extent of £25,537 were in arrear, of which £21,000 are irrecoverable. This company was a bona fide one, carried on a lucrative business, and will pay all the debts, returning something to the shareholders. The creditors, however, doubtless calculated upon having the whole of the subscribed capital as security, but it would seem some considerable proportion of the shareholders are insolvent, and the more wealthy cannot be called upon to contribute to the deficiency so created. Many of these companies are in a much worse plight, having commenced business with bat comparatively few shares taken up, and the holders even of these unable to make up their full quota of money. One in particular could be cited, where the goods manufactured were pledged as soon as made in order to purchase further materials to keep the works going; and now the parties who supplied the plant and first stock, will receive but a very poor dividend. "Limited liability" in ordinary mercantile operations, has hitherto worked badly, how it will answer when applied to banking, remains to be seen. It is urged in favour of extending

it to banking, that the existing law deters wealthy men from becoming partners. But the recipients of such profit as 22 per cent. per annum, must be prepared to undertake a proportionate risk. Were dividends limited to a certain fixed per centage, and the balance placed at interest to the credit of a guarantee fund, shareholders could feel no apprehension of losing the whole of their property, while at the same time they would obtain a handsome return for their capital so invested. The Liverpool Borough Bank was established 21 years since, with a capital of £950,000, what has been the total sum divided, is not known exactly. But from June, 1851, to June, 1857, the gross profits were £675,265 out of which £287,250 were divided, and £253,000 lost by the failure of debtors. The Royal Mail Steam Packet Company became their own insurers some years since, of course reducing their dividends by so much, and were able lately to pay a handsome bonus from the accumulations of the insurance account, after replacing several of their vessels which had been lost. Banks might do the same.

[In these times of blood and battle, it may not, perhaps, be amiss to give the reader an English version of the great national song of the Danes, "King Christian stood beside the mast," written by Ewald, one of the most original names in northern literature. It has for many years been enshrined in the hearts of the Danish people, as the embodiment of the profoundest national feeling and patriotic life. In our land, critics well acquainted with the literature of Denmark have not hesitated even to assign it a rank surpassing the noble war-ballads of Campbell, such as "Hohenlinden," and the "Battle of the Baltic." Although peculiarly difficult of translation, we have endeavoured to hold, as literally as possible, by the original Danish. The critical reader cannot fail to remark the powerful effect of the same words recurring in the rhyme at measured and harmonious intervals. It is like blow after regular blow on the anvil-an anvil not without grand music in its tone.]

King Christian stood beside the mast
In smoke and flame!

His liegemen, through the battle-blast,
Hurl'd volley after volley fast,

Till sank each hostile prow and mast,

In smoke and flame;

CHAPTER II.

WITHIN a week of Lady Farquharson's "Jubilee of fools," as Jacob styled it, Lord Castletown called with the pamphlet he had promised him. In two or three days after that he called to see how he liked it. Then he called to see if he had done with it, and after exhausting all legitimate calls connected with it, he called to say he had lost it. The end of all this calling was that one morning, as Lucy and her father were again at breakfast-they seemed always to be at breakfast -they were startled by a loud and long rat-a-tattat at the door; at least they would have been startled had they been nervous people, which, fortunately for themselves and others, they were not. In due course, that is to say as soon as Joseph's feet could carry him to the door, and thence to the dining room, he marshalled in no less a person than Lord Castletown, who apologised for the unseasonable hour of his call, and pleaded as his excuse an engagement which, at a later period of the day, would take him from home.

"He'll be very late in keeping his other engagement," thought Lucy some two hours after, as she looked at the clock. "Why couldn't he have staid away until we had finished our breakfast; I'm sure he could have said all he had to say afterwards. However, I'm tired of sitting here, I shall be off."

"Why not, wife ?" questioned Jacob. "Cinderella left the ball at twelve, and yet she married the Prince; but, prince or no prince, Lucy goes home at twelve."

