"What shall it be?" asked Flummery. "Why, the one Heigarth wrote the other day. I have not heard it yet. Go ahead." "In this world you oft meet with a dull prosing soul, Who's content all his days to work, sleep, and eat; Who rots away life amongst shallow-brain'd fools: Who squares off his conduct by certain strict rules. Let cares and contentions come with to-morrow. And though sour-looking earth-worms scowl and deride us, "Bravo!" cried Swipes; "that is a stave after my own heart. Now for the finish of our tale." "Three months have elapsed since the disastrous adventure of M'Mulkin, recorded at the close of our second volume, and that person is now completely restored to pristine vigour and manly beauty. His discomfiture at Stirling did him much good, for ever afterwards he spoke of Duncan with some respect, which considerably increased when the lieutenant gave up corresponding with his beloved Jane. Over the silence of her lover, and the wreck of her brilliant hopes, our heroine ponders with a melancholy pleasure; her heart, however, is gradually closing against the soldier, and softening towards M Mulkin. Indeed, Jane's womanly pride has been aroused, and the galling idea gains strength every day that she has been made a fool of; and no wonder she feels acutely, for the whole country side knows the story, and many are the sly jokes made at her expense. M Mulkin's character for spirit, which always stood high, has risen immensely in popular estimation. Everywhere it is known how boldly he marched through the gates of Stirling Castle and thrashed his rival, although backed by the whole strength of the garrison. "Such was the state of matters when John Brown proposed visiting Stirling, and taking Jane with him. In this he knew there was no danger, for he had ascertained that the troop to which Duncan belonged had been removed to Edinburgh; but, to guard against accidents, M'Mulkin made one of the party. He was a happy man in consequence, and exerted his abilities that day to prove himself agreeable. Many were the little presents he forced upon Jane's acceptance; indeed, his generosity went so far that, with her consent, he engaged Varnish, whom he accidentally met, to visit Midsheugh, and take her portrait in the dress of a shepherdess. This commission was gratefully accepted by the artist, who borrowed half a guinea in advance, to purchase colours and pay travelling expenses. "It was growing late in the afternoon when Brown and M'Mulkin turned into a clothier's shop to make a purchase, leaving Jane in a warehouse opposite to select ribbons for a new bonnet. They were engaged examining some broadcloths, which the proprietor was extolling with the eloquence of a huckster, when Miss Brown rejoined them. The shopkeeper turned towards her when she entered, and such a change as his face and manner immediately underwent! The yard-stick dropped from his hand, his tongue clove to the roof of his mouth, and his face was alternately red and white with shame and fear. But who could describe the shock his appearance gave to Jane? The moment she observed him she staggered back, shrieked wildly, and swooned away into the arms of M'Mulkin. Here was a pretty pickle! M'Mulkin, as he supported his lovely burden to a seat, roared for water; her father shouted to run for Dr. Pillbox; the clothier evaporated into the back shop, and sent his foreman to take his place. In a few minutes she recovered sufficiently to implore them to carry her from the wretch's sight, and though scarcely understanding what she meant they led her out. Gibbs's inn was close by, and M Mulkin supported her thither, in the hope that a glass of wine would revive her. A strapping waiter standing in the lobby was about to show them into a private room, when Jane lifted her head and looked at him with amazement. Another loud shriek followed, and then she swooned away again into the ready arms of M'Mulkin, who was beginning to think that she had lost her senses. Servants came rushing from every corner to ascertain the cause of alarm, and to offer assistance; but the strapping waiter was seen no more, for the lightning is not swifter in its path than were his legs to carry him into one of the hidden recesses of the inn. Proper restoratives were immediately applied to the unhappy sufferer, and when consciousness in some measure returned she muttered, amidst convulsive sobs, Home, home;' on hearing which, her father instantly set off, got his horse and gig in readiness, and drove up to the inn door. Amidst a gaping crowd M Mulkin lifted her into the machine, took his seat beside her, and ere half an hour elapsed Stirling was out of sight. "For nearly a week Jane kept her bed, and, though repeatedly pressed, refused to give any explanation of her mysterious illness. It was not until about two months had passed away that she could be brought to speak on the subject, and then under a promise that it should never again be alluded to; she confessed how wofully she had been duped by the sham lieutenants. Haig it turned out was the tailor and clothier, and the gallant Duncan was an under-waiter in Gibbs's inn." "And here," said Swipes, "I may stop. It is needless to detain you with what clergymen call an application of the subject, for the story carries its moral throughout; so replenish your tumblers, and drink to the long life and happiness of Mr. and Mrs. M'Mulkin." "It was too bad, Swipes," said Flummery, "to change my dashing officers into such