wanted Mrs. Bingham. (What a falsehood! I did want one of the young ladies, and I certainly did not want Mrs. Bingham.) I followed the maid into the drawingroom, and there Mrs. Bingham sat. I should have said she had a scowl on her face, only that I was about to ask for what (if given) would make even her scowls seem smiles to me. Then, for the first time, it struck me, how should I make her hear, for in the ardour of my love I had forgotten this. Making an offer through a trumpet would be very trying; besides, where was the trumpet this morning? We shook hands mutely. Then I drew a chair close and prepared for a shout.

'Mrs. Bingham, I've come on an important mission.'

Missionaries?' said Mrs. Bing

ham.

I must be louder-I must say something that could not be mistaken for missionaries.' I began again.

Mrs. Bingham, - perhaps you mayn't have noticed that I

The lady didn't, couldn't, wouldn't hear.

'Speak louder, Mr. Williams. I do not hear you very well this morning.'

Very well! Why she did not hear me at all; and as to speaking louder!-But there was no help for it.

'Mrs. Bingham,' I began the third time, I'm in love.'

The lady showed symptoms of hearing. She pricked up her ears, as all women will at the sound of 'love,' and a grim smile dawned on her face. (Surely she did not think I was going to propose to her!) She waited for me to go on, which I was hardly prepared to do. I should think never before had a man declared his love in such a vociferous manner. I almost wished I had gone to Lizzie straight,-but would not such a course have been contrary to intentions strictly honourable? This was more like driving the nail in, on the head. I had made plunge No. 1 now; plunge No. 2 would be less startling.

I want your help,' I shouted. Mrs. Bingham heard again. Surely,

Cupid being blind, has some electric sympathy with the deaf. The gods befriended me.

'I know now,' I continued, 'that from my first meeting with Miss Lizzie I have loved her. Will you intercede for me? Do you think there is any hope?'

Mrs. Bingham rose from her chair

erect.

'I have noticed your attachment,' she said, smiling grimly, 'and I think there is. Wait.'

'Dear Mrs. Bingham!'-I pressed her hand-a hand that was cold and hard to pressure-and she left me.

I

Gone to intercede. How I had wronged this kindhearted woman, and there was hope. It was doubtless (after the first) pleasant even to shout to Mrs. Bingham about my Lizzie, but to talk to the rose herself-how rapturous! How should I receive her? With the ground all prepared by Mrs. Bingham, would a kiss be too much? I trembled. got up and looked in the mirror-a mirror that made my nose on one side and my eyes fishy. Was this my expression? I sat down and chirped to the canary bird: it was Elizabeth's canary. Never mindanything to pass the time. Then I heard footsteps. Could a heart come out? If so, mine would. 'Be still, oh heart!' says somebody-I said it. They had reached the door -the handle turned, and there entered Mrs. Bingham and her daughter Elizabeth. How unnecessary! But the mother spoke.

'I told you, Mr. Williams, I thought you might hope. I was not wrong. My child Elizabeth (don't blush, my dear) confesses that she, too, has loved you from the first. Marriages, they say, are made in heaven may it bless yours!'

She fixed me with her eyes, and left us together.

Oh misery!--helplessness! I collapsed. I looked at Elizabeth. I felt I hated her. She stood by the fire looking evidently expectant. Expectant of what? Oh, miserable man! There seemed a timidity on the part of Mahomet about approaching the mountain-therefore

'Dear Mr. Williams,' said the mountain, 'don't you feel well?' 'No, ill-wretchedly ill.' 'Can't I do anything for you?' By other lips what sweet words; but by hers-torture!

'No thank you-not anything.' 'Mamma has told me,' continued Elizabeth, seeing Mahomet was still timid, 'how you liked me the first day you came to dinner-don't you remember?'

I groaned.

'I am afraid you are sufferingthe party last night-' she stopped (was it supposed the champagne had disagreed with me?)

'I think I had better go,' I said, goaded to desperation.

'Better!' (reproachfully.) Why better? Let us nurse you that is if you love me. Don't you love me?'

How would any one else have answered?

'Oh yes yes!' I replied despairingly.

Her face brightened.
'And yet you will go?'