Now strange rumours began to float about. Lord Castletown's name was coupled with that of Roberts, and Bessie was put down to him as the future partner of his title and fortune. He always danced with her. He attended to the feeding of the maternal Roberts; he talked to the paternal member of the family; showed all necessary kindness to the younger girl; went with them to botanic gardens and such places, and was always at their house; so there seemed grounds for the truth of the report. Bessie believed it as firmly as every one else; Mrs. Roberts was in extacies, but Jacob only chuckled and rubbed his hands when they said anything to him about it.

"Don't be a fool if you can help it, Jacob," were the words of his better half, when she had tried in vain to get an opinion from him; "don't be a fool, and go cackling and rubbing your hands like an idiot, when the settlement of your eldest daughter is in question. If it had been that child, Lucy”— but Jacob interrupted her.

"Lucy," he said, "tush! woman, she'll never get a prince to pick up her slipper," and he chuckled and rubbed his hands again.

"But you ought to speak to Lord Castletown, and ask him his intentions," the anxious mother continued.

"And suppose I did, Elizabeth, he'd tell me that he intended to please himself in the affair;" and the provoking Jacob, chuckling still, sat down and began to read the newspaper. Lord Castletown was now a constant visitor at the Roberts's

"What can they have been talking about all this time," said Lucy to herself at two o'clock of the same day, as she ascertained that her father and Lord Castletown were still in consultation in the dining-room. "Talk of women gossiping! why men are ten times as bad; and as to Lord Castletown's engagement, it was either a fib, or he has broken it. But there they go at last, thank goodness."

And they did "go" as she spoke-Lord Castletown looking very much flushed; Jacob Roberts rather important and rather stern.

Thus passed several months, Lucy appearing occasionally in society, but always disappearing before twelve. "We'll go home before the ghosts come out, Lucy," her father would say, you shan't be a veritable Cinderella, child, and change your bright eyes and rosy cheeks for heavy looks and faded roses."

"Cinderella," quoth her mother, "Cinderella, indeed! she'll never get the chance of a prince to pick up her slipper."

not one syllable which could bear on the subject.

Mrs. Roberts was irate, but she could not afford to lose him by any premature display of indignation, so she contented herself with abusing him in private, and trying to pique him in public, by an account of the "attention Bessie had received from Mr. This, and Sir Somebody That, and Captain The Other." Lord Castletown did not mind it one bit however. He came as often, had as many dinners, and seemed just as well contented as if Bessie had been kept wrapped up in wadding, and never allowed to speak to any one but himself.

And Lucy, what did she say to all this? Why, nothing-no more and no less; just exactlynothing. It is quite true that Mademoiselle had discovered the profile of a very good looking face, drawn on the cover of her copybook, and on one occasion, when she had asked Lucy who had succeeded to the throne of France, on the death of Charles the Tenth, she had replied " Lord Castletown;" but still, although this looked as if she thought something about him, she said-nothing. But there was a change coming over her.

J

At

times she was thoughtful and sad, and she had a strange trick of looking out of the window at certain hours of the day. Then, her colour was fading, and it could not be with late hours, for she seldom went to parties, and even when she did early closing continued in force. Another old year had nearly dropped into the grave of its predecessors, and the twelve months of Jacob's patriarchial governorship had nearly expired; three weeks more and it would terminate.

It was a very cold morning; the snow lay thick upon the ground, and the trees were covered with hoar frost. Lucy was lingering near the window, and by some strange accident an icicle must have flown into the corner of each eye, and melted there, for two little crystal drops were rolling down over her face. They were wiped away quickly, and Lucy took Tasso (she was promoted to Tasso now) and sat down on a little stool before the fire. Perhaps she did this to prevent the formation of any more icicles, but there must have been plenty more already formed, which of course the fire melted, for a terrible thaw took place, and the crystal drops became a continuous stream, and rolled down in a perfect torrent over her cheeks. But Tasso was before her, and Tasso claimed attention.

"Oh, dear me," sighed poor Lucy. "I wish Tasso had been in the bottom of the Red Sea; and yet it would have been all the same, I should have been plagued with some one else. What a mercy it is that Bessie and mamma are away from home, and Mademoiselle ill in bed. I'm sure I could not attend to lessons to-day, for my head aches. But, however, I must try here goes at old Tasso again." And she read away until she came to the line-" E Sospirai la mia perduta pace," and then the thaw began again, and this time so violently that "old Tasso" tumbled down on the floor, and Lucy leant her head on her hands, and sobbed as if her heart would break.

