having to disgorge several millions of pounds, under the precedent just created by the said decision. He sunk gradually and never rallied. He now lies in the cemetery of a synagogue not far distant, and on his tombstone, engraved in choice Hebrew, is a correct translation of the thirty-eighth clause of the Companies Act (1867), 30 & 31 Vict. cap. 131.

N.B. The 38th clause runs as follows: "Every prospectus of a Company, and every notice inviting persons to subscribe for shares in any Joint-Stock Company, shall specify the dates and the names of

the parties to any contract entered into by the Company, or the promoters, directors, or trustees thereof, before the issue of such prospectus or notice, whether subject to adoption by the Directors, or the Company, or otherwise and any prospectus or notice not specifying the same shall be deemed fraudulent on the part of the promoters, directors, and officers of the Company knowingly issuing the same, as regards any person taking shares in the Company on the faith of such prospectus, unless he shall have had notice of such contract."

THE next moment Fanny bounced into the room, and started a little at the picture of the pair ready to receive her; she did not wait to be taken to task, but proceeded to avert censure, by volubility and self-praise. "Aunt, I went down to the river, where I left them, and looked all along it, and they were not in sight. Then I went to the cathedral, because that seemed the next likeliest place. Oh, I have had such a race!"

"Why did you come back before you had found them?"

"Aunt, it was going to rain; and it is raining now, hard."

"She does not mind that." "Zoe? Oh, she has got nothing

on !"

"Bless me!" cried Vizard. "Godiva rediviva."

"Now, Harrington, don't: of course I mean nothing to spoil; only her purple alpaca, and that is two years old. But my blue silk, I can't afford to ruin it. Nobody would give me another, I know." "What a heartless world," said Vizard, drily.

VOL. CXX.-NO. DCCXXX.

"It is past a jest, the whole thing," objected Miss Maitland : "and now we are together, please tell me, if you can, either of you, who is this man? What are his means? I know the Peerage,'' the Baronetage,' and 'the Landed Gentry,' but not Severne. That is a river, not a family."

"Oh," said Vizard, "family names taken from rivers are never parvenues. But we can't all be down in Burke. Ned is of a good stock, the old English yeoman, the country's pride."

"Yeoman?" said the Maitland, with sovereign contempt.

Vizard resisted. "Is this the place to sneer at an English yeoman, where you see an unprincely prince living by a gambling-table? What says the old stave ?—

A German prince, a marquis of France, And a laird o' the North Countrie; A yeoman o' Kent, with his yearly rent, Would ding 'em out, all three.""

"Then," said Misander, with a good deal of malicious intent, "you are quite sure your yeoman is not a -pauper-an adventurer

I

"Positive." "And a gambler."

"No, I am not at all sure of that. But nobody is all-wise. I am not, for one. He is a fine fellow; as good as gold; as true as steel: always polite, always genial; and never speaks ill of any of you behind your backs."

Miss Maitland bridled at that. "What I have said is not out of dislike to the young man. I am warning a brother to take a little more care of his sister, that is all. However, after your sneer, I shall say no more behind Mr Severne's back, but to his face,—that is, if we ever see his face again, or Zoe's either."

"Oh, aunt!" said Fanny, reproachfully. "It is only the rain. La, poor things, they will be wet to the skin! Just see how it is pouring!"

"That it is: and let me tell you there is nothing so dangerous as a tête-à-tête in the rain."

"A thunderstorm is worse, aunt," said Fanny, eagerly, "because then she is frightened to death, and clings to him-if he is nice."

Having galloped into this revelation, through speaking first and thinking afterwards, Fanny pulled up short the moment the words were out, and turned red, and looked askant, under her pale lashes, at Vizard. Observing several twinkles in his eyes, she got up hastily, and said she really must go and dry her

gown.

"Yes," said Miss Maitland, "come into my room, dear."

Fanny complied, with rather a rueful face, not doubting that the public "dear" was to get it rather hot in private.

Her uneasiness was not lessened when the old maid said to her, grimly, "Now sit you down there, and never mind your dress."

However, it came rather mildly,

after all. "Fanny, you are not a bad girl, and you have shown you were sorry so I am not going to be hard on you; only you must be a good girl now, and help me to undo the mischief, and then I will forgive you."

"Aunt," said Fanny, piteously, "I am older than she is, and I know I have done rather wrong, and I won't do it any more; but pray, pray, don't ask me to be unkind to her to-day: it is Broachday."

Miss Maitland only stared at this obscure announcement: so Fanny had to explain that Zoe and she had tiffed, and made it up, and Zoe had given her a brooch. Hereupon she went for it, and both ladies forgot the topic they were on, and every other, to examine the brooch.

"Aunt," says Fanny, handling the brooch, and eyeing it, "you were a poor girl, like me, before grandpapa left you the money, and you know it is just as well to have a tiff now and then with a rich one, because, when you kiss and make it up, you always get some Reconciliation Thing or other."

Miss Maitland dived into the past and nodded approval.

Thus encouraged, Fanny proceeded to more modern rules. She let Miss Maitland know it was always understood at her school that on these occasions of tiff, reconciliation, and present, the girl, who received the present, was to side in everything with the girl who gave it, for that one day. "That is the real reason I put on my tight boots-to earn my broach. Isn't it a duck?"

day."

Are they tight, then?"
Awfully.

See-new on to

"But you could shake off your lameness in a moment."

