for the return of his father, when that gentleman at last made his appearance, looking somewhat discomfited by the defeat of his candidate.

"Ha!" said the tender-hearted Robert, "I knew how it would be! I see by your face Hicks has won."

" By no means, Robert, he has been defeated; but remember, Robert, the word, ha, is a very ungentlemany word-very ungentlemany indeed. I never say ha!"

"What! Tapps made bellman? Never heard of such a thing; but no wonder, old Simpk's'n has it all his own way. We must all yield, I s'pose, and be called whatever names he likes to call us."

" Calling names is very ungentlemany; I never call names. Who calls any body names?"

"Why, old Simpk's'n to be sure. He laid 'em on pretty thick. I've heard all about it, though I wasn't there."

"Do you allude to any thing he • said to-day?"

"To be sure I do; and every day, I s'pose. When one has such a tidy little stock o' nicknames, I s'pose he don't grudge 'em to his friends."

"Do you mean to say Mr Simpkinson was so ungentlemany, so very ungentlemany, as to insinuate any personal allusion to me?"

"Don't I! Who do you think he meant by all that rigmarole about parabolas, and hallucinations, and tiger's eyes? Your eyes, you know, father, are nothing to boast of; but, if I were in your shoes, I would let nobody talk of tiger's eyes-be hanged if I would!" And with this magnanimous declaration, Mr Robert swung out of the room. And now, oh reader! begins the correspondence.

your son, touching certain impressions detained in my speech of yesterday, on the subject of Tapps's elevation to the bellmanship of this highly civilized and indiginious community, I beg to demand on what grounds you implicate the sensibility of my remarks, and repudiate, with disgust and obduracy, the language and contorted epitaphs which you charge me with having employed. Sir, in the sacred discharge of a duty, I scorn the most venerable asseverations, and cast to the idolatrous winds every consideration but the high and paramount necessity of holding equal the balance between justice and iniquity! Yes, this through life has been my maximum; and this course I mean to pursue, undeteriorated from the right path by all the eccentricities of decorum, and all the sinuosities of acumen. With this explanation, which I hope will be deemed satisfactory, I remain, Sir, your humble servant, "J. SIMPKINSON."

No. 3.

" Mr Padden again sends complipliments to Mr Simpkinson, and wishes a direct answer. Did you, sir, mean to call me a parabola, &c.? So no more at present, but remains"

No. 4.

"SIR, I stand on my right as a public man. I throw myself before the tribunal of my country, and assert the privilege of a speaker, on a great public occasion, to say what he chooses, without being called upon for his meaning. Sir, oratory would be at an end, if its best prerogative were trampled under foot. To no one will I be answerable but to my own conscience; that minotaur, whose voice I ever obey; and therefore, sir, in this concatenation of affairs, and refusing this allegorical mode of questioning, I decline telling whether I meant to designate you as a parabola or not. With these sentiments, I inscribe myself your humble servant, J. SIMPKINSON."

Friday came-no dinner-party. Saturday came-no letter from young Plantagenet: Bob looking pleased as Punch, Mary drooping and distressed; the two old men fidgety, and London, in the bleared eyes of the young lover, a desolate wilderness: and all owing to Tapps's election to the bellmanship. What great events from trivial causes spring!

It was two months after these melancholy events-that is to say, when August had first furtively begun to dip his brush into the pallet of November, and had already tinged the leaves of the elm walk of Buzzleton with the faintest possible tinge of yellow-on the twentieth day of August, 1837, a young lady was taking a disconsolate walk by the side of our beautiful riverpretty foot, plump figure, gentle eyes, -by George! It could be nobody else but Mary Padden! And Mary Padden it was. Not far from her, but sulkily stalking along on the outer row of trees, was the illustrious Bob. It is no wonder, therefore, that Mary looked disconsolate. The Yahoo, as if for the convenience of any of the passers-by, who were not entirely deaf, took care, by retaining his distant position, to force the conversation into a very audible pitch-a conversation, by-the-by, in which he bore the principal part, Mary's portion of it being extremely monosyllabic.

"Why, Mary you are certainly the unluckiest gal I ever saw. Tadgy is a deuce sight worse than Dr Darrell. He's to be married, they say, next week."

A start; and, if the brute had seen it, a flush of crimson, succeeded by a deadly paleness, showed that the arrow had struck; but she said nothing.

"You don't seem to hear what I said, Mary. I was telling you that Tadgy".