unpoetical characters as a tailor and a waiter. I thought you had more sentiment in your composition." Why, man, therein lies the fun; besides, M'Mulkin being a decent sort of a clodhopper, was entitled to win the prize." "I thought it was the intention," said Heigarth, "to wind up like the story we heard at the falls to-night, by drowning the heroine." "I've no talent for working-up the agonies," answered Swipes; "and I think it would have been a pity to drown poor Jane. Recollect also that magazines would not be read, and circulating libraries would go to the deuce, unless stories ended with a marriage. But it is now getting late, and the sooner we drink duch and dharris the better, and retire to bed." THE VIRGIN BRIDE. PART I. "PRAY, my good fellow, who is that young and beautiful widow who appears to have adopted the dark drapery of woe only to enhance the exceeding fairness of her lovely face?" "Ah, my dear sir, that young lady has had but too good cause to wear that sombre dress. Two months ago she was a blushing and blooming bride, the pride of our town and neighbourhood, and now she is the object of our sympathy and condolence. Let us hope that this first dire lesson of adversity may teach her to read more truly the difference between thoughtless impulses of blind adulation and the calm and subdued attention of a love founded on mutual esteem." Such was the tenor of a conversation induced upon seeing a young widow walking arm and arm to the church with an elderly lady, dressed also in the deepest mourning. This was the first occasion on which Fanny Templeton and her mother had appeared in public since the occurrence of an event which had plunged them in the deepest misery and abasement of spirit. Those who with them were also wending their way to the same house of God, felt too severely for their misfortunes to venture upon disturbing the sacred solitude of their melancholy; and as the afflicted couple walked slowly on, every whisper of pity was suppressed, and every footstep fell more slowly to the ground, to which every eye was turned. Poor Fanny Templeton thought every one so young and fair, and yet so miserable! Francis Templeton, the father of our heroine, had been (for he was now dead) a rich merchant in one of the large seaport towns in the south of England. He had been a man of a speculative turn of mind, and in addition to carrying on his general business, he had dabbled extensively in mines and railway shares, and taken an interest in nearly every one of the local companies that had ever been established in his vicinity. As a consequence of such speculations, he never could have truly estimated the real value of his moneyed resources. Money was always at his command; it flowed into his coffers freely, and was expended with the same recklessness with which it had been acquired. His sons indulged in the most expensive amusements, and horse-racing and yachting employed the time and exhausted the resources which ought to have been devoted to the prosecution of their father's business, of which they were permitted to divide the profits without sharing in the toils. Fortune, which had favoured Mr. Templeton as long as he had assiduously courted her, at last began to frown. Mines, which had formerly returned cent. per cent., turned out to be dead failures, and yet they were clung to with an obstinacy that seemed to partake more of the infatuation of the gambler than the calculation of the merchant. Inattention to business on the part of the principal led to carelessness and peculation on the part of the dependents; and Francis Templeton, though indulging in a country house and chaise and pair, was probably a poorer man than when he sat behind his own counter, and told over every night his own gains. Misfortunes, which never come singly, accumulated rapidly round the unhappy Mr. Templeton. His eldest son absconded with a considerable sum of his father's money, which he soon squandered in wantonness, extravagance, and gambling, and then, enlisting into a regiment bound for the East Indies, he was never more heard of, and it was believed he was one of the victims of the fatal Afghanistan expedition. The second son was drowned from the capsizing of his own fancyrigged cutter; and the old man himself, overpowered by a press of calamities, was seized with an attack of apoplexy, from the effects of which he died in a few days, leaving behind him the wreck of a large fortune, to be divided between his widow, his daughter, and his lawyers. Fanny Templeton, at the period of the opening of our tale, was just budding into womanhood; being an only daughter, she had been a favourite if not a spoiled child, her every fancy had been humoured-her every wish gratified; of a lively and active disposition, she had joined in the feastings of her brothers more as a partner than a protégée, and Fanny might often have been seen skimming the land-locked bosom of the waters in their little skiff, or prancing or galloping her little pony in frolicsome excursion, and in feats of archery few could excel her. Her accomplishments in the drawing-room were equal to her abilities in the field; she was a proficient in music and drawing, and her dancing was, indeed, the "poetry of motion." There was no possibility of being indifferent to the attractions of Fanny Templeton, for independent of grace, liveliness, youth, and beauty, and inclination to use and an ability to exert these charms, she revelled in the consciousness