"He came over in the eight o'clock train. He will be here in an hour; I have sent the

carriage for him."

her hair.

Colonel Roland fanned himself violently. He was a man easily unbalanced by ladies, and he dared not ask any questions about this new importation-Allen Grey.

My discomfited hero-for Colonel Roland is my hero, though most ladies would have preferred Mr. Allen Grey-strolled out on the portico, leaving Mrs. Brander to receive her guest.

Twilight had deepened into the gorgeous night of midsummer. The breezes gambolled here and there, on downy wings. They came in at trench windows, and nestled in rose-tinted curtains, and rocked to and fro on ladies' ringlets, and kissed the fairest brows, and stirred the widow's gossamer cap, and swayed and swooped impertinently across that choicely cultivated spot occupied and graced by the moustache of Mr. Allen Grey.

Colonel Roland was nervous and uneasy; and to calm his perturbation of mind, he strolled back into Mrs. Brander's summer parlor.

He was

Here he found Allen Grey, a slender, moustached youth, of easy assurance. sitting unceremoniously by Fanny, toying with her handkerchief and golden tasselled fan, and lisping, in an undertone, to Colonel Roland's ward. Such cool impertinence from a mere boy was unbearable. The Colonel drew a chair by Mrs. Brander, who put on some of the blithest, prettiest, blandest, sweetest, and most winning smiles ever worn by widow for a special purpose. Presently a silvery peal of laughter came from the window near which Fanny sat, and Colonel Roland felt like choking somebody on the spot.

"A beautiful tableau !" said Mrs. Brander, pointing toward Fanny and her admirer. The gentleman scorned to look at any such

bold relief. There he sits, with eye up-raised, while Fanny (by the way, in a new dress— I never saw her so tastefully dressed before) looks down into those clear depths, with a look like love-ahem! Her eyes sparkle with a vibratory light; her jetty curls tremble on her flushed cheek; her fringed lids quiver, as do the uncertain dimples about her mouth. Now she turns full to the light, and the large eyes are up, and looking full and bright, and the long curl sweeps across her noble bust, and there is a newer life come o'er our Fanny !"

Mrs. Brander, Mrs. Brander, I pray you, talk about something else," cried the military man, with clenched fist and closed teeth.

I am a writer of very humble experiences, and do not wish to thrust my crude opinions into people's faces, but I have seen many a noble, manly specimen, lofty, profound, majestic, and proud, excessively annoyed by these fellows with easy grace, cool impudence, and the most insufferable composure. Now, this little fellow, scarcely of age, deliberately took the pas right in our worthy Colonel's face. He whispered to Fanny, praised her singing, took her out on the portico, engaged her for a drive on the mor row, insinuated himself into her favor, accommodated his pliant manners to her extreme diffidence, drew her out imperceptibly to laugh and joke, and, to tell the truth, almost made a gentleman present sick.

"And who is this Allen Grey?" the Colonel asked fiercely of Mrs. Brander, as the young couple strolled off together.

"Oh! has Fanny never mentioned him in your confidential chats ?" asked this artful widow, with sweet and indignant surprise.

"No, madam," replied the Colonel.

"Well, really now," said the widow, looking down, and biting the corner of her pocket

handkerchief, "since she is evidently so anxious to conceal it-I dare say she has her own reasons-perhaps I had better remain silent, with your permission."

Our bachelor friend was not unlike a bold, boisterous lion in a net. Despising the frail meshes which bound him, yet every moment feeling and testing their strength, he determined to plunge about, and kick, and cavort, until he bursted them, and was once more a free man.

a sneer.

แ Certainly, certainly," he answered, with "I would not pry into you ladies' affairs, though, upon my word, you are the most mysterious creatures. I am afraid I shall never know all your sex. I am now bordering on forty, Mrs. Brander," (the Colonel had been forty before he brought his ward home,)" and I am totally ignorant of that shadowy race. I see young ladies every day, knitting, sewing, doing fancy stitches, and keeping house under their mothers' eyes, and I exclaim, What charming simplicity! what happy innocence! I question this placid, dutiful young lady, and I find her enveloped in mystery. Love scrapes, parental tyranny, furious heroes, and fierce and relentless romance, all hover about this young lady, who diligently plies her needle, and rises at six A. M."

"Exactly," said Mrs. Brander. "Here is our Fanny, under one's very eyes, so tender and sly, with the softest dove-like eyes and sweetest blushhood, wincing her guardian, out-generalling her governess, and the bold heroine of a complicated love scrape. Who would have thought it?" Mrs. Brander raised her hands in dismay; and the Colonel's heart sank-sank, like a tadpole in the water, never to rise again. The notes of a guitar, tinkle, tinkle, twang, twang, came from the portico into the Colonel's ear, and then the infernal voice of young Allen, lisping forth:

up and down the room, heedless of Mrs. Brander's elaborate person and new cap; indeed, he did not care a pin for a phalanx of widows in smart head-gear at that moment. He walked up and down, and like the valiant Uncle Toby, whistled "Lillebullero," and by that means let off a considerable quantity of steam in a short while.