"La, aunt, you know one can fight with that sort of thing, or fight

against it. It is like colds, and headaches, and fevers, and all that. You are in bed, too ill to see anybody you don't much care for. Night comes, and then you jump up and dress, and go to a ball, and leave your cold and your fever behind you, because the ball won't wait till you are well, and the bores will. So don't ask me to be unkind to Zoe, broach-day," said Fanny, skipping back to her first position with singular pertinacity.

"Now, Fanny," said Miss Maitland, "who wants you to be unkind to her? But you must and shall promise me not to lend her any more downright encouragement, and to watch the man well."

"I promise that faithfully," said Fanny-an adroit concession, since she had been watching him like a cat a mouse for many days.

"Then you are a good girl; and to reward you I will tell you in confidence all the strange stories I have discovered to-day."

"Oh, do, aunt!" cried Fanny ; and now her eyes began to sparkle with curiosity.

Miss Maitland then bade her observe that the bedroom window was not a French casement, but a doublesash window closed at present because of the rain; but it had been wide open at the top all the time.

"Those two were smoking, and talking secrets: and, child," said the old lady, very impressively, "if you-want-to-know-what gentlemen really are, you must be out of sight, and listen to them, smoking. When I was a girl, the gentlemen came out in their true colours over their wine. Now they are as close as wax, drinking; and, even when they are tipsy, they keep their secrets. But once let them get by themselves and smoke, the very air is soon filled with scandalous secrets none of the ladies in the house ever dreamed of. Their real characters,

their true histories, and their genuine sentiments, are locked up like that geni in the Arabian Nights,' and come out in smoke as he did." The old lady chuckled at her own wit, and the young one laughed to hu mour her. 'Well, my dear, those two smoked, and revealed themselves-their real selves; and I listened and heard every word on the top of those drawers."

Fanny looked at the drawers. They were high.

"La, aunt, how ever did you get up there?"

"By a chair."

"Oh, fancy you perched up there, listening, at your age!"

"You need not keep throwing my age in my teeth. I am not so very old. Only I don't paint, and whiten, and wear false hair. There are plenty of coquettes about, ever so much older than I am. I have a great mind not to tell you; and then much you will ever know about either of these men."

"Oh, aunt, don't be cruel! I am dying to hear it."

As aunt was equally dying to tell it, she passed over the skit upon her age, though she did not forget, nor forgive it; and repeated the whole conversation of Vizard and Severne with rare fidelity; but, as I abhor what the evangelist calls "battology," and Shakespeare "damnable iteration," I must draw upon the intelligence of the reader (if any), and he must be pleased to imagine the whole dialogue of those two unguarded smokers, repeated to Fanny, and interrupted, commented on at every salient point, scrutinised, sifted, dissected, and taken to pieces, by two keen women, sharp by nature, and sharper now by collision of their heads. No candour, no tolerance, no allowance for human weakness, blunted the scalpel in their dexterous hands.

Oh gossip! delight of ordinary

souls, and more delightful still when you furnish food for detraction!!!

To Fanny, in particular, it was exciting, ravishing; and the time flew by so unheeded, that presently

there came a sharp knock, and an impatient voice cried, "Chatter !— Chatter!-Chatter!- how long are we to be kept waiting for dinner, all of us?"

At the very commencement of the confabulation, so barbarously interrupted before it had lasted two hours and a half, the Misogyn rang the bell, and asked for Rosa, Zoe's maid.

She came, and he ordered her to have up a basket of wood, and light a roaring fire in her mistress's room, and put out garments to air. He also inquired the number of Zoe's bedroom. The girl said it was "No. 74."

The Misogyn waited half an hour, and then visited "No. 74." He found the fire burnt down to one log, and some things airing at the fire, as domestics air their employers' things, but not their own, you may be sure. There was a chemise carefully folded into the smallest possible compass, and doubled over a horse at a good distance from the cold fire. There were other garments and supplementaries, all treated in the same way.

The Misogyn looked, and remarked as follows: "Idiots!-at everything, but taking in the men." Having relieved his spleen with this courteous and comprehensive observation, he piled log upon log, till the fire was half up the chimney. Then he got all the chairs, and made a semicircle, and spread out the various garments to the genial heat; and so close that, had a spark flown, they would have been warmed with a vengeance, and the superiority of the male intellect demonstrated. This done, he retired, with a guilty air; for he did not want to be caught med

dling in such frivolities by Miss Dover or Miss Maitland. However, he was quite safe; those superior spirits were wholly occupied with the loftier things of the mind, especially the characters of their neighbours.

I must now go for these truants that are giving everybody so much trouble.

When Fanny fell lame, and said she was very sorry, but she must go home and change her boots, Zoe was for going home too. But Fanny, doubting her sincerity, was peremptory, and said they had only to stroll slowly on, and then turn; she should meet them coming back. Zoe coloured high, suspecting they had seen the last of this ingenious young lady.

"What a good girl!" cried Se

verne.

"I am afraid she is a very naughty girl," said Zoe, faintly; and the first effect of Fanny's retreat was to make her a great deal more reserved and less sprightly.

Severne observed, and understood, and saw he must give her time. He was so respectful, as well as tender, that, by degrees, she came out again, and beamed with youth and happiness.

They strolled very slowly by the fair river, and the pretty little nothings they said to each other began to be mere vehicles for those soft tones and looks, in which love is made, far more than by the words themselves.

When they started on this walk, Severne had no distinct nor serious