'I won't inflict my misery on you.'
'Misery! Oh, John!'

'I shall see you again soon,' I said, preparing to leave the room. 'But your hat,' said Elizabeth, seeing it lying neglected behind.

'Hat!-what hat?'

She handed it-I put it on and banged in the top, Elizabeth evidently thinking I was on the way to a brain fever. She came to the hall door with me, and surveyed the landscape o'er. I don't know what she saw-to me there were ashes on the flower-beds, and the trees wore sackcloth. She came down the drive with me.

'Good-bye, dear John,' she said; 'you have made me so happy.' She held up her pale face, and I had to do it. My lips felt like Dead Sea apples—I don't know if she thought so; I dare say not. Of course I

loved her, or else why had I just made her an offer. She could not come out with me on the road, thank Heaven! she had no bonnet on, so she stood by the gate watching me. I felt it, but I never looked back.

I did not see Lizzie again, she left (or was sent home?) the next day, when I was lying ill and helpless. Then the Binghams invaded my lodgings (taking advantage of my weakness), which helped to retard my recovery. When I once began to get better, with daily increasing strength came renewed hope-but it was too late. One cold wintry day I heard of Lizzie's approaching marriage with that jolly fellow Percy Langton; and if, after this, there was any struggle against my fate, it was a struggle without energy. My mother came down to me, and came out strong, but Mrs. Bingham came out stronger by succumbing to her, and I was like a figure, pulled by strings, at these good ladies' will. Elizabeth was meek and submissive to my mother. She wore dingy garments, and adored Dr. Watts; she maintained her position during the Creed, and could make a rice pudding. If I did not love her, I ought to do so, or there must be something very wrong with me. Indeed, there was something wrong with me-I was bitter, disgusted, dissatisfied, and in that frame of mind I was brought to the altar.

An Englishman's home is his castle. Quick, take up the drawbridge, and let no spy enter into

mine.

Draw your own conclusions from what I have told you, but don't expect any key to such conclusions from me-I durst not give it you. Only, they say marriages are made -somewhere! Mine was not!

'But what advantages?'

'Why, you don't pay for advantages. Situation retired-but you don't leave London for society, you know, sir-Salisbury Plain; easy walk to Stonehenge.'

I soon found that we must extend our distance, raise our price, and limit our desires. All the requisites on which we had set our mind perhaps never yet had met together; and as Uncle Robert proposed to join, and the girls knew he would pay for lots of treats, we at last found boating and fishing, or what was called such, with a railway near, with a lawn for croquet, and a field for archery. Indeed it was quite a relief to find so much together, coming just at the time we despaired of finding any house at all.

Uncle Robert became quite public-spirited: he saw advertised 'a pony, harness, and basket-carriage, all complete, the property of a lady, who would accept moderate terms of a kind master.' This he said he could buy and sell again

-a cheap way of hiring-and we should have fine fun about the lanes.

We were now all in high spirits: we should be so 'jolly,' and so much enjoy a little rational country recreation. The house was to be all cleaned up and ready for us: but the day we arrived there was a gate wide open, the gardener had gone off to the public-house, a great litter of straw proclaimed that we had almost trodden on the heels of the departing tenants. The one maid left in the house looked much out of heart, and yet more out of temper. She was entrusted with the inventory, assisted by a clerk in the village; and going over the inventory, when too old to coincide with later cracks, chips, and deficiencies, is no very satisfactory operation after a journey; though meanwhile the boys began to put to their fishing-rods, and our girls began to set their croquet; for all young people think, if they only take care of their own impulsive selves and amusements, that everything else -with the help of papa and mamma -will of course go right of itself.

Luckily we had brought a basket of cold pie and chickens, or we should have gone hungry to bed that night. We were four miles from the town; and 'Please, sir, how about going to market? Master used to be obliged to keep a tax-cart on purpose;'-the reason master was so long in letting this out-of-the-way and most inconvenient place. Then there was only one farmer-and he very grumpy and independent-who would sell the house milk; but the milk 'he would not sell anybody who did not also take his butter,-such stuff! one would think he made it bad on purpose.'

Then how did your master manage?'

'Oh, master kept a cow: but the cow isn't in your rent; the last family used it so bad-they were for everlasting a milking of it.'

