there's a good girl, don't. I hav'n't a notion what it's all about, for my part. Are you in love ?"

A fresh burst of weeping was the only reply.

"With whom? Come, tell me," said Sir Robert, seizing her by both hands.

"I would expire firtht," replied Miss Trimmer. "It is sufficient to thay that it ith with one who will never return my affecthon." "Are you sure of that ?" asked Craven. "Čome, am I the person, now ?"

Miss Trimmer, weeping more than ever, rose to leave the room. "Miss Trimmer," said Sir Robert, calling her back; "can I-humph! -that is to say, I should be glad to speak to Miss Hamilton for a few minutes, if she is at home-I mean at leisure."

"I will thend her to you inthtantly," said Miss Trimmer, in a faltering voice. "Would, for your thake, she were more worthy-I do not mean more worthy--but more thenthible of the value of your Oh, huth! what am I thaying?-Farewell, I will thend her to you."

THE "WATERY WAY."

[ADDRESSED TO A LATE EMINENT LAWYER WHILE HYDROPATHISING AT MALVERN.]

EXHAUSTED, dear T-, with watching and thinking,

I turn with delight to your "Pleasures of Drinking"
Such liquor as " Medical Malvern" distils

For each pale invalid, in the depth of her hills;
Where now you imbibe Heliconian dews-
Awake with Aurora, and walk with the Muse;
And find every hour-as hydropathists say-
That the highway to health is-The Watery Way.
"Is your sleep interrupted? your ague recurring?
The appetite squeamish? the liver demurring?
Has Dyspepsia laid her rude fangs on digestion?
Are old wine and walnuts' quite out of the question ?
Of partridge and grouse must you shrink from the slaughter,

To adopt the thin diet of Malvern and water ?"

Why, yes!" you exclaim, "its effects are so mystic,

All this world must agree it is antiphlogistic;

Nay, even while freezing, it fosters our clay,

And the highway to health is-The Watery Way!”

Agreed: yet the vessel that tipples the wave
Too freely-too fondly-what pilot can save?
She may swim with a ton, she will founder with ten,
Then down to the dolphins go cargo and men !
"Drink deep!" so some lunatic poet has sung :
If you do, take my word for't, your requiem's rung!

"The Pierian Spring" is a hogshead of port, The generous elixir of senate and court! For which of your "twelve learned judges,"

pray,

E'er left his old port for-The Watery Way?

None! Those "judges" well know that by Water, of old,
The white human race in "wet sheets "* was enroll'd,

Save Noah, who stuck like a Cantab to claret,
Swam lightly, and landed his casks on Ararat !
Where water abounds we may look for a swamp,
Miasmata, megrims, cold ague, and cramp!
But internally used in excess, 'tis a course
That must visit the drinker with lasting remorse!
Be warned, then, in season: avoid, while you may,
The perils that lurk in-The Watery Way!

Think of PITT, Fox, and SHERRY, and "drouthy" DUNDAS!
Think how nobly they held up to Nature the glass!

Not a drop of hydropathy tasted had they,

So their heads, like their intellects, never grew grey.
The fact (that My himself might record)

Is, "they argued like gods, with the claret on board!"
Had they wallowed in water, as "counsel" do now,
Not a leaf of green laurel had circled their brow;
Nor statue, nor fresco, had stuck to the wall

Of glorious St. Stephen's, or Westminster Hall!
Then back to your claret! unless you would trample
On Stowel's injunction and Eld-n's example!
The laws they enacted we love and obey,

And will toast them-but not in-" The Watery Way!"

See yon spectre walk past!-It was once flesh and bone,
Nerve, muscle, and marrow-but these are all gone!
Of the red stream of life that once thrill'd in its veins,
And flush'd on its cheek, not a globule remains!
A dull current of ditch-water, left in its place,
Obfuscates the vision and deadens the face!