The noise of her sobbing prevented her hearing the noise of the door opening, and the sound of a footstep in the room; but it did not destroy the sense of feeling as well as hearing, and therefore a hand placed on her shoulder told her that some one was near her. She looked up-Lord Castletown was beside her.

"Why, Lucy," he began, "what is the matter ?" and he kept her little hand in his. "I came to bid you good-bye before I go away; but I cannot bear to leave you in this state of grief. What can I do to make you happier?--tell me, Lucy-do tell me."

She looked up at him in her own ingenuous way as she answered him

"I wish you would not go away, I shall miss you so dreadfully, you have been with us so very often," and then she seemed to think she had said too much, and she muttered something about, "at least Bessie will."

Lord Castletown did not seem to care what Bessie would do, but he held the little hand very

tightly in both his, and looked very earnestly into the innocent tearful face as he spoke to her.

"Will you really miss me very much, Lucy," he asked, "and would you be sorry if I never came back ?" Of course Lucy sobbed more wildly than

ever.

"Don't talk in that dreadful way," she said, "don't talk of never coming back; you don't mean it, do you? Do tell me, please, tell me the truth at once if you do mean it, and then I shall try to make up my mind to it, and perhaps after many and many a long year I shall not miss you very much."

а

Lucy was so mucli interested in his answer that she forgot to blush.

Lord Castletown's lip trembled. "You wish me to come back, Lucy," he said.

"Yes, oh yes," was her frank-hearted reply. "Then, as surely as I am alive, so surely will I be here on the 6th of January. You will remem ber, Lucy, I meet you here on the 6th of January. You will not let anything keep you away. Tell your father you wish to stay at home to meet me. Be candid with him, Lucy, give the reason-you could not give a false one, I know, but you might fear to give the true. However, you must do ityour father won't be angry; and now good-bye. Trust me, Lucy, nothing on earth, save illness or death, shall prevent my being here the day I name. You promise to believe that ?".

Her guileless eyes gave him his answer.

Six o'clock brought Jacob Roberts home to his dinner, and he and Lucy sat down together; for the mother was from home, giving the eldest daughter a "chance" in the country house of a friend.

"You have seen Lord Castletown to-day, Lucy; he called on me and told me he had wished you good-bye."

The cook must have put too much cayenne into the curry, for Lucy's face became scarlet.

"He says he has told you he is coming back." Lucy nerved herself to the terrible ordeal of doing as Lord Castletown had bidden her.

"Yes, dear father, he promised to come back on the 6th of January, and I promised to stay at home and see him, and I should like to do so. You are not angry, father, are you?"

Jacob smiled-a very peculiar smile it was, too. "No, not a bit," he said; "but mind, Lucy, if you change your mind, and want to go anywhere else on that day, tell me, and I will excuse your absence to Lord Castletown.

"I shan't change my mind, father. I only wish to-morrow was the 6th of January."

Jacob smiled again. He spoke no more of Lord Castletown then, neither did he talk of him during the next three weeks, and for some reason or other Lucy also seemed to have great difficulty in mentioning his name. Perhaps it was that whenever she did so, the potency of the cayenne again ex erted its influence over her, and produced a scarlet flush on the cheek, which was otherwise sometimes very pale and sad.

Christmas and New Year's Day flew by to Lucy's infinite delight, and the 5th of January came at last. A few more hours and he would return. "Don't take me to the ball to-night, dear father, please don't," such were Lucy's words on the morning of the 5th. "Why not, Lucy ?"

"I want to be up early to-morrow, father." "What for, Lucy ?" But Lucy was very busy; at least she must have been very busy, for she could not have heard her father's words, as she did not answer him.

