nary measure of leaving me a memorandum of the transaction! Why, sir, I might have drawn a bill this very morning-many things less improbable occur and might have had my draft refused acceptance!" of money bags, full of sovereigns, each marked | priated it to himself; and never took the ordi£80,000, ranged in rows on a marble table; that I was beginning to empty them at the feet of the bride with an appropriate compliment-when my dream was suddenly interrupted by the hasty entrance of my valet, who stood pale and trembling by my bedside, and informed me, with an agitated voice, that he had carried my note, as ordered, to the office of Messrs. Drax and Drayton, the first thing in the morning, and he had seen Mr. Drax; but that Mr. Drayton had decamped during the night, taking away with him my £80,000 and £500 of his partner's. I was horror-struck!-I was ruined!-what was to be done? The clock had not yet struck ten, but, early as it was, I was determined to rise immediately, and see Drax myself upon the subject. In an instant-in less than an hour I was dressed, and on my way to Lincoln's Inn. Twenty minues after, I stood in the presence of Mr. Drax. He appeared before me, among the last of the pig-tails, with his powdered head, his smooth black silk stockings, and his polished shoes, the very same immutable Mr. Drax whom I had remembered as a quiz from the earliest days of my childhood. There he stood, in the same attitude, in the same dress, the same man of respectability, calculation, and arrangement, that my father had always represented to me as the model of an attorney, but with a look of bewildered paleness, as placed suddenly in a situation where his respectability became doubtful, his calculations defeated, and all his arrangements discomposed. "Oh, Mr. Luttrell!" he exclaimed, "I beg pardon, Mr. Lionel Luttrell, you've received intimation, then, of this most extraordinary occurrence;-what will the world think?what will they say? The house of Drax and Drayton! Such a long-established, such a respectable house!—and one of the partners Mr. Drayton, I mean-to abscond!" "Oh, Mr. Drax, this torture will be the death of me. Sir-sir-I'm ruined, and I'm going to be married!" "A most unfortunate event. But, Mr. Luttrell, you gay young men of fashion at the west end cannot possibly enter into the feelings of a partner and a man of business. My situation Incapable of listening any longer to the lamentations of Mr. Drax, and perceiving that he was too much engrossed by the perplexities of his own affairs to yield any attention to my distresses, I seized my hat and hastily departed, to seek elsewhere for the advice and consolation I required. "I'll go to John Fraser," I exclaimed; "he's always sensible, always right, always kind. He'll feel for me, at all events; he'll suggest what steps are best to be taken in this most painful emergency." Upon this determination I immediately proceeded to act, and hastened toward Regent Street with the rapidity of one who feels impatient of every second that elapses between the conception and the execution of his purpose. As I was pressing forward on my hurried way, my thoughts absorbed in the anxiety of the moment, and my sight dazzled by the rapidity of my movements, and the confused succession of the passing objects, I was checked in my course by Edward Burrell-the Pet of the Dandies-"Stop, Lionel, my dear fellow, stop. I want to congratulate you.' Congratulate me! Upon what?" "On your appointment: Inspecting Postman for the district of St. Ann's, Soho:-of course you're he-none but personages of such elevated station could be justified in using such “Ay, Mr. Drax, but think of my eighty velocity of movement, and in running over so thousand pounds!" A "Went away, sir, without leaving the slightest instruction where he might be met with, or where his letters might be sent after him! most extraordinary proceeding!" "You'll drive me mad, Mr. Drax. Let me implore you to inform me what's to be done about my money?" "Your money, Mr. Lionel Luttrell ?-here has the same party taken off with him £500 of the common property of the house; all the loose cash we had in our banker's hands;drew a draught for the whole amount; appro many innocent foot passengers." "Nonsense! Don't stop me! I've just heard of the greatest imaginable misfortune. Drayton, my attorney, has decamped, Heaven only knows to what country, and carried off the whole of my fortune." "Oh! indeed! So you're one upon the innumerable list of bankrupts! A failure! a complete failure! Don't be angry, Lionel; I always said you were rather a failure. And so now the attorney-man-what's his name?