And why? Ah, no wonder! in Malvern's retreats
It has swallowed whole fountains, and shivered in sheets.
Drunk water-that might have been quaffing his ale!
Drunk water, as much as might surfeit a whale!
Then, mark me, dear T-, abandon "hydrography,"
Return to your wine, and delay your “biography !"
Or soon I must pen a most tragical lay

Of the Friend we have lost by-The Watery Way!

* In allusion to the remedies of hydropathic practice.

THE CONFEDERATES; OR, THE DAYS OF MARGARET OF

PARMA.

AN HISTORICAL ROMANCE.

CHAPTER XXXII.

PAUL was no sooner in the street than he directed his steps towards the Groote Gasthuis, to seek Brederode. He had but little time to devote to him; for if he would keep his plighted word to the Prince of Orange, his interview with the leading men of his own party must take place without delay: it was not advisable that the great privileges which the prince had granted should be prematurely disclosed, when he alone could transmit the annexed conditions.

The difficulties he would otherwise most probably have met with in his endeavours to establish a better feeling among the different sects of Protestants, would, doubtless, be in great measure smoothed away by these large concessions; but he believed it not in the power of man to effect any permanent understanding between them, and as the free air gradually cooled his brow, and he no longer felt himself under the influence of the prince's presence, he remembered with pleasure that his promises for himself and others had been but conditional, for, upon more mature reflection, he became convinced that the favourable turn that affairs were taking for the moment was little better than a temporary reprieve.

From this subject of contemplation he turned to another that imperatively demanded his more immediate care; namely, the removal of Cornelius and his family. Having not a shadow of doubt but that Chievosa had been the instigator of the measures that had led to his brother's misfortune, and that he would probably persecute his intended victim to the last if he were left within his reach, Paul perfectly comprehended the force of the prince's advice, and determined to get Cornelius out of the country as soon as might be, and, if possible, to withdraw him from the prison in a secret manner, in order that, by concealing him from public sympathy, he might shield him from private malice.

But how to effect this on so short a notice, and that too so immediately on his own return, puzzled him not a little; nor did he know whom to apply to in this difficulty.

Thus anxious and preoccupied, feeling how important was every minute as it flew, he hurried down the Kipdorp-street, and never paused until he reached the inn where Brederode had fixed his head quarters.

The ante-room, usually crowded with loitering domestics, was empty; but Paul marked not their absence: so absorbed, indeed, was he, that he scarce became aware of the clamour of many voices that fell louder and louder on his ear with every step he took, until he stood in the chamber whence the sounds proceeded, when the sight that met his eye roused him from his abstraction.

Evidently the count was presiding over a meeting of the Gueux, which had probably been convened that morning; for a numerous assembly was reunited around him, and the empty flagons and fragments of victuals scattered on the table sufficiently showed that a morning repast had preceded the details of business. Paul, uncertain whether to advance or retreat, paused on the threshold to take a momentary survey of the scene before him.

The confederates had formed into separate knots, each being the focus of a separate discussion, obviously, from the eager voices and gestures of those who composed them, of absorbing interest; but although each group was stamped with a character of its own, age having mixed with age, and youth having crowded together, and the bluff soldier standing aloof from the honeyed courtier-although all the varieties of expression were there which must ever appertain to the members of such an association, from the look of dark defiance to that of pallid fear, from the worn haggardness of the plotter to the weariness of the thoughtless, a general air of consternation and perplexity had stolen over them all.

Some, however, there were-these were the youngest-who seemed reckless and unconcerned; conspicuous among them was Lancelot de Brederode, who, lounging on a bench, was amusing himself with flinging his plumed barret in the air, and catching it as it fell. Among the graver and older men some looked more anxious than the rest; of these, Count Henry, his father, was one. Paul, who expected to find Brederode alone, was about to retire, in order to await a more favourable opportunity for an uninterrupted conference, when a few words spoken around him determined him to mingle with the different parties, and abide the issue of the meeting.

He did not, however, long escape observation. The moment Brederode's anxious eye fell upon him his countenance brightened, as if he expected instant relief from some dilemma by this sudden appearance of his envoy.