The youngster took his leave, and Fanny sat by the window alone. The Colonel saw her there, as pure and fair as a moonbeam. Even Mrs. Brander's rancorous tongue could not destroy the prestige of our hero's divinity. The young girl, artless and unconscious, spoke, and her voice's witchery began to throw new fetters over him. He leaned back, and allowed her gentle tones and pleasant words to do their work, just as that remarkable traveller, Gulliver, permitted the Lilliputians to throw their tiny cables over his huge frame, and bind him as they would. The existence of a life-time was as nothing. The Colonel could no longer resist, and he yielded up to her, and no longer battled for that independence and glorious freedom which had once been his. Many and many a fair hand had tried in vain to bring forth music from the deep, grand chords of our hero's once invulnerable heart. Behold, he was being led by a child! Was this the spirit for whom he had waited forty years? It was; and the answer came in every murmur and swell which agitated his full-grown heart.

The night was far advanced, and our guardian, both miserable and happy, arose to say good night.

"Good night!" said Fanny.

"Good night, Miss Vane," was the chilly response; and the monster Colonel strode away. Fanny's eyes filled with tears. Her guardian, who had been the best of men, was so changed. At one moment he would worship his Fanny, and at another, toss her from him with an air. Now, he would in

"Confound that impudent fellow!" muttered the lord of Bloomingdale. He strode

then repulse her like a demon. Poor Fanny was continually in tears; but Colonel Roland saw them not. Roland saw them not. She would have

died before he should have seen one of the many tears shed for him.

He was handsome, learned and good, and Fanny loved him very much; but Mrs. Brander would never let her talk to him. Just as this interesting couple would be on the verge of opening their hearts to each other, in Mrs. Brander would bounce, and skilfully set them by the ears in less than five minutes. This widow and her adroit machinations so harassed our hero that he came very near committing suicide to get rid of her. These manoeuvring women can do a great deal of mischief when they set their heads to work. Imagine a sensitive bachelor, beset by a widow as old as himself, while he was dying for a sweet, timid girl, all in the same house! At every turn he encountered Mrs. Brander, but never a tête-à-tête could he contrive with Fanny. The Colonel vowed that this should be his first and last love scrape. Never again would he be deceived by an angel's face and an artless tongue. Had he not trusted her, and had she not, according to Mrs. Brander's report, been in love, and corresponding with a moustached city dandy, for a year?

These thoughts and feelings brought on another chill, and Colonel Roland found himself in bed on a hot day in July covered with a dozen blankets. His doors were barred against poor unoffending Fanny, and she roved about Bloomingdale like a troubled spirit.

The doctor came and went. John and the housekeeper had the entrée, while poor Fanny was thrust out.

"I does ask him. I puts dat question to him every time he comes; but he jus only looks sideways at me so, and says, 'We shall see, John, we shall see;' which I knowed very well before, miss,” said John, stoutly.

It was evident that Fanny and John knew nothing of this learned profession. Like oracles and good rules, they worked both ways. Our friend tossed and pitched, and finally grew delirious under Dr. Smith's most skilful hands; and now the wise bachelor's cherished secret was gone. He raved about Fanny-Fanny Vane. The discreet physician ordered every body out but himself and John; and they were the depositaries of Colonel Roland's life-secret. "Fanny! Fanny! I love you!" cried Colonel Roland, wildly.

"I thought so, old hoss," said John, winking at the doctor.

"Where is the ice, Fanny? Come with cool hands, oh, come !"

your

"What does Dr. Smith think?"

"Ah, you too hard for me now, Miss Fanny, you is dat. He shakes his head monstrous wise, miss. He may think master's very sick, or he may think he's on the mend; I can't tell, to save my life, Miss Fanny."

"Why do you not ask him, John ?"

"Do you not know me, Colonel? Pray think a little; just let me take this leech from your temple, if you please."

"Very well, sir," said our hero; "do as you like; but Mrs. Brander is not to come into this room; do you hear, John? nor into my part of this house, on any errand whatever; do you understand, John?

"Exactly, sir," said the negro, bowing;

a partridge, sir; exactly, sir."

A little tap was heard at the door, and John officiously bowed in Miss Fanny's maid with the large ear-rings, who came with Miss Vane's compliments and a pineapple nicely iced, and to know how the Colonel

was.

"Master's very bad, very bad indeed, Miss Julie," said John, relieving her of the pineapple, and seeing her safe across the passage.

"Miss Fanny's very uneasy about him," said Julie to John, who was a most ardent and devoted admirer of hers.

"Yes, miss, I understand it all. You can tell Miss Fanny dat he is in good hands-I may say de best of hands, Miss Julie-being myself and Dr. Smith. But we hasn't brought him over yet, Miss Julie; you know master is not an easy man brought over in no time; and he is monstrous reluctant to talk sensible with me and Dr. Smith. He's wuss than a young colt to hold, of times; but 'gently, gently,' says the doctor to me, before I collars him, you see, Miss Julie."

“Thank you, Mr. Steptoe," said Julie; for that was John's name in certain circles, where he was a brilliant and a shining light.

