lightened American citizen, he would be a British subject, and he will always speak well of England, as he doubts not his friend, Mr. Basil always will of America when he hears it unjustly assailed, and concludes by propos→ ing as a toast-England and America united against despotism and oppression." Then they sang "Should auld Acquaintance," shaking hands all round, and Paul Pearson sings "Ben Bolt," and the Prince, who values himself upon a blighted attachment, and has been telling Mr. Basil privately that unless he marries the young lady who has jilted him, he never will marry at all, sings a very doleful and sentimental song, the burthen of which is, that people in general have been sent into the world for no other purpose but to suffer from blighted affections, which is succeeded by a roaring chorus of "We won't go home till morning," shortly after which the party breaks up and separates, after a severe ordeal of handshaking, and Basil walks home with the Prince, who never leaves off talking in a very uncon

nected strain all the way, speaking very thick, and occasionally sliding a whole sentence into one long comprehensive word, like the Greek, evidently under the impression that he is convincing Ernest of his sobriety-one moment assuring his companion that he will never marry anybody but Miss, at another sitting down upon the doorstep and spanning his ancle, saying with a triumphant look at Ernest as he makes his finger and thumb meet, "That is a sign of good blood!" whereat Ernest laughs heartily, and replies, "It is a sign of a small ancle," and having seen the Prince safe within doors, walks home dreaming of Raphael and future success, in the brilliant radiance of moon-light in New York.

CHAPTER II.

ERNEST BASIL IS BURNT OUT AND BEGINS THE

WORLD-NEW YORK.

ERNEST BASIL (whom we introduced so abruptly to the reader's notice in our first chapter) was the son of a British Officer. Born in England, he had left that country at too early an age to have any recollections of it, and had received his education entirely in the British Provinces. He had left home at an early age, after having completed a course of classical education at his provincial university, and had spent some years abroad travelling in the States and residing in Canada. Shortly before our story opens he had returned home and found himself, between the age of twenty and twenty-one, in

what he almost looked on as his native town, without a profession. The colonies had lately undergone great changes. The people tired of seeing all offices of trust and consequence occupied by parties nominated from home (that is England) had taken these offices into their own gift and conferred them upon the principal and most deserving among the colonists. While thus very properly throwing open a field of ambition hitherto closed to the rising generation, the salaries were so reduced and the continuance of office made so dependant on the will of the people, that many young men (Ernest among the number) looked to a much wider sphere of labour for advancement in the world than the colony seemed able to bestow. About this time his friends discovered that he possessed a singular facility in drawing likenesses and so many hints did he receive on all hands of the propriety of cultivating his talent, that he began at last to consider seriously whether he had not best devote himself to the art of portrait painting in earnest instead of

sketching likenesses of his friends for amusement as he had hitherto been doing.

The advice he received on this point was as contradictory as that commodity generally is. One party advised him to persevere through thick and thin, others told him to distrust himself; some blew hot and cold with the same breath and threw cold water on the hopes they had just been raising; another who had been mainly instrumental in encouraging and even in foster ing his taste for art, was heard to regret that such a fine young man should trust his hopes in life to a profession in which he never could excell, a speech which of course soon came to Ernest's ears through the agency of some goodnatured friend: some already thought him an Apelles on whom all instruction would be thrown away, and others thought it a pity that one who could hit off such striking likenesses and such pretty sketches should not have the advantages of a regular course of study.

In the mean time Ernest had resolved to be a painter, had sent to Boston for oil colours