"You are come at a very happy juncture for me, Master van Meeren," he said. "The good news which you doubtless bring will, I hope, dispel the effect of certain reports of a very different nature."

"My news," said Paul, "are something like life itself, there is good and bad mixed up together; but," he added, sinking his voice almost to a whisper, "not enough of good, I think, to suit your purpose just now; we had better discuss them more privately."

Brederode's countenance fell; he nodded an almost imperceptible assent, and Paul continued in his usual tone:

"First, I must deliver the greeting of the Lord of Thoulouse-he is a wise and noble gentleman, and a true patriot-he is one whom to know is to honour."

The different groups had been silenced by the unexpected entrance of a new, and to many of them an unknown, personage; and one of the more prudent, warned by this little incident, bethinking himself that, although chance had decided the intruder should prove a friend, when doors were left carelessly unguarded, and that too at an inn, it might as well have been the reverse, cautiously crept to the ante-room and locked every issue; but except in this individual instance, beyond the first moment of surprise, Paul's entrance did not create any interest, and now the absorbing themes discussed before his arrival were resumed with the same eagerness.

"There they are off again!" said Brederode, fretfully; "they will listen to nothing! Hark! hear what they say."

"Who knows better than the Lord of Brederode," said one near them in loud, querulous tones, "that the regent, far from respecting her promises to us, is breaking them as fast as she can? Arrests on religious

grounds have not only been made in many of the minor towns, but lately one of the richest and most respectable of the Antwerp merchants has been violently torn from his home, and that, not by the ordinary tribunals long invested with such power, but by members of the accursed inquisition itself!"

Here Brederode interposed, and reminded the speaker that at the instances of the confederates, Cornelius van Meeren, the citizen alluded to, had been delivered over to the civil authorities, and might now be considered as liberated. But this did not silence their clamours; every one had the fate of some victim to narrate, who was personally interesting to himself.

"Has not a poor tailor been hanged at Dysselt?" said another; "at Dornyck, Ryssel, Brussels, Ghent-everywhere the persecutions are again carried on."

"Has not a poor devil," began a third, "at

"Nay," interrupted a fourth, "these are but poor people, whom they can seize hold of with impunity-the Protestants of rank are spared witness so many here present.' "but if we

"Yes, for a while we shall be respected," observed a fifth ; suffer the gudgeons to be thus netted, they will soon try a cast at the salmon."

"I have it on the surest authority," said a sixth, "that the regent is preparing fresh orders for the Prince of Orange, which will reach him no later than to-morrow, to have all the Protestant preachers-whom she calls the trumpeters of Calvin-hung up as fast as they can be caught." "That is impossible!" exclaimed Paul, with involuntary emphasis, which drew all eyes for a moment upon him.

"That shall not be !" uttered another voice, in deep, peremptory tones, and the gaze of the curious was instantly fixed on the grim countenance of Anthony Bomberg, whose powerful, massive form, leaning against his long, iron-hilted, two-handed sword, which he supported with one hand, whilst with the other he smoothed his grizly moustache, looked the very incarnation of the stern spirit of defiance and unbending resolution which characterised the Protestant soldier of that century. Paul rivetted his eyes upon the bold speaker, to him a stranger, so few were the traces left of what he had been in his youth; but soon his attention was recalled to what was passing around him.

"What does the word moderation signify, which the regent applies to the new edicts?" said one of the ill-fated brothers Battenberg; "well may the people call it murderation!”

"It is, however, a concession, such as it is," argued a youth, one of those timid individuals who, strange to say, often form part of such associations.

"What do you call concession?" growled one of bolder mien; "it is death which ever way you turn it-death to all such as dare to profess, or are but suspected of favouring in the least degree, the reformed faith. Was it not that very barbarity we foolishly hoped our request would put an end to ?"

"And for such concessions we Protestants cannot be supposed to feel much gratitude," said Battenberg; "if we remain faithful to our creed, instead of burning at the stake, as formerly, the gallows is our doom-if