'Very welcome, Miss Julie; sorry I cannot see you to the foot of the stairs, miss, but I am obliged to assist the doctor. Hoping you will call again, I kiss your hand, and say good evening, and so forth;" and with many bows to the dark lady of his adoration, the gallant Mr. Steptoe stepped back into his master's chamber.

Our learned and nimble doctor, of course, did not permit his patient to linger long in his fantastic realm. By means known only to the faculty, he brought Mrs. Brander's victim back to terra firma. And long before Miss Julie and ear-rings again tapped at the door, he was as mild as a lamb in the shearer's hands. He was very pale from depletion, and the doctor had starved him secundem artem, therefore Colonel Roland

"he never seed three days wust a man so, since he was born;" this he said to Julie, in their romantic interviews under the cellar cap, where John went to get his meals and to do a little courting for himself.

Dr. Smith, who was going and coming at all hours, accidentally encountered Mrs. Brander in the hall. Dr. Smith was a bland, pleasant, courtly physician and philanthropist; and Mrs. Brander, as we all know, the sweetest and most irresistible of widows. The doctor was a widower, with five little responsibilities; of course Mrs. Brander dearly loved children, and she informed the gentleman, with tears in her eyes, that she had lost her dear little twins just as they began to totter about and lisp "mamma." This moved the doctor, for he had three at that most interesting age.

"Oh! how I should love them," cried the widow, and made a feint of catching the words ere they passed her lips, and then blushed, &c. Mrs. Brander was never caught napping. She was ever on the look-out for stray widowers, bachelors, and such lawful game as chance might throw in her way.

I declare a looker on might see many phases of the tender passion at Bloomingdale. Mrs. Brander and the doctor just beginning to flutter about the heart when they met in the hall. Colonel Roland literally pining away, and dying piecemeal, of a moustached dandy. Fanny in tears, but still uncomplaining and trembling, and hoping against hope. John and the incomparable Julie on the verge of an engagement; indeed, Miss Julie declared that her decision depended entirely on Miss Fanny's disposition of the sick Colonel.

I do assure my reader, that all the boluses in the dispensatory did not act upon the Colonel with such felicity as Dr. Smith's evident admiration of Mrs. Brander. He encouraged the doctor's passion; called her a charming and accomplished lady, and, by divers and sundry efforts, worked the good physician up into a formal proposal. When

the lord of Bloomingdale again entered the summer parlor, Mrs. Brander was the fair and happy fiancée of Dr. Smith.

But Fanny, our timid Fanny, was grown into a tyrant. She scarcely spoke to Colonel Roland. She tossed her head disdainfully, dressed charmingly, and flaunted wilfully by her guardian, displaying the finest shoulders and most scornful eyes.

Every thing went right with our hero; but Fanny, she seemed bent on coquetry; delighted in torturing him, and concentrated all the arts of her sex upon that unhappy man. At last, growing desperate, he watched his opportunity, and caught her hand as she flitted across his path one evening in her usual tantalizing way.

"You are rude, sir," said Fanny, shrugging her shoulders, and drawing herself up with an air.

Just then, John, who was escorting the lovely Julie under the portico, around to the cellar сар, heard the Colonel say, "My own Fanny, my life, my love!" and all that. This was as music from the spheres to | John.

"Now, Miss Julie, decide me too," implored the ardent servant-man.

"I must learn my mistress's decision first," said the lady with the ear-rings. "Don't you hear 'em just overhead, my lovely lady?"

"Pshaw !" said Julie.

"Now listen, do; take my word for it, Miss Julie, it's all right above; just let me salute your hand in token," implored Mr. Steptoe, ardently. Here John hung on to Miss Julie's hand like a drowning man to a straw, and caressed that charming extremity, covered with brass rings, until he was

"I am going out to tea."

"But it is early-and I love you very much."

"So you have told me."

"Well, I tell you again; I am dying for

you, actually dying."

Fanny looked at the rosy tips of her fingers as though she had found something of immense importance there.

I

"Now, if you cannot make me happy, after all my sufferings, I shall go away. shall go to Europe and never come back. I know it is foolish in me to be loving my own ward in this way, who is so young, but I cannot help it, Fanny; indeed, my dear girl, I cannot."

"You have been very chilly of late," said our modest Fanny, actually stumbling awkwardly on a pun.

"Have I Oh!" the Colonel laughed.

who was going out to tea with Miss Fanny.

There were three weddings at Bloomingdale in the fall; and I am sorry I have no moral to tack on here. The only moral I can find is, that if all handsome ladies were as modest and wise as my heroine, there would be fewer runaway matches, fewer miserable parents, and more happy wives.

Indeed, I congratulate myself on having found a lady who refused the fellow with the guitar and moustaches, and fixed her affections on something more substantial. Where is the lady whose heart could have withstood the neckcloth, the guitar, and the charming moustaches of Mr. Allen Grey! I can only point to my heroine, and say, that, with all those attractions, she thought him no more to compare to Colonel Roland, than Count d'Orsay to General Washington!