"I heard you, Robert; don't talk so loud; every body will hear you." "Well, every body has heard it already, I s'pose. Sukey has ordered such lots of dresses-five-and-twenty bandboxes, with a bonnet, they say, in each of them, from Madame La Plume, the French milliner at Chadfield. Five-and-twenty bonnets!-think of that, Mary"

Mary did not think at all on the subject, but, summoning up a little courage, enquired who Sukey was.

"Sukey Stubbs, to be sure, his own cousin. You know very well. It is

father has forced the match, they say, but I daresay Tadgy was glad enough. He'll leave the grocery business in London, and settle down in Chadfield: I say, rare fun, won't it be, for him and Dr Darrell to live, perhaps, next door to each other? The two deceivers."

Mary deigned no reply, and our friend, the Yahoo, seemed meditating some other agreeable subject of conversation. Suddenly he burst out, as he perceived certain figures advancing down the walk.

"Crikey! here's a lark! Blowed if old Simpk's'n himself and Sukey ain't coming down the long walkand, by Jingo!" he added in a still louder voice, "there comes Tadgy himself, creeping after 'em as if his nose were bleeding."

Before the elegant youth had found time for more exclamations, a hand was laid on his shoulder

"Go home, Robert," said his father, for it was the old gentleman who addressed him; "don't speak so loud on. the public walk-I fear your impetuous courage will lead you to do something ungentlemany, if I am insulted by those people. Mary, take my arm, look away, and pass on as if you never saw them."

In the mean time a conversation of much the same kind, though contained in rather finer language, took place between the orator and his son, Plantagenet. But when the parties actually came near, though each father kept tight hold of his offspring's arm, and carried his own head prodigiously elevated, it was impossible for either of the young people to look as they had been directed, and their eyes for a moment, but only for a moment, met. A moment is a century on some occasions. That single glance showed that, however Capulet and Montagu might storm, Romeo was still Romeo, and Juliet Juliet. Tadgy's blue coat looked rather large for him, whether it had been originally manufactured with an eye to the possibility of his getting more expanded, or that grief and sorrow had worn him away;and his fine jolly countenance seemed in the anxious eyes of Mary to wear a far more unhealthy hue than formerly. But, however these matters might be, she felt satisfied that Sukey had no place in Tadgy's thoughts, and was even rejoiced at the looseness of the coat, and paleness of the cheek.

With no outward recognition-with heads stuck high in the air, and backs unbent as Maypoles, the fathers strutted on the parties pursued their respective ways, the meeting had taken place, and each progenitor felt mightily elated that his quarrel had been taken up by their own flesh and blood, without giving themselves a moment's time to reflect that two young people were, perhaps, sacrificing the happiness of their lifetime, because two old blockheads chose to play the fool.

As the distance grew gradually between the parties, Mr Simpkinson relaxed his hold of Tadgy's arm; and that gentleman, finding himself at liberty, slunk cautiously behind. He suddenly bolted over the little walk to the water-side where he had seen the Yahoo, who had been watching all these operations from one of the benches.

"Robert," he said, "by all that's good and kind, do me just a little favour. Tell Mary I shall be here to-night at nine o'clock. She can easily come this way home from her aunt Margaret's where she can go to tea. Do, be a good-hearted fellow, and tell her. I have much to say, and daren't stop a moment."

"Wont I?" said the good-natured Robert; but, on looking round, his suppliant had hurried off and rejoined the party. "Wont I?my fine Tadgy?-That I will-why, Tadgy has it all so pat, nothing can be so convenient. Wont I have some fun out of all this? Let me see how I can manage." And leaving the Yahoo in the midst of his, no doubt, benevolent meditations I close this chapter.

Aunt Margaret's tea-table had never appeared so tiresome in the eyes of Mary Padden. The old lady's anecdotes seemed to have grown more preternaturally long than usual; the time between the cups more prolonged, and the dial hand of the chimney-piece clock absolutely paralysed. Not that Mary was dying of actual impatience to meet my good friend Plantagenet: I will venture to say she would have survived her disappointment if the meeting had been put off till that day month; but she felt in the uncomfortable state we may suppose some criminal to be in, when he is anxious for the time of his uncertainty to be over. But, in addition to this, she could not help having a vague suspicion that all was not right with her new found confidant the Yahoo; for that individual had not been quite able to conceal the existence of something or other more than he had told her. He had also promised to call for her, and conduct her through the elm walk; and amid Mary's wonderings and speculations, and in her present state of uncertainty, it is not very surprising that Aunt Margaret thought her a very disagreeable visiter, and even had some slight idea of altering her will. At the appointed time, however, the Yahoo appeared, and after a few delicate insinuations against old maids, (for the edification of Aunt Margaret,) marched off his sister,

to the mutual relief of the aunt and niece.

