"We went up and made our peace with my aunt, and were presented in form to the Colonel and his youthful cub."

“As fine a fellow as ever I saw, and as fine a boy as ever I saw," cries Jack Belsize. "The young chap is a great hand at drawingupon my life the best drawings I ever saw. And he was making a picture for little What-d'you-call-'em. And Miss Newcome was looking over them. And Lady Ann pointed out the group to me, and said how pretty it was. She is uncommonly sentimental, you know, Lady Ann."

“My daughter Ann is the greatest fool in the three kingdoms," cried Lady Kew, looking fiercely over her spectacles. And Julia was instructed to write that night to her sister, and desire that Ethel should be sent to see her grandmother :-Ethel, who rebelled against her grandmother, and always fought on her Aunt Julia's side, when the weaker was oppressed by the older and stronger lady.

CHAPTER XI.

AT MRS. RIDLEY'S.

AINT PEDRO of Alcantara, as I have read in a Life of St. Theresa, informed that devout lady that he had passed forty years of his life sleeping only an hour and a half each day; his cell was but four feet and a half long, so that he never lay down; his pillow was a wooden log in the stone wall; he ate but once in three days; he was for three years in a convent of his order without knowing any one of his brethren except by the sound of their voices, for he never during this period took his eyes off the ground: he always walked barefoot, and was but skin and bone when he died. The eating only once in three days, so he told his sister Saint, was by no means impossible, if you began the regimen in your youth. To conquer sleep was the hardest of all austerities which he practised : I fancy the pious individual so employed, day after day, night after night, on his knees, or standing up in devout meditation in the cupboard-his dwelling-place; bareheaded and barefooted, walking over rocks, briers, mud, sharp stones (picking out the very worst places, let us trust, with his downcast eyes), under the bitter snow, or the drifting rain, or the scorching sunshine-I fancy Saint Pedro of Alcantara, and contrast him with such a personage as the Incumbent of Lady Whittlesea's chapel, May Fair.

His hermitage is situated in Walpole Street, let us say, on the second floor of a quiet mansion, let out to hermits by a nobleman's butler, whose wife takes care of the lodgings. His cells consist of a refectory, a dormitory, and an adjacent oratory where he keeps his shower-bath and boots-the pretty boots trimly stretched on boot-trees and blacked to a nicety (not varnished) by the boy who waits on him. The barefooted business may suit superstitious ages and gentlemen of Alcantara, but does not become May Fair and the nineteenth century. If St. Pedro walked the earth now with his eyes to the ground, he would know fashionable divines by the way in which they were shod. Charles Honeyman's is a sweet foot, I have no doubt as delicate and plump and rosy as the white hand, with its two rings, which he passes in impassioned moments through his slender flaxen hair.

A sweet odour pervades his sleeping apartment-not that peculiar

and delicious fragrance with which the Saints of the Roman Church are said to gratify the neighbourhood where they repose-but oils, redolent of the richest perfumes of Macassar, essences (from Truefitt's or Delcroix's) into which a thousand flowers have expressed their sweetest breath, await his meek head on rising; and infuse the pocket-handkerchief with which he dries and draws so many tears. For he cries a good deal in his sermons, to which the ladies about him contribute showers of sympathy.

By his bedside are slippers lined with blue silk and worked of an ecclesiastical pattern, by some of the faithful who sit at his feet. They come to him in anonymous parcels; they come to him in silver paper; boys in buttons (pages who minister to female grace !) leave them at the door for the Rev. C. Honeyman, and slip away without a word. Purses are sent to him, pen-wipers, a portfolio with the Honeyman arms; yea, braces have been known to reach him by the post (in his days of popularity); and flowers, and grapes, and jelly when he was ill, and throat comforters, and lozenges for his dear bronchitis. In one of his drawers is the rich silk cassock presented to him by his congregation at Leatherhead (when the young curate quitted that parish for London duty), and on his breakfast-table the silver teapot, once filled with sovereigns and presented by the same devotees. The devoteapot he has, but the sovereigns, where are they?

What a different life this is from our honest friend of Alcantara, who eats once in three days! At one time, if Honeyman could have drunk tea three times in an evening, he might have had it. The glass on his chimney-piece is crowded with invitations, not merely cards of ceremony (of which there are plenty), but dear little confidential notes from sweet friends of his congregation. Oh, dear Mr. Honeyman," writes Blanche, "what a sermon that was! I cannot go to bed to-night without thanking you for it." “Do, do, dear Mr. Honeyman," writes Beatrice, "lend me that delightful sermon. And can you come and drink tea with me and Selina, and my aunt? Papa and mamma dine out, but you know I am always your faithful Chesterfield Street." And so on. He has all the domestic accomplishments: he plays on the violoncello; he sings a delicious second, not only in sacred but in secular music. He has a thousand anecdotes, laughable riddles, droll stories (of the utmost correctness, you understand), with which he entertains females of all ages; suiting his conversation to stately matrons, deaf old dowagers (who can hear his clear voice better than the loudest roar of their stupid sons-in-law), mature spinsters, young beauties dancing through the season, even rosy little slips out of the nursery, who cluster round his beloved feet. Societies fight for him to preach their charity sermon. You read in the papers: "The Wapping Hospital for Wooden-legged Seamen.-On Sunday the 23rd, Sermons

