larly striking one. His figure was tall and slender; his eyes were of the deepest blue; and his light flaxen hair fell in long, natural curls round features of the most exquisite beauty. But their delicate proportions, heightened as they were by the softness and transparency of his skin scarcely tinged by the faintest colour, would have been almost too effeminate for a man, had not the expression of his countenance been relieved by a dark brown moustache upon the beautifully formed upper lip, and by eye brows and eye lashes of a yet deeper shade. Such was Charles Lennox in his

one and twentieth year.

The face and form of Everard Effingham afforded a striking contrast to those of his friend; he was of a dark complexion, with large black eyes and raven hair, and his age seemed to be about seven or eight and twenty, for his tall and fully developed person betokened the zenith of youth. The father of Everard was descended from a proud and noble family,

and from him he had inherited that pride which formed the basis of his character, and which

clouded many a generous feeling that lay hid beneath it. Old Mr. Effingham lived to see his son arrived at man's estate, and dying had extorted a promise from him to discharge a debt of gratitude he owed one Mr. Harolde by espousing his only daughter, then a girl of sixteen; and so earnest was he in his determination that he even enforced a kind of betrothal to take place between them in his presence. He died; and Everard, who had disliked the engagement from the very beginning, travelled abroad for some years, accompanied by Charles, as a pretext to postpone its fulfilment. circumstances under which the promise was made forbade any attempt on the part of Everard to annul it, for Mr. Harolde was the oldest and most confidential friend of his father, and had once saved his life at the peril of his own, when in danger of being drowned by missing his footing on board a pleasure yacht.

The

But many other acts of friendship besides this had endeared him to old Effingham, who, when he saw, in the latter part of his life, the circumstances of his friend becoming so embarrassed as to compel him to give up the establishment he had hitherto kept, and to forego the advantages and society of the sphere of life in which he had so long moved, while every offer of pecuniary assistance was rejected, found no other way to express his gratitude, than to adjure his son to consider the portionless Ada Harolde as his wife and as the future mistress of Effingham Manor.

From that period till the evening when our tale commences, five years had elapsed; Mr. Harolde had become the possessor of a considerable fortune inherited from a distant relation, and no longer restrained by the thought of his interest on the subject being imputed to mercenary motives, was repeatedly reminding Effingham, by letters, of his long standing engagement with his daughter, who, at length, could no

longer procrastinate, and therefore had pronounced his departure from the continent to be immediate.

On the night our travellers are first presented to the reader, they intended to start by the packet for Dover; but the appointed time when the said packet was to leave the harbour being two o'clock in the morning, not over enamoured with the pleasures of a sea voyage, enhanced as they were likely to be by a high wind that could be distinctly heard whistling and howling in the court-yard, they had resolved to defer their departure until the very last moment, and were now patiently awaiting the signal to embark.

"Yet it is not such a disagreeable engagement, Everard," said Charles after a short pause in the conversation, during which they had both been intently gazing on the fire; Charles with a half smile upon his face, and Everard with an expression of impatience. "Yet it is not such a disagreeable engagement

-she is young and beautiful, and what would you have more ?”

"I have no inclination to marry at present,"

Everard replied.

Young and beautiful!" he repeated, "yes-I acknowledge that she is so; but to be tied to a certain time; to have no heart or hand in the matter!"

"Well, it is rather annoying, I allow," said his companion; "certainly, I should like to have a wife of my own choosing; but as your father provided one for you—”

"I never would have acquiesced in his determination," interrupted Effingham, “never! had it been made at any other time; but on his death-bed, could I refuse that which he said would alone make him die peacefully ?"

"No, no," replied Charles; "however, I should think the match may yet be broken off; now that Mr. Harolde is enriched by the property you have mentioned, his daughter is placed above the reach of that poverty under which the promise was given."

"But such a proposition could never come