Lucy and her father did not go to the ball; they staid very comfortably at home, and as Lucy bad no Tasso to prepare (Mademoiselle having struck for Christmas holidays)-she was able to go to bed very early and have a good night of rest and sleep. How fresh and happy she looked the next morning. Jacob was very punctual ! As the clock struck eight he entered the break fast-rooni, and almost at the same moment there was a loud knock at the hall-door. Lucy started-she knew that knock well, but she had not expected it to

come so soon.

"Back again, sir," he said, as he met Jacob "b back again, and right glad am I to get back, too," and he looked at Lucy.

"Let Lucy give you some breakfast now, and you can tell us all about your gladness after. You have come up this morning, I suppose."

"Yes, I've kept my promise, although I nearly broke it once-and I was so certain that I should break it if the temptation came again, that I made ap my mind to stay away until the time of my probation was over."

"What promise, what temptation, father ?" and Lucy looked from her father to their guest, and then to her father again.

"Let him tell you, Lucy, while I go and see if your mother is coming down." And Jacob Roberts, perhaps for the first time in his life, went up stairs for the expressed purpose of seeing if his wife were coming down stairs-the expressed purpose only-not the intended purpose. He had not the slightest intention of entering her room, or disturbing her, for he devoutly hoped she might sleep Soundly for the next three hours. So Jacob went into the drawing-room, and stayed there until he thought Lord Castletown had said all he wanted to say, and then, as it was very cold, and as he wanted his breakfast, he came down again.

There was a little pearl hoop (sucli a pretty little ring!) on the third finger of Lucy's right

Poor Lucy looked very dismal-for once she had forgotten her father. Oh, father, I did'nt think of that," she said, and she turned to Lord Castletown as if he could help her out of the dilemma; and he did help her out of it.

"The next door' to this is to let, Lucy." If ever Lucy blessed an empty house it was then. Now all was smooth; her father could come and talk to her each morning, for there lay the " rub," not in the breakfast alone. So Lucy had now nothing to do but eat her breakfast and be happy. But a cloud appeared on Lucy's face, a little frightened look. Jacob saw it.

"What's the matter, Lucy," he said. Lucy hesitated. Come, out with it," Jacob continued; and the truthful Lucy did "out with it."

Bessie, father, oh! what will Bessie say!" and she again looked at Lord Castletown, as if she almost thought of turning him over to her sister, but could not make up her mind to do it.

"Never mind Bessie, or what she says; she'll take care of herself, and you must do the same. We'll tell her of it presently, Lucy, as soon as she comes down. Now I am going out, for I have an engagement this morning and it must be kept. I shall be back by four o'clock. Don't say a word to your mother or Bessie until I return, and you, my Lord, had better be off; I won't promise that you will be much in favour just at first; 'twill be all right after a while. Tell your mother to dine at four to-day, Lucy, I shall have something to say to her after; don't say that, however. My Lord I won't ask you to come to-day to dinner; after to-day, as often as you please-come in the evening though." Jacob felt himself a traitor, and trembled a little before the feminine reproaches which he would have to encounter.

With bland smiles on one face and conscious looks on the other, his wife and elder daughter met him at dinner. "Lord Castletown, has been here to-day, my dear; but you saw him this morning," and Mrs. Roberts smiled mysteriously at her husbaud. "Yes, I did," and he looked as mysterious as herself.

"What did he come so early for, my dear?" she continued.

"To speak about something of importance; you shall hear all about it after dinner, Elizabeth.'

How Mrs. Roberts and Bessie hated their dinner that day; and Jacob seemed particularly hungry, and would be helped twice to almost every thing. At last it did come to an end, and never was grace more fervently said than that in which Mrs. Roberts murmured her thanks for the mercies which had been received.

The cloth was removed; Jacob drew his chair

to the fire, put the decanter of port wine and a glass within reach, and then telling his wife and Bessie to imitate his example, with regard to the chair (not to the wine), promised to tell them the object of Lord Castletown's early morning visit. Lucy," and Jacob called her as she was leaving the room, "where are you going, child ?" "Up stairs, father; please let me go, Mademoiselle is coming back, and I have not one line of Tasso ready." Lucy had suddenly turned wonderfully anxious about Tasso-but her father cared nothing about him-so he just made Lucy come and sit down on a little stool at his feet (the very same on which she had sat before when the tremendous thaw had taken place), and read Tasso there.

