous Verse, which was favourably received everywhere except in the Quarterly. In the succeeding year she made a more ambitious venture, and issued Christina, or the Maid of the South Seas, a narrative poem founded on the romantic incidents which followed the mutiny of the Bounty. Her genius and persevering energy achieved the greatest success in poetry, drama, and fiction. Of her plays the most notable are, Jalian, a Tragedy, first performed in 1823 with Macready in the part of hero; The Foscari, a Tragedy, 18.6; Rienzi, 1828; and Charles the First. But of all her works the most widely appreciated is Our Village: Sketches of Rural Character and Scenery. The first of these sketches appeared in the Lady's Magazine, 1819; they were subsequently collected, and with the additions made to them from year to year formed five volumes-the first having been published in 1824, the last in 1832. In the Noctes, Christopher North speaks of Miss Mitford as "that charming painter of rural life;" and the Shepherd says, “Oh, sir, but that leddy has a fine and bauld hand, either at a sketch or finished picture." Her Recollections of a Literary Life (1852) form a work full of useful memoranda about books, places, and people. Bentley and Son have recently published in three volumes a life of Miss Mitford, told by herself in letters to her friends." It is edited by the Rev. A. G. L'Estrange, and has an introductory memoir by the late Rev. William Harness, her literary executor.] I had taken refuge in a harvest-field belonging to my good neighbour, Farmer Creswell: a beautiful child lay on the ground, at some little distance, whilst a young girl, resting from the labour of reaping, was twisting a rustic wreath-enamelled corn-flowers, brilliant poppies, snow-white lily-bines, and light fragile harebells, mingled with tufts of the richest wheat-ears-around its hat. There was something in the tender youthfulness of these two innocent creatures, in the pretty, though somewhat fantastic, occupation of the girl, the fresh wild flowers, the ripe and swelling corn, that harmonized with the season and the hour, and conjured up memories of "Dis and Proserpine," and of all that is gorgeous and graceful in old mythology-of the lovely Lavinia of our own poet, and of that finest pastoral in the world, the far lovelier Ruth. But these fanciful associations soon vanished before the real sympathy excited by the actors of the scene, both of whom were known to me, and both objects of a sincere and lively interest. The young girl, Dora Creswell, was the orphan niece of one of the wealthiest yeomen in our part of the world, the only child of his only brother; and, having lost both her parents whilst still an infant, had been reared by her widowed uncle as fondly and carefully as his own son Walter. He said that he loved her quite as well, perhaps he loved her better; for, although it were impossible for a father not to be proud of the bold, handsome youth, who at eighteen had a man's strength and a man's stature, was the best ringer, the best cricketer, and the best shot in the county, yet the fair Dora, who, nearly ten years younger, was at once his handmaid, his housekeeper, his plaything, and his companion, was evidently the very apple of his eye. Our good farmer vaunted her accomplishments, as men of his class are wont to boast of a high-bred horse or a favourite grayhound. She could make a shirt and a pudding, darn stockings, rear poultry, keep accounts, and read the newspaper: was as famous for gooseberry wine as Mrs. Primrose, and could compound a syllabub with any dairy-woman in the county. There was not such a handy little creature anywhere; so thoughtful and trusty about the house, and yet, out of doors, as gay as a lark, and as wild as the wind-nobody was like his Dora. So said and so thought Farmer Creswell; and, before Dora was ten years old, he had resolved that, in due time, she should marry his son Walter, and had informed both parties of his intention. Now, Farmer Creswell's intentions were well known to be as unchangeable as the laws of the Medes and Persians. He was a fair speci |