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Why, now you mention it, I think I did."

"A kind of heaviness, as if from oppression somewhere about the chest,—a wandering of the eye-"

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"Yes,-true."

“That was at the beginning of the evening. Afterwards, his spirits, without any apparent cause, became feverishly high, his cheek flushed, his eye brilliant-"

"Really, Sam, I wish I knew whether you are laughing at me or not?"

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'Laughing, my dear! 'Tis no laughing matter to poor Mr. Russell, I assure you! He's a marked man."

"I wish, Mr. Good, you would tell me in earnest, what are the symptoms. Are they inflammatory?"

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I should rather say-amatory."

Here Mrs. Good fell into such a fit of laughing that her husband began to doubt whether she would ever recover. As soon, however, as she succeeded in regaining her composure, she said, "Do you actually mean to say that you think Mr. Russell is in love?"

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My dear, I cannot pretend to see farther into a mill-stone than any one else; but the simple state of affairs in the village at present, reminds me of Cruickshank's laughable illustration of the Golden Goose, where the man runs after the maid, the parson after the man, the clerk after the parson, and so on to the end of the chapter. It seems to me that Pennington is in love with Rosina, Rosina with Huntley, Huntley with Hannah, and Mr. Russell, with-which of the two sisters I am not quite sure."

"As if there could be a doubt!-That is, if he be in love at all, which, really, I can hardly imagine."

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And why not? He is still a young man."

His habits seemed so fixed-And what hindered his stepping forward before, when he had the field to himself?"

"Ah, Fanny, that we must account for on the principle of opposition. That we may have, we won't have, and that we can't have, we will have. Till Huntley came, Mr. Russell thought he might have Hannah any day he chose to ask her, and so he never asked her till it was too late."

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I think he would not be too late now," cried Mrs. Good. I will lay you any wager-"

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My dear, I never lay wagers."

•Well!-we shall see."

"Yes," said Mr. Good, as he deliberately collected the fragments of the last biscuit; "time will show! We shall see; we shall see!"

CHAPTER XXIX.

none.

NEW LIGHTS.

WHATEVER doubt might be felt as to the nature of Mr. Russell's interest in Hannah Wellford, the depth of it admitted He was also very uneasy at having been the cause of Huntley's intimacy with the Wellford family, while so little was known of his character. Every one seemed to take him on trust; and Mr. Russell was almost provoked with Mrs. Wellford for relying with such easiness on his having been the introducer, as a gage for Huntley's honour. He had, indeed, early satisfied some compunctious visitings on this score by writing a letter of inquiry to his cousin Frank; but after vainly expecting an answer for several weeks, he learnt that Frank had set off some time before on a tour through Switzerland ere his letter could have reached him; and Huntley's increasing intimacy with the Wellfords, in the meanwhile, had rendered it more difficult and invidious to put them on their guard; while greater opportunities of judging of his habits and opinions, made the anxious vicar still more suspicious that much which was taken for granted, existed only on the surface. These were the doubts and difficulties which had lately withheld him from the White Cottage, where he had not quite temper enough to behold Huntley familiarly established.

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On the morning after Lady Worral's tea party, Mr. Russell was not a little pleased by the receipt of a thick packet from his cousin Frank. All suspicions will at length be banished or confirmed," thought he, as he tore off the envelope. The young artist's letter was as follows:

"DEAR RUSSELL,

"Greek-street, September 25th.

"Only two days returned from a most enchanting three months' ramble which has enriched my port-folio with sketches innumerable, and my memory with subjects for many a dream

"On summer eve by haunted stream."

"Had you accompanied me, knapsack on shoulder, you

would certainly have laughed, when scenes more beautiful than my imagination had ever conceived, made me dance and almost shout with ecstasy; and as I can't bear to be ridiculed when the fit is on me, it is lucky that you were not within sight and earshot. So here is a letter from you that has been lying on my writing table ever since June 12th! With regard to this young Huntley you have written to me about, I suppose by this time you can say

"He has come, he is gone; we have met,
And may meet, perhaps, never again; "

or at any rate you have had abundant time to make out his character for yourself, so that any attempt to delineate it now, will be useless. A fascinating young fellow he certainly is, as of course you have discovered; and though rather lax in some of his notions, by no means so bad as to run away with any of the lambkins of your little flock-provided papa and mamma keep a prudent look-out. In short, the only"

"September 28th.