will be preached in behalf of this charity, by the Lord BISHOP of TOBAGO in the morning, in the afternoon by the Rev. C. HONEYMAN, A.M., Incumbent of," &c. "Clergymen's Grandmothers' Fund. -Sermons in aid of this admirable institution will be preached on Sunday, 4th May, by the Very Rev. the DEAN OF PIMLICO, and the Rev. C. HONEYMAN, A.M." When the Dean of Pimlico has his illness, many people think Honeyman will have the Deanery; that he ought to have it a hundred female voices vow and declare; though it is said that a right reverend head at head-quarters shakes dubiously when his name is mentioned for preferment. His name is spread wide, and not only women, but men come to hear him. Members of Parliament, even Cabinet Ministers, sit under him. Lord Dozeley, of course, is seen in a front pew: where was a public meeting without Lord Dozeley? The men come away from his sermons and say, It's very pleasant, but I don't know what the deuce makes all you women crowd so to hear the man." 'Oh, Charles! if you would but go oftener!" sighs Lady Anna Maria. "Can't you speak to the Home Secretary? Can't you do something for him?” "We can ask him to dinner next Wednesday if you like," says Charles. "They say he's a pleasant fellow out of the wood. Besides, there is no use in doing anything for him," Charles goes on. "He can't make less than a thousand a year out of his chapel, and that is better than anything any one can give him.-A thousand a year, besides the rent of the wine-vaults below the chapel."

"Don't, Charles!" says his wife, with a solemn look. ridicule things in that way."

"Don't

"Confound it! there are wine-vaults under the chapel," answers downright Charles. "I saw the name Sherrick & Co.; offices, a green door, and a brass-plate. It's better to sit over vaults with wine in them than coffins. I wonder whether it's the Sherrick with whom Kew and Jack Belsize had that ugly row?"

"What ugly row ?-don't say ugly row. It is not a nice word to hear the children use. Go on, my darlings. What was the dispute of Lord Kew and Mr. Belsize, and this Mr. Sherrick?”

"It was all about pictures, and about horses, and about money, and about one other subject which enters into every row that I ever heard of."

"And what is that, dear?" asks the innocent lady, hanging on her husband's arm, and quite pleased to have led him to church and brought him thence. "And what is it that enters into every row, as you call it, Charles?"

“A woman, my love," answers the gentleman, behind whom we have been in imagination walking out from Charles Honeyman's church on a Sunday in June: as the whole pavement blooms with

artificial flowers and fresh bonnets; as there is a buzz and cackle all around regarding the sermon; as carriages drive off; as lady-dowagers walk home; as prayer-books and footmen's sticks gleam in the sun; as little boys with baked mutton and potatoes pass from the courts; as children issue from the public-houses with pots of beer; as the Reverend Charles Honeyman, who has been drawing tears in the sermon, and has seen, not without complacent throbs, a Secretary of State in the pew beneath him, divests himself of his rich silk cassock in the vestry, before he walks away to his neighbouring hermitage— where have we placed it?-in Walpole Street. I wish St. Pedro of Alcantara could have some of that shoulder of mutton with the baked potatoes, and a drink of that frothing beer. See, yonder trots Lord Dozeley, who has been asleep for an hour with his head against the wood, like St. Pedro of Alcantara.

An East Indian gentleman and his son wait until the whole chapel is clear, and survey Lady Whittlesea's monument at their leisure, and other hideous slabs erected in memory of defunct frequenters of the chapel. Whose was that face which Colonel Newcome thought he recognised—that of a stout man who came down from the organgallery? Could it be Broff the bass singer, who delivered the “RedCross Knight" with such applause at the "Cave of Harmony,” and who has been singing in this place? There are some chapels in London where, the function over, one almost expects to see the sextons put brown hollands over the pews and galleries, as they do at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden.

The writer of these veracious pages was once walking through a splendid English palace standing amidst parks and gardens, than which none more magnificent has been since the days of Aladdin, in company with a melancholy friend, who viewed all things darkly through his gloomy eyes. The houskeeper, pattering on before us from chamber to chamber, was expatiating upon the magnificence of this picture; the beauty of that statue; the marvellous richness of these hangings and carpets; the admirable likeness of the late Marquis by Sir Thomas; of his father the fifth Earl, by Sir Joshua, and so on; when, in the very richest room of the whole castle, Hicks--such was my melancholy companion's name-stopped the cicerone in her prattle, saying in a hollow voice, “And now, madam, will you show us the closet where the skeleton is?" The scared functionary paused in the midst of her harangue; that article was not inserted in the catalogue which she daily utters to visitors for their half-crown. Hicks's question brought a darkness down upon the hall where we were standing. We did not see the room: and yet I have no doubt there is such a one; and ever after, when I have thought of the splendid castle towering in the midst of shady trees, under which the dappled deer are