been treated, and an inclosure for Alice, which her father retained for the purpose of delivery when they should meet at the breakfast table.

"I was not in time to see Shenstone before he went,” said Mr. Graham as he sat down, " but he left letters for us."

"For me?" asked Julia.

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No, not for you, July, but for Alice and for me. Here they are. Mine is an exceeding proper one, in deed. He is a very nice young man. I should be much pleased to have him for a son-in-law; but I scarcely know how it is, he certainly did not take to us. A very odd thing. He would have made an excellent husband for you, Julia. Eh?"

This remark did not suit the current of Julia's reflections at that moment; and, to change the conversation, she asked her sister what were the contents of her letter.

"Mr. Shenstone takes leave of us all for ever," said Alice, her voice betraying some emotion, and "desires kindly to be remembered to you, Julià."

"And is that all?" said Julia, in a tone of disappointment.

"The remainder of the letter refers to other things," answered Alice. And it did indeed contain allusions to what had passed between them on the subject of his former life, which she did not consider herself authorized to mention.

Provoked at having no letter herself, but merely a

message of the most common-place description, a message to which many persons have been heard to say they would infinitely prefer a pin, Julia broke forth in peevish accents:

"Well, I must say, I never heard of a young lady who had so many secrets with a young gentleman as you have, Alice. Indeed, if you were on the point of marriage with Mr. Shenstone, you could scarcely have a more apparently intimate connection; and all the while you are engaged to be married to another man!" Alice felt the truth of the remark, and replied, " It is true that, from living so much together as we have done, a greater degree of intimacy appears to have sprung up between us than does in reality exist; and it was, therefore, time to put a stop to the reports prevalent in the neighbourhood, by his departure."

"It might be very well to absent himself for a time, but I own I cannot see why he should be banished for

ever."

"That is a point, Julia, I conceive we must leave entirely to his own discretion."

"Yes," said Mr. Graham, " if he will go, July, you know we cannot help it, though I certainly do agree with you that it is very bad taste in him not to like us all a little better. You see you were quite wrong, my dear, in what you told me some time back" (with a wink to one daughter, and a nod at the other).

"That is as it may be, papa," answered Julia. “I am sure you cannot deny that Mr. Shenstone was

anxious enough to shew attention to one of us, and I must say that folks who are already provided with affianced lovers, should not lay themselves out to attract away from those who are not, attentions which are legitimate in the one case, but not in the other."

Poor Alice hid her diminished head on hearing this philippic, evidently aimed at herself. However imprudently in her own case, or unfairly towards Shenstone she might have acted, her conscience as regarded Julia was perfectly clear. She knew full well that George had never given to any other individual the slightest indications of preference for Julia, and that nothing was ever further from his thoughts than to pay her any attentions which were not due, according to the laws of good breeding and society, from all men to all women. She, therefore, made no answer. Mr. Graham, whose attention was diverted from his boiled egg by the sharp tone of his eldest daughter, looked at both of them, hoping to gather from their countenances the meaning of this mysterious speech, which he did not venture to request in the simple form of a question. But Alice was busily employed in replenishing the teapot, and Julia's habitually forbidding ex, pression had suffered little apparent alteration.

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Disappointed he returned to his boil'd egg again."

George Shenstone once departed, and with him the excitement and interest produced by the society of all individuals to whom certain circumstances of mystery attach; (to say nothing of his own peculiar character

of the admirer of one sister and the wished-for of the other,) the Graham family relapsed into the calm and quiet of a country life, diversified only by the slender variety occasioned by the good or bad behaviour of village protégées, and the consequent visits of approbation or remonstrance of the young ladies; or of those cases so difficult to decide as to whether the afternoon should be devoted to riding, driving, or walking. In this placid state we will leave them, and having so long lost sight of Arthur Ashmont, restore him to that place in the narrative to which, as the preferred of the heroine, he is clearly entitled.

We left Arthur on the point of setting sail for India, having accepted the invitation of his uncle, Mr. Middleton, in the hope that that invitation would procure him the means of realizing such a sum as might ena

ble him to return and claim the hand of Alice Graham.

Mr. Middleton was half-brother to Lady Jane Ashmont, and had spent the greater part of his life in Bombay. Originally sent thither as a means of acquiring a provision which his family at home had been unable to afford him, he had contrived by considerable perseverance and application, to amass a small capital, which having had an accidental opportunity of vesting in a most advantageous manner, he obtained a sufficient increase to induce him to embark as a merchant in his own behalf, and at his own personal risk. In process of time, and by a series of fortunate circumstances, he succeeded in realizing a very considerable fortune. But still unwilling either to leave a place which had now become a second home to him, or to give up the occupations and pursuits which were to him a second nature, he determined to end his days on the soil where he had taken root, and to seek for a partner of those labours which, however willing he might be to share with another, he could not resolve entirely to renounce.

Although practically estranged from the country which had given him birth, he had never entirely lost sight of it. He maintained a regular correspondence with his sister and his other relations, and was in the constant habit of sending them gifts of all descriptions. From long habits of exercising supreme authority and control over his dependants, and in a country too