"Wrap yourself well up, Mary," he said, "the night is very cold and dark. Here, take old auntie's bonnet and pelisse; what a fool you are to come out with a bare head, and no cloak."

"You are very kind, Robert," an.. swered the sister, astonished no less than pleased at the affectionate solicitude of her brother. "I shall not forget how good you have been."

" I daresay you won't"-muttered the youth " Nor Tadgy either, if I mistake not; but come along, stuff your little feet into Aunt Margaret's pattens, for it has rained very lately, take my arm; forward, march!"

In the mean time a solitary figure was pacing impatiently up and down the middle walk. As the hour of nine approached, he seemed more and more impatient; the walk, partly from the cloudiness of the evening, and partly from the umbrageousness of the foliage, was nearly dark, and in vain he strained his eyes in the direction o Aunt Margaret's, to catch a glimpso of any one approaching. He stood still, and listened; at last he though he heard a distant sound of footsteps and hastily retreated to the littl beach, surrounded with bushes, an facing the river. "What a goo fellow," he muttered half aloud, "tha horrid Yahoo has turned. It was s

good in him to recommend me dressing in my father's clothes, gaiters, shoes, and all, besides his broad hat and spectacles. Even if Mary is een with a man, people can't say any thing when they think it is my father; and, besides, it is impossible for him to hear of my having met with her, as I defy any one to swear to my identity in these clothes."

" Here we are," said Bob at this moment, "never mind the bonnet, 'tis Mary, I assure you. I will go and keep guard, but don't be long."

Hid

Mr Bob then walked directly towards the biggest tree in our parish, which is called the Pilgrim's Elm, and is not above fifty yards south of the resting-place of the lovers. den from observation, even if it had been daylight, behind its gigantic trunk stood no other than Mr Padden himself.

"You see if all I say aint true, father," said the son; "you go and watch them-such billing and cooing never was disgraceful! phaugh!"

The old gentleman said nothing, but stole quietly to the south end of the little clump of bushes, from which he could catch dim glimpses of human figures, and hear indistinct murmurs of human voices. The conversation between the lovers, as indeed I believe is fitting on such occasions, was carried on in a tone which would scarcely have reached an ear placed nearer to them than that of Mr Padden. A very short time sufficed to explain to each other their sorrow at the dis. agreement of their fathers; and, as I do not pretend to paint Mary as altogether perfect, I will not deny that she made enquiries about Sukey Stubbs, though she felt convinced, without Plantagenet's assertions, that there was no real ground for the report. When Tadgy had told her that such an idea had never entered into any body's head, and was a vile creation of Master Bob's malice, Mary could not refrain from raising her voice a little, while she said,

"My brother is certainly the most spiteful, and malicious wretch in all the world!"

"A good thrashing would do him no harm," was the rejoinder of Plantagenet, in the same tone.

"You old abominable flirt!" thought Mr Padden, before whose eyes floated indistinctly the cloak and bonnet of his sister, Aunt Margaret;

"and you, you old debauchee," he continued, turning his look on the peculiar hat and long-backed coat of his antagonist, Mr Simpkinson." I'll work you both for this. I'll expose them both, if Margaret had ten times five thousand pounds. Malicious wretch! thrashing indeed! most ungentlemany language! very."

The old gentleman, however, managed to restrain his wrath within peaceable bounds, and strained every nerve to catch some more of the conversation. But it appears to have sunk into quieter channels, and glided at its own sweet will from the past to the future, and, indeed, through all the tenses of the verb amare.

"Come, now, I must go," said Mary, "'tis getting late."

"Not yet, my dear girl, we may not meet again for a long time;" and while Mary rose to go, and Tadgy argued to detain her, I will not undertake to swear, that the broad hat of the gentleman did not lift up the front of the straw bonnet in a very peculiar fashion.

"Kissed her, by all that's beastly!" ejaculated Mr Padden, as he hurried round the clump to confront them as they emerged into the middle walk"If he isn't a parabola, and an allucination too, or something worse, if any thing can be worse, I'm no gen. tleman, that's all."