-has absconded and ruined you for life by his successful speculations in hops." The Pet of the Dandies walked off, laughing as immoderately as a "professed Exclusive" ever dares to laugh. It had made what he believed to be a pun:-That is, I suppose, I dare say the sentence is capable of some quibbling interpretation. The words are unintelligible unless they contain a pun. Whenever I hear one man talk nonsense, and find others laugh, I invariably conclude that he is punning; and if the last parting words of Edward Burrell really do exhibit a specimen of this vulgar kind of solecism, the puppy was more than indemnified for the distresses of his friend, as any punster would necessarily be, by the opportunity of hitching a joke upon them. "It will not be so with you, John Fraser!" I muttered to myself; and in a few seconds I rapped at the door of his lodgings in Regent Street. They detained me an age in the street-I rapped and rapped again, and then I rang, and at the ringing of the bell a stupid-looking, yellow-haired, steamy maid-servant, in a dirty lace-cap, issued from the scullery, wiping her crimson arms in her check apron, to answer the summons. "Is Mr. Fraser at home?" I demanded, in a voice of somewhat angry impatience. "Mr. Fraser at home? No, sir, he an't." "Where's he gone to?" "Where's he gone?" rejoined the girl, in a low drawling voice. "I'm sure, sir, I can't tell, not I." "Is his servant in the way?" "Is his servant in the way? other gentleman's gone too." "His servant gone with him? did they go?" No, sir, the Why, how "How did they go? Why, in a postchay and four, to be sure- -they sent for him from Newman's." The girl was a perfect philosopher upon the true Hume and Rochefoucault principles. She continued to promulge her maxims in the same low, monotonous, cold, languid vein; but I did not remain to profit by them. I hurried away to conceal my sorrow and my disappointment in the privacy of those apartments where, on the preceding evening, surrounded by so many comforts, I had proudly, perhaps too proudly, contemplated my stock of happiness, and had at large expatiated on my many deceitful topics of self-gratulation. How miserably was that stock of happiness now impaired! But, hopeful as I am by nature, my sanguine temperament still triumphed; and as I ascended the staircase to my apartment, Maria's image presented itself in smiles to my imagination, and I repeated to myself, "My fortune's gone!-my friend has deserted me!-but Maria, thou, dearest, still remainst to me. I'll tranquillize my mind by the sweet counsel of your daily letter, and then proceed to deliberate and act for myself." I knew that the post must by this time have arrived. "Heavens! how provoking! Did they start letters were constantly deposited; but no letter early?" "Start early? no, to be sure, they started very late; as soon as ever master come home from dining in Russell Square." "Russell Square!-what the devil should John Fraser do dining in Russell Square! How very distressing!" "Master came home two hours before Mr. Robert expected him, and ordered four horses to be got ready directly." "Indeed! What can possibly have happened?" "What has happened? Oh, Mr. Robert told us all about what happened; says he, 'My master's great friend, Mr. Luttrell, is clean ruined; his lawyer man's run off with all his "Had I approached the table where my cards and was there. I could not believe my eyes; I rung and asked for my letters-none had arrived during my absence from home. the post-boy gone by?" "Yes, many an hour ago." It was too true, then-even Maria was perfidious to my misfortunes. This was the severest blow of all. The cause of distrust was apparently slight-possibly accidental;-but, occurring at such a time, it fell with all the weight of a last and consummating calamity on one who was already overthrown. I clenched my teeth; I stamped upon the floor; I tossed about my arms with the vain and objectless passion of an angry child. My dog, amazed at the violence of my gesticulation, fixed his large dark eyes upon me, and stared with astonish ment, as well he might, at the agitated passion | inspection of my fellow-creatures, discharged of his master. I saw, or imagined I saw, an expression of tenderness and commiseration in his looks; and in an agony of tears-don't laugh at me, for in the same situation, under the same circumstances, you probably would have done the same-I flung myself down on the floor by his side, exclaiming, "Yes, Neptune, everything on earth has forsaken me but you my fortune-my friend-my lovewith my fortune; and you, you alone, my good old faithful dog, are constant to me in the hour of my affliction!" I started up and paced my apartment backwards and forwards with wide and hurried strides, fevered with the rapid succession of painful events, bewildered in mind, afflicted at heart, perplexed in the extreme! Impelled by that restlessness of body which results from the agitation of the mind, I took up my hat, called Neptune to follow me, and prepared to seek abroad that distraction for my grief which could not be found in the quiet of my home. In leaving the room my eye accidentally glanced toward my pistols. My hand was on the lock of the door. I perceived that to approach the place where they lay was like tempting hell to tempt me; but a thought flashed across my mind, that to die were to punish the unworthy authors of my sorrowwere to strike imperishable remorse to the hearts of Maria and of John;—and I took the pistols with me, muttering, as I concealed them in my breast, "Perhaps I may want them." In this frame of mind, wandering through back and retired streets, with no other motive to direct me than the necessity of locomotion, I at length found myself on the banks of the Thames, at no great distance from Westminster Bridge. My boat was kept near this place. On the water I should be delivered from all apprehension of observing eyes. I should be alone with my sorrow; and, unfavourable as the season and the weather were, I proceeded to the spot where my boat was moored. "Bad time for boating, Mr. Luttrell," said Piner, who had the charge of my wherry; "it's mortal cold, and there's rain getting out there to the windward." But careless of his good-natured remonstrances, I seized the oars impatiently from his hand, and proceeded in angry silence to the boat. I pushed her off, and rowed rapidly up the river towards Chelsea, with Neptune lying at my feet. When I thus found myself alone upon the water, with none to know, or mark, or overhear me, my grief, breaking through all the restraints that had confined it as long as I was exposed to the itself in vehement exclamations of indignant passion. "Fool!