For the meat, there was the village butcher; but most people sent to the town. Here was one use for the basket carriage, certainly! But I began to consider that my wife had promised herself a little holiday from the tedious severities of housekeeping; and now her difficulties were likely to keep her domestic economies at full stretch; and— worse and worse!-she said she apprehended quite a mutiny among the servants: they said they never saw such an outlandish place, and had they known what barn-door savages the people were, they would never have come.

Our troubles seemed serious; for, my wife and I are bad travellers; and, if we have a weakness, it is about a clean house and no fusty smells. Must I confess that our first week was a week of soap and soda, of charwomen and scrubbingbrushes? and two large crates of kitchen and other articles fit to use we were obliged to send for to our house in town.

Meanwhile Uncle Robert, who never liked to acknowledge a bad bargain, used to come home very hot, after flogging 'that brute of a pony!' After those drives we used to tell him, as he looked very savage and out of temper, that he was a very bad personation of the kind

master' specified in that very tempting advertisement.

However, by the end of the week -though this first week went very unlike the healthful holiday and recreation we came for-we had settled down and were ready to look about ourselves in quest of all the pleasure and rural felicity that we had set our minds upon.

How about the boating? Why, six miles down the river lived a man who let out boats: but mamma heard there had been an accident, which made her nervous, as the boys could not swim. However, I thought it would be foolish not to have a boat, now that we had paid higher rent for being near the river; 80 Uncle Robert flogged Gyp-so we called the pony, declaring it was stolen by Gipsies, and would be claimed, to uncle's great confusion-he flogged Gyp over to the ferry-house; and a boat was announced as at the bottom of our washerwoman's garden, and ready at command by the end of the first week. But even then we were threequarters of a mile from the said boat, and that was as far as we cared to walk; and what with rain and leakage the boat was never quite ready, and always dirty from some one who had used it on the sly, when we reached it. Then those horrid locks were in the way, and only a mile from one to the other; and such a stream! we were-that is, Uncle Robert and I were (as the boys were not strong enough to do much good)-an hour rowing one way, and not ten minutes floating down the other, so like the rest of life, in which we have our labouring by the hour, but our pleasures doled out by the minute; and we came in so hot, we were afraid of rheumatism-and this was the first and the last of our amateur watering. True, I did boast of having been a good rower at College; but times are altered; for now I leaked at every pore, and blew like a porpoise. So we said that we would put the rowing off on the gardener and a man he said he could find in the village; but, of course, the man was scarcely ever in the way when we were in the mood for a water

party; so we did not use the boat six times in all-and never really enjoyed it once.

Nature designed man for business, not for pleasure-for taking his part in the game of life with his fellowcreatures, and not for being taken up with himself alone for many weeks together. So, true to this scheme of Providence, two months proves to be a very long time for our own private and solitary gratification alone. The choice morsels and dainties of life depend upon your zest for them; and you can no more make pleasant days, than nice dinners follow each other, without doing something for an appetite.

What was to be done? Croquet, with no young men and pretty girls to flirt with; no gathering of their young mothers, for men like myself to lounge with on the lawn-for there is a sort of post-marital flirting for which we never grow too old-Croquet for its own sake, like dancing for its own sake, is absurd, of course; so the balls and mallets lay idle in the summer-house; and, after I had almost broken my shins over the arches, the croquet was as dead a letter almost as the boats.

But the fishing? Where there is a river we imagine there must be fishing; but not necessarily the fishing that catches anything. We had been to Farlow's shop, and bought all sorts of ingenious baits-the spoon-bait included; though it only served as an interminable subject of Uncle Robert's puns, who said the fish would take it for a mirror, and see their noses in it; and they were the spoons who believed otherwise. Only, the water at one time was too low; at another, too high. Without a boat, and skilful spinning and boating together, under the weirs and in the mill-stream, you would never find yourself in the same parish with an old Thames trout. For the pike it was too early; and for all other fish-save a few gudgeons, and they very scarce-it was quite the wrong place. In short, we had yet to learn that whoever stows fishing-rods and baskets among his luggage for the two hottest summer months, virtually announces to every true Waltonian,