house, and looked in at every window." Norville Abbey was soon enlightened, like the rest; and Lady Mandeville immediately set off to rescue her young friend from "the solitude which comes when the bride is gone forth." She had been more amused with the accounts of Mrs. Arundel's wedding than Emily might have quite liked; but her favourite's illness put mirth to flight. All Lady Mandeville's kindness and affection were called forth; and Emily might have said with another invalid, "It is worth while to be ill, to be so petted and nursed."

CHAPTER X.

"At Zara's gate stops Zara's mate; in him shall I discover The dark-eyed youth pledged me his truth with tears, and was my lover?"

LOCKHART.

THE first great principle of our religious, moral, civil, and literary institutions, is a dinner. A church is built, a rail-road opened, the accounts of a vestry inspected, a revolution occurs, a subscription is made, a death is to be celebrated, a friend to be supported—all alike by a dinner. Our heathen brethren are to be converted-we dine for their salvation; our musical, theatrical, and literary brethren are to be relieved—we dine for their benefit; for the some-half-dozenth time the French patriots alter their government --we dine for the conservation of their charter; Mr. Pitt dies-his memory is preserved by fish and soup; laws govern the kingdom, and a young gentleman qualifies himself to become their minister by a course of meals in the Temple Hall; and what are cabinet councils to cabinet

dinners?-where the Duke of Wellington once trusted his aide-de-camp, he now relies on his butler, and the decisions of his cook are as important as the movements of his army.

In social life, to owe such a one a dinner is the most imperative of obligations-gambling debts always excepted. An Englishman talks of the Magna Charta and roast-beef in a breath; his own constitution and that of his country are indissolubly united. As a great orator once observed, "the security of your laws, the sanctity of your church, the bond of society, the cement of your religious, political, and moral obligations, nay, the actual existence of your country-its vital interests depend, gentlemen, on its dinners." (I quote from memory, and may be mistaken as to the form, but I am sure I have given the spirit of the speech.)

It was to attend one of these national institutions-a dinner on the opening of a canal-that Lord Mandeville set forth, with a mouthful of patriotism and public spirit; and Lady Mandeville, and Emily still languid with recent illness, were left tête-à-tête.

Night came; and the wind and rain, which beat against the window, only added the advantage of contrast to the curtained, carpeted,

and lighted boudoir; and every gust served as an excuse for shrinking still farther into the warm crimson cushions of the arm-chairs they had drawn almost into the fire. They had no new books; Emily was still too weak for work or music; and it was just the most confidential and conversational evening in the world.

Confidence is made up of confession and remembrances; we all love to talk of the days of our youth; and, almost before she was aware, Lady Mandeville was engaged in a sort of autobiography of herself. It would do, she said, as well as reading aloud, to send her patient to sleep.

I am going to enact the heroine of a narrative, though sadly deficient in all the necessary requisites. Save one, I have never had a misfortune happen to me I have never been in such extremes of poverty that I have been obliged to sell even the ruby cross hung round my neck by my mysterious mother-or the locket which contained two braids of hair, one raven black, the other golden, the first love-pledge of my unfortunate parents-I have never had a fever, during which my lover watched every look of my benevolent physician-I have never been given over, and then after a profound sleep re

covered my hair has always come easily out of curl-I never played the harp-and have always been more inclined to laugh than to cry. My father, Lord Elmore, lived in a large old-fashioned house, and in a large old-fashioned manner. By large, I mean liberal: he was only less indulgent to his seven children than my mother, who I believe never said "no" in all her life. It was not the system of indulgence practised by Dandie Dinmont's 'gude wife,' who gave 'the bairns their ain way, because, puir things, she had naithing else to gi'e them.' But my mother, I suppose, thought, as she gave every thing else, she might as well give

that too.

"I pass over the dynasty of white frocks and blue sashes. Sometimes I learnt my lessons, sometimes I did not; but really that which was no matter of necessity often became matter of inclination; and I arrived at the dignity of fourteen, and my sister's confidante. Ah, the interest I took in her anxieties! the sympathy I gave to her sorrows! it was almost equal to having a lover of my own.

"It was a provokingly happy union-both families equally anxious it should take place: only, my father insisted that Isabel should be