-idiot that I was to trust them! Nothing on earth shall ever induce me now to look upon them again. Oh, Maria! I should have thought it happiness enough to have died for you; and you to desert me-to fall away from me too, at the moment when a single smile of yours might have indemnified me for all the wrongs of fortune, all the treachery of friendship! As to Fraser, men are all alike,-selfish by nature, habit, education. They are trained to baseness, and he is the wisest man who becomes earliest acquainted with suspicion. He is the happiest who, scorning their hollow demonstrations of attachment, constrains every sympathy of his nature within the close imprisonment of a cold and unparticipating selfishness; but I'll be revenged. Fallen as I am-sunk, impoverished, despised as Lionel Luttrell may be, the perfidious shall yet be taught to know that he will not be spurned with impunity, or trampled on without reprisal!” At these words, some violence of gesture accompanying the vehemence of my sentiment, interfered with the repose of Neptune, who was quietly sleeping at the bottom of the boat. The dog vented his impatience in a quick and angry growl. At that moment my irritation amounted almost to madness. "Rightright!" I exclaimed, "my very dog turns against me. He withdraws the mercenary attachment which my food had purchased, now that the sources which supplied it have become exhausted." I imputed to my dog the frailties of man, and hastened, in the wild suggestion of the instant, to take a severe and summary vengeance on his ingratitude. I drew forth a pistol from my breast, and ordered him to take to the water. I determined to shoot him as he was swimming, and then leave him there to die. Neptune hesitated in obeying me. He was scarcely aroused, perhaps he did not comprehend my command. My impatience would brook no delay. I was in no humour to be thwarted. Standing up in the boat, I proceeded, with a sudden effort of strength, to cast the dog into the river. My purpose failed my balance was lost-and, in a moment of time, I found myself engaged in a desperate struggle for existence with the dark, deep waters of the Thames. I cannot swim. Death death in all its terrors-instantaneous, inevitable death, was the idea that pressed upon my mind, and occupied all its faculties. But poor Neptune required no solicitation. He no sooner witnessed the danger of his master than he sprang forward to my rescue, and sustaining my head above the water, swam stoutly away with me to the boat. When once reseated there, as I looked upon my preserver shaking the water from his coat as composedly as if nothing extraordinary had happened, my conscience became penetrated with the bitterest feelings of remorse and shame. Self-judged, self-corrected, self-condemned, I sat like a guilty wretch in the presence of that noble animal, who, having saved my life at the very moment I was meditating his destruction, seemed of too generous a nature to imagine that the act he had performed exceeded the ordinary limits of his service, or deserved any special gratitude from his master. I felt as one who had in intention committed murder on his benefactor, and, as I slowly rowed towards the land, eloquent in the praise of the unconscious Neptune, the recollection of my perilous escape-the complete conviction of my having in one instance been mistaken in my anger and perhaps most unromantic as it may sound-the physical operation of my cold bath and my wet habiliments-all these causes united, operated so effectually to allay the fever of my irritated passions, that the agitation of my mind was soothed. Mine was now the spirit of one in sorrow, not in anger. Humbled in mine own opinion, my indignation against Maria and John Fraser, for their cruel desertion of my distresses, was exchanged for a mingled sentiment of tenderness and forgiveOn reaching the landing-place I hastened to take possession of the first hackneycoach, and, calling Neptune into it, drove off to my lodgings in Conduit Street. ness. established at Thomas's Hotel. Come to us directly; or if this wicked theft of Mr. Drayton's-which, by-the-by, will compel us to have a smaller, a quieter, and therefore a happier home than we otherwise should have had compels you to be busy among law people, and occupies all your time this morning, pray come to dinner at seven-or if not to dinner, at all events you must contrive to be with us in Berkeley Square some time this evening. My aunt desires her best love, and believe me, dearest Lionel, your ever affectionate "MARIA." And she was really true! This was by far the kindest, the tenderest note I had ever received. Maria was constant, and my wicked suspicions only were in fault. Oh, Heavens! how much was I to blame! How severely did my folly deserve punishment! The operations of the toilet are capable