of her own powers, and she claimed the attentions of the timid and reserved by her affability, while she knew how to check the advances of the forward by assuming indifference or raillery. It is too much the custom to paint heroines as perfect-perfect in mind as in body. Fanny is a heroine of true life and not of romance. She was not perfect; she was more formed to be the admiration of many than the idol of one; she enjoyed more the homage paid to her attractions, than she valued the respect due to her abilities. To a girl of such a volatile disposition the loss of a father, her natural protector, and of her brothers, her natural companions and supporters, was a loss most irremediable. Her mother was a woman of weak and undecided character, not yet past the period of mature womanhood; she was inclined to look upon her daughter more in the light of a rival of whom she might be jealous, than of a ward whose conduct she ought to overlook, and whose views and ideas she required to direct and regulate. Such weak and unworthy conduct of course rendered nugatory all attempts at maternal authority over a young and spirited girl like Fanny Templeton; she saw her mother's jealous rivalry, and felt more inclined to pity her weakness, than to be guided by her experience. They lived, however, in amity and concord-the mother pleased with the respectful attentions which she shared at least with her daughter, and the latter enjoying the increased facilities which her mother's character, station, and protection, afforded her for the indulgence of her own wayward disposition. Mr. Templeton's estate was left in the hands of trustees, whose duties it was to provide for the due maintenance of the widow, as well as to pay off and receive the outstanding debts; and Mrs. Templeton, as an executrix, had, or fancied she had, a considerable control over the amount to be appropriated to her personal and household expenses. She had always lived in the belief that her husband was a rich man ; never had she been obliged to curb her appetite for display, or limit her notions of hospitality according to the stringent maxims of economy. By mutual arrangement it was agreed that Mrs. Templeton's expenses for the first year should be taken as a kind of standard for the future; and she exerted herself to make them so liberal that she might never be unnecessarily restricted in time to come, and probably did violence to her own feelings by keeping up an establishment as expensive and as openly hospitable as ever it was in the best days of her matrimonial reign; and nephews, nieces, far-off relations, and old acquaintances, found the house of Mrs. Templeton as free, and her table as well furnished as ever. Fanny was gifted with sufficient shrewdness to discover that those who thronged her mother's table and loaded her with such a flow of compliments, did so more from their appreciation of the good things of her household than from the desire to please or anxiety to solace; and seldom did she take much pains in concealing such convictions; and thus, probably, a disposition, naturally too apt to be severe and sarcastic, gained strength from the very circumstances in which it was placed. When we consider that Fanny was young, fond of company, with all its allurements, and not unsusceptible of the flattery which the exercise of her powers invariably called forth, we may well conceive that she by no means discouraged a system of housekeeping which secured her always abundance of companions, followers and admirers, and effectually secured her from ennui. Amid the list of friends and relations who frequented the house of Mrs. Templeton, none enjoyed the favour or confidence of Fanny so much as her cousin, Alice Shortridge, the daughter of her mother's brother a man who, with many opportunities of making a fortune, had failed in every speculation in which he had ever embarked. Alice Shortridge, at the age of eighteen, had been left in charge of her father's establishment by the death of her mother, and had discouraged as much, as her sphere of duties permitted, the thriftless and comfortless extravagance of her father's household; but in vain. Her father became bankrupt, and his creditors, on examining his accounts, found such evidences of gross mismanagement and neglect that he was refused a certificate, and consequently every chance of recommencing business was thus precluded from him, probably for ever. Thus, from being a purseproud merchant, at the head of every committee in the town, he sank down to a querulous, dissipated idler, supported by the charity of his friends, and venting his spleen and complaints on one who was the victim of his misdeeds, though calculated to have proved the grace and credit of his prosperity. From this painful position Alice Shortridge was saved by the kind interference of her cousin Fanny, who, with a generosity and delicacy which did credit to her heart, proposed that Alice should live with her; and she furnished so many reasons for this arrangement, that she really made it appear that the destitute girl was rather conferring a favour than receiving a kindness. Fanny Templeton and Alice Shortridge were constant and nearly inseparable companions, and yet there were few points of resemblance in character between them. Fanny was lively, gay, and satirical-young, sprightly, and beautiful; you were inclined to smile at her wit or sarcasm, though at the same time you might smart under its application. Alice |