I was interrupted here by a friend, who carried me off to see a capital Guido just imported. A thousand things have occupied me since, and among others, I have called on Mrs. Huntley. Perhaps you know Huntley has a mother and sister the latter, a charming creature, fair, gentle, and elegant. From them, I learnt that Huntley is still at Summerfield; and what keeps him so long in such an obscure place, they can only guess, as he never favours them with very communicative letters. Emmeline, however, (that is his sister,) suspects there is some attachment in the case; as he has sent to her for music, Italian books, and I know not what besides, all evidently for female accommodation. She says she hopes it may be so, as she thinks Arthur would be a better and a happier man if he were united to a wife whom he thoroughly esteemed as well as loved. And as there thus appears some probability that he actually does meditate stealing one of your lambkins, I may as well tell you all I know of him from first to last, of which information you can then make what use seemeth good. To tell the truth, I began this sheet intending to dismiss the matter in a brace of sentences, and to devote the remaining space to a rapturous description of the Vaudois. But having broken the chain of my ideas, and beginning to

take some interest in the subject in hand, you shall have the whole story without further preamble.

"Huntley is by birth a gentleman: and his talents as you must have discovered, are of the first order. He unites industry to genius, and it is therefore probable that he will rise to considerable eminence in his profession. His father married a very beautiful and amiable young woman, whose rank in life was not equal to his own;-the daughter of some music-master or tutor, I believe,-I am not sure which. This mésalliance offended his family, who would never take the smallest notice of him, nor of his widow and children after his death. Will you believe it? Huntley is very sore on this point, and cannot forgive his mother for being, as he considers her, the cause of his being confined to a rank beneath that in which he is entitled to shine! Captain Huntley left his widow two or three hundred a year, on which she managed to live respectably in a cheap part of the country. Unluckily she had, previous to this time, and in the hope of conciliating her husband's relations, given up the charge of her son to an old aunt of Captain Huntley's, the only member of the family who had not utterly cast him off; and thus, the opportunity was lost of rivetting the boy's affections on his mother and attaching him to home. The old lady brought him up very injudiciously, spoilt him by indulgence, exerted no control over his temper, and taught him to hate and despise his mother's family. The worst of it was that being literally one of the children of this world, she endowed him with no religious principle. Luckily for Huntley, this old beldame. died when he was about twelve years old; but she did all the harm she could by leaving what little property she had, to become his on attaining majority, while the interest meantime was to defray the expenses of his education and supply him with pocket money. Huntley was now sent to school for a few years, and his holydays instead of being spent at a luxurious home, were passed beneath the humble roof of his mother. His predilection for painting had early shewn itself, and as no one united the wish with the power to alter his determination in the choice of a profession, he became a pupil of one of our best artists. As he boarded with his teacher, Mrs. Huntley had little opportunity of watching the bent of his mind, or endea vouring to control it; but at the expiration of his studies, she quitted her Welsh cottage for the purpose of keeping house for him in town. It soon became evident how ill they would agree together. Mrs. Huntley blamed her son for the

expensive elegancies with which she found him surrounded, and which, though by no means out of the way to London eyes, were quite the reverse to one who had long been confined within a narrow income; but as Huntley had just attained possession of his legacy, he laughed at her remonstrances. Moreover, Mrs. Huntley, who may be rather overstrict in her religious notions, was shocked at the laxity of her son's principles and practice. Much reproof on her part and ridicule on his, was the consequence; and he sought refuge from her attempts at his conversion, in gayer society. So attractive are Huntley's manners that he was welcomed and sought out, not only by brother artists of similar tastes and habits, but by many men of superior rank, at whose convi vial meetings he was a favoured guest. Thus courted and flattered, no wonder that he learnt to believe it was at home alone he was undervalued. Female smiles also had some influence over him; aristocratic beauty, if studio gossip speaks true, bewildered his heart as well as his eyes, and there is some story of a painter's beautiful daughter having died of disappointment, because the person to whom she was engaged, changed his mind! As this has not come to my own knowledge, however, I pass it over. But certain it is, that to keep pace with his gay friends, Huntley plunged into every kind of dissipation, and that his affairs became much involved. His mother assisted him with her slender purse; but this generosity, though it touched him with momentary gratitude, could not enhance his relish for the atmosphere of home. He never could help feeling or fancying that there was a taint of vulgarity about his mother, and was repelled by what he termed inelegance and gaucherie in his sister, though the faults of both existed only in his fastidious imagination, and Miss Huntley, especially, is one of the most naturally graceful and elegant creatures that ever breathed. The moment the brush was laid down, he sought for stimulus abroad, among his friends, at the opera, or the theatre. Thus affairs went on till some misunderstanding more serious than usual, occasioned a total rupture between the mother and son, and it was mutually determined that they should part. Mrs. Huntley took a small house near Dulwich, and her son engaged lodgings in a fashionable street where he has remained ever since. A reconciliation was with infinite difficulty, patched up by Emmeline, but no peace between such opposite characters can be entire or lasting. Such is the history of my gay and gifted friend, who,