"Now my dear, now what did Lord Castletown want this morning?" And Mrs. Roberts gave a confidential nod at her eldest daughter. There never was in this world so provoking an old man as Jacob; now, after gorging like a pig at his dinner, he must needs do the same at desert, and take a bushel of grapes on his plate, and go on munching them, stones and all, when his wife's very soul, and the soul of his eldest daughter, was lingering on his words. Perhaps a sidelong look at a little blushing face might have had something to do with the munching-perhaps he wanted to give the possessor of that face a little time to recover her composure. "Now I've done," at length he said, as he put the empty plate down; and mental thanks were uttered as a second grace, by his wife and Bessie.

"So you want to know what Lord Castletown wanted this morning ?" (Lucy was very much absorbed in Tasso.) "He wanted to have a point resolved which has been running in his mind for a great many months-in fact ever since Lady Farquharson's ball last year,-you recollect the party I mean?" Yes, Bessie and her mother knew it well, it was the radiating point from whence Bessie considered her charms had been reflected on Lord Castletown. "Well, on that evening, or soon afterwards," he continued, "Lord Castletown seems to have taken the strange notion into his head that he would like to be the son-in-law of plain old Jacob Roberts-(Mrs. Roberts looked the prototype of complacency)—and accordingly, a month or six weeks after, he came and told him so!"

Tasso was forgotten; even Lucy looked up. "So long ago!" was Mrs. Roberts' exclamation, "why, Jacob, what in the world made you keep it to yourself all this time ?"

"The most simple reason in the world; I did not wish you to know anything about it."

"Well, Jacob," and his wife looked indignant, "I think you might have given us a little hint ; I'm sure Bessie has suffered enough."

"Has she?" was Jacob's reply "that's a pity." But the little face looked up again from Tasso and there was a sad smile on it.

"Well, Jacob," and Mrs. Roberts continued her questioning in a tone of martyrdom. "" 'Well,

Jacob, perhaps now you'll condescend to tell us all about it."

She would have liked very much to have done a little of the indignant and dignified, but there was a viscount and twenty thousand a year in the question-and Eve could not leave the apple without seeing what was inside of it.

"Now you shall have it all-chapter, verse, and letter," and Jacob drew a very long breath, as if he meant to measure his narration by its duration, and finish his sayings when the breath was expended. "A short time after that redoubtable ball Lord Castletown came to me, and then and there formally asked my daughter's hand."

Mrs. Roberts nodded at Bessie, whose faded cheeks ought to have blushed, but could not manage it.

"I would not listen to him. I told him it was absurd that I had not seen enough of him to say whether he would be a suitable husband for a girl or not." Mrs. Roberts lifted up her hands in astonishment. "Jacob!" she exclaimed, "a viscount, with that immense fortune, not a fitting husband? What a fool you were!-it's a wonder you did not lose him!" 'Don't interrupt me, Betsy; listen, but don't speak," replied Jacob. Dignity just popped in its head again, but popped it out as fast as possible. "I told him then that I had not seen enough of him to say whether I would give so sacred a charge as a daughter to him or not, and I ended by requesting him to think no more about it." (Elizabeth could not stand this, but a little muttered " 'Well, you were a precious fool," acted as the safety-valve to her indignation, and she allowed her husband to proceed.) "He would not agree to this, and, after a hard-fought battle of words between us, I consented to let him come here and give us an opportunity of seeing if we liked him or not; but even then, I said, the decision must rest with the girl herself. If she wished it, he should have her; if she did not wish it, he must be content to go his way and leave her alone. I required a promise from him, on his honour as a gentleman, that he would, neither by word nor deed, give any of you reason to suspect the ultimate object of his visits here, until a certain period, terminating on this day, should have elapsed. He has kept his word, and I have kept mine, and given him this morning that, than which nothing is dearer to me on earth-this good little simpleton at my feet-this little foolish, innocent Lucy."

..

"Lucy!" "Lucy!" Mother and daughter stood aghast.