As he rushed to the north end of the bushes, he came suddenly on the object of his search, but Mary had disappeared. Mr Simpkinson had his mouth apparently so filled with big words, that they tumbled and jostled over each other in their effort to escape.

"Sir," he began, "in all my experience of the subtleties of privy conspiracy and rebellion, this is the grand climacteric and apex. Here have I been listening to the plans of your daughter, who is deluding my son."

"My daughter!" broke in Mr Padden, "your son, sir! My sister you mean, and yourself-most ungentlemany behaviour! Haven't I seen you with my own eyes, salute that foolish old woman, for the sake of her five thousand pounds in the four per cents -haven't I heard you say that a thrashing, sir a thrashing would do me good; your conduct is ungentlemany, sir-very ungentlemany indeed!"

"What do you mean, sir, you hypercritical paradigma? hasn't your own son, Robert, told me the whole plot; that you told your daughter to disguise herself like her aunt, to have the opportunity of meeting John Plantagenet Simpkinson, my son? Haven't I seen their meeting? I pause for a reply !"

"This won't do with me, Mr Simp. kinson, nor with any gentleman. There is no mistaking your hat and coat-nor poor sister Margaret's cloak and bonnet; and, as her nearest relation, I shall see that she is not trified with -good-night, sir."

"By no means, sir," exclaimed the orator, "this is a point involving gigantic considerations of preponderance and importance. Your daughter has inveigled my son to this candlestine meeting, and you now cast the iniquity upon me. You shall account for this before we part."

A low whistle at this instant hindered the two chief inhabitants of Buzzleton from giving each other a bloody nose; for no sooner was the whistle heard than the fons et origo mali, the identical Mr Tapps, the bellman, assisted by his former rival, Mr Hicks, who, by way of a compensation, had been made supernumerary constable, rushed forward on the belligerents, and arrested them, informing them, at the same time, that his worship the mayor had received information from Mr Robert Padden of their intention to fight a duel.

Here was confusion worse confounded!-Our two dignitaries to be marched in charge of the authorities to his worship's house, and thence, after examination, to be either bound over to keep the peace, or consigned to the cage! Mutual danger smoothed the way in a great measure to a mutual accommodation, and when at last our magnates appeared in the mayor's parlour, they seemed to have almost renewed their ancient friendship. The eloquence of Mr Simpkinson had seldom shone so much as in his explanation to the mayor of all the circumstances of the case; but that official being perhaps not so deeply read in Cicero as was becoming for so high an officer, professed himself totally at a loss to comprehend one syllable of the whole transaction. Under these circumstances, he judged it best to send for all

the parties implicated, and after the lapse of a few minutes, all had obeyed his summons, with the exception of the Yahoo. Mr Plantagenet, on parting from Mary, had returned to the walk, and, having nothing better to do, had carried into execution his long cherished resolution of thrashing that unfortunate victim to his heart's content; an operation for which it is highly probable he could not have had a better opportunity if he had waited a century; for our whole civic force was occupied guarding the prisoners at the mayor's, and the night was dark, and the walk deserted.

It may be observed, as an illustration of the certainty of retribution even in this world, that when the party assembled at the mayor's discovered the cause of Mr Bob's absence; the justice of the treatment he had experienced, struck every one as so exemplary, that, in fact, it acted as a bond of union between the Montagus and Capulets, and rose in the eyes of the indignant Mr Simpkinson to the dignity of a providential dispensation. All things were easily explained the orator went even so far as to withdraw the expressions parabola and hallucination, and Mr Padden professed himself perfectly satisfied with so gentlemany a proceeding.

That night there was a jolly supper at Mr Simpkinson's house-a supper, I am bound to observe, where the jokes that took place about the mistakes caused by that eloquent individual's coat and hat, and Aunt Margaret's cloak and bonnet, bade fair to produce a realization of a close connexion between those useful articles of apparel. Mr Padden looked a little alarmed; but the fit passed off, Mr Simpkinson is still one great man and unmarried. The Yahoo has been a settler in Australia for a year; and the christening of John Plantagenet Simpkinson, junior, took place about six months since. Our friend Tadgy has retired from London, and, with his wife, resides alternately with the two sires. He is churchwarden, and holds two or three offices besides; for now that the two families are united, they make one parish in a regular pocket borough. No other interest can resist them, so that one of the morals to be derived from this story is, that division is weakness, and union strength.