of incalculable extension or diminution. They can, under certain circumstances, be very rapidly despatched. In five minutes after the first reading of Maria's note, I was descending the staircase, and prepared to obey her summons. My valet was standing with his hand on the lock of the street door, in readiness to expedite my departure, when the noise of rapidly-approaching wheels was heard. A carriage stopped suddenly before the house-the rapper was loudly and violently beaten with a hurried hand-the street door flew open-and John Fraser, in his dinner dress of the last evening, pale with watching, and fatigue, and travel, and excitement, burst like an unexpected apparition upon my sight. He rushed towards me, seized my hand, and shaking it with the energy of an almost convulsive joy, exclaimed, "Well, Lionel, I was in timethought I should be. The fellows drove capitally-deuced good horses too, or we should never have beat him.” 'What do you mean? Beat whom?" The rascal Drayton, to be sure. Did not they tell you I had got scent of his starting, and was off after him within an hour of his departure?" On arriving at my apartments the first object that presented itself to my eye was a note from Maria. I knew the peculiar shape of the billet before I was near enough to distinguish the handwriting. All the blood in my veins seemed to rush back towards my heart, and there to stand trembling at the seat of life and motion. I shook like a terrified infant. Who could divine the nature of the intelligence which that note contained? I held the paper some minutes in my hand before I could obtain sufficient command over myself to open it. That writing conveyed to me the sentence of my future destiny. Its purport was pregnant of the misery or happiness of my after-life. At length, with a sudden, a desperate effort of resolution, I burst the seal asunder, and read-it "Dearest Lionel, I did not write yesterday, because my aunt had most unexpectedly determined to return to town to-day. We left Brighton very early this morning, and are "No, indeed, John, they never told me that." "Well, never mind. I overtook him within five miles of Canterbury, and horsewhipped him within an inch of his life." "And-and-the money?" "Oh, I've lodged that at Coutts's. I thought best to put that out of danger at once. So I drove to the Strand, and deposited your eighty thousand pounds in a place of security before I proceeded here to tell you that it was safe." HYMN TO THE SEA. BY DEAN ALFORD. Thou and the earth, twin sisters, as they say, The summer hours away, She is a married matron long ago Each year; but thee no husband dares to tame; If I had been humbled and ashamed of myself before-if I had repented my disgusting suspicions on seeing Maria's note, this explanation of John Fraser's absence was very little calculated to restore me to my former happy state of self-approbation. Taking my friend by the arm, and calling Neptune, I said, "Byand-by, John, you shall be thanked as you ought to be for all your kindness; but you must first forgive me. I have been cruelly unjust to Maria, to you, and to poor old Neptune here. Come with me to Berkeley Square. You shall there hear the confession of my past rashness and folly; and when my heart is once delivered from the burden of self-reproach that now oppresses it, there will be room for the expansion of those happier feelings which your friendship and Maria's tenderness have everlastingly implanted there. Never again will I allow a suspicion to pollute my mind which is injurious to those I love. The world's a good world-the women are all true, the friends all faithful, and the dogs are all attached and staunch; and if any individual, under any Is gazing down upon thee with his hundred eyes. possible combination of circumstances, is ever, for a single instant, induced to conceive an opposite opinion, depend upon it that that unhappy man is deluded by false appearances, and that a little inquiry would convince him of his mistake." "I can't for the life of me understand, Lionel, what you are driving at." "You will presently," I replied; and in the course of half an hour-seated on the sofa, with Maria on one side of me, with John Fraser on the other, and with Neptune lying at my feet-I had related the painful tale of my late follies and sufferings, and heard myself affectionately pitied and forgiven, and concluded, in the possession of unmingled happiness, the series of my day's reverses. Blackwood's Mag. SONG. FROM THE SLAVONIAN. O, if mine own beloved one But not so sweet, and not so soon, Comes joy to me; for tell me whether Thy sole and virgin throne- Sunlight and moonlight minister to thee; O'er the broad circle of the shoreless sea Heaven's two great lights for ever set and rise, In vast and silent love All night thou utterest forth thy solemn moan, Then in the morning thou dost calmly lie The spirit of the mountain looks on thee Across thy marbled mirror: brooding lie Storm mists of infant cloud, With a sight-baffling shroud Sometimes thou liftest up thine hands on high Into the tempest-cloud that blurs the sky, Holding rough dalliance with the fitful blast; The wet crew feebly clinging to their shattered mast. Foam-white along the border of the shore -Daughter and darling of remotest eld— He tells old tales again— He wearies of long pain, Thou art as at the first-thou journey'dst not with him. |