the spirit of the old chivalry, some deed of prowess as proof of their knight's devotion. And, although 'giants there were none, and dragon's scarce,' still fields of excitement lay open in various directions; and not a day passed unchronicled in the annals of 'gentle courtesie.' It was wonderful to find so much agreement when so many were rivals; but the arena of their contention was wider than the cabin of the Pandora, and the air less laden with that electric medium which a long sea voyage generates. Over all these fêtes and 'joyances,' Mrs. St. Aubyn presided with a vigilance and discretion so able, that no caution could baffle them. The lowest whisper reached her ear; the slightest glance of mute intelligence caught her eye: so that, at the end of three months, the rival pretensions were so nicely balanced, no one dare to assert, even to himself, his priority. This applies, of course, only to the two elder daughters; for Fanny was hardly to be included in the précis: her years, her tastes, and her habits, being all held, upon competent authority, so many separate impediments to her. It happened, however, that all these impediments gave rise to the very catastrophe which was so little anticipated. Charles Irwin was thrown from his howdah, and broke his arm. Now nature, in all such cases, never fails to point out to the sufferer, during his consequent inability, a thousand things of which he had hardly dreamed during health and occupation. Thus the three-bottle victim of the gout discovers inestimable qualities in the limpid spring; and many, during a 'temporary seclusion from the world,' have taken new views upon pecuniary matters, worthy of an Adam Smith, a McCulloch, or a Ricardo. It was in this frame of mind that Charles Irwin found he had a talent for music; and, as he was by no means of a bashful temperament, he, with great tact, succeeded in persuading Mrs. St. Aubyn to admit him to the morning rehearsals Here he was so diligent a pupil, and Fanny so patient an instructress, that their morning-lesson continued long after the rest of the party retired to dress. Fanny was so young, that of course nothing could happen. She was not forward, like some young fascinators of fourteen, but all discretion; and would not indulge a thought which she did not feel it incumbent to disclose to those who had always had her confidence. So reasoned the mother. But Fanny was older than her very girlish appearance indicated, and her feelings were matured beneath a childish aspect. She felt not pain at being passed by in the family arrangements, nor any uneasiness at the homage which her more brilliant sisters won, but rather that void which a want of long-loved companions and long-loved voices creates. Her feelings were akin to those which are expressed in these lines, which I have somewhere met with: Alone, in a stranger land, alone; The heart is dead to the tenderest tone. They deem him cold, and turn aside From the thankless one, the son of pride. Yet little they mark the frequent tear, When a home-sound meets the stranger's ear Not eloquent, nor musical; Its tones his distant home recal: Some single sound, some lonely note, Bids o'er his stirring memory float Visions of love: his bright hearth's place ; The careful few, his path who trace On pictured charts :-the silver voice That owned unbid the heart's glad choice- "If my good fortune should ever bestow upon me a family of daughters, none of them shall practice singing with invalid lieutenants. It is by no means the same thing as singing with them when in health. Then the voice is firm; and the chances are, that it is boisterous, and delivered with a force that brings water into the eyes of the hearer; besides, when in a state of convalescence, they have a different choice of songs-British Oaks, and Stormy Petrels, and Dibdinisms are then in favour; of which the pleasantest part is the end. But there was Charles, day after day, sighing out Moore's Melodies, with a face full of sentiment (at least poor Fanny so interpreted his looks, although perhaps his accident might in some measure have affected them), and a voice subdued to that tone, in which people fancy that hearts like to converse together. Then he discovered that Fanny was so like one of his sisters in England; which discovery naturally gave an opportunity for much discourse about the affections, in all their phases and varieties; and led to an exhibition of great tenderness towards the absent, and called the tears into his listener's fair eyes. "They were happy moments, yet full of peril. Not that Irwin harboured a thought injurious to Fanny's peace of mind; nor, in fact, do I believe that his intentions were at all known to himself; even if he could be said to be under the influence of any motive, except that of finding solace and such occupation as his situation admitted. Fanny, however, was absorbed in this new interest. She felt her heart daily growing towards him; yet nothing in his manner or words allowed her to admit even to herself that he sought for her sympathy beyond that of others. He was the echo of her own thoughts; and, like Echo, dwelled apart. This state of things could not long remain, without producing in Fanny's manner some visible alteration. Accordingly, she wore, in Irwin's presence, an air of embarrassment and abstraction, with which she in vain struggled when she found it betraying her into acts which called forth the observations of her mother and sisters. These minutiae of word and gesture, which proclaim so much of that which is passing within, are always more easily imagined than described; but the feelings in which they originate are not confined to young ladies, in the budding of their early love. I once saw a major of dragoons, before a court-martial, tear to pieces an elaborate defence (the preparation of which had cost him months of anxious research and combination), while offering a few opening observations. It was his first affair of the kind. The painful part of Fanny's position was her conviction of the entire absence of all intention, on Charles's side, of exciting her feelings or eliciting her regard. Thus, upon the most important subject, when advice and support were most needed, she was, by the very nature of the case, shut out from asking the one or casting herself upon the other. The indulgent love of her father, and the able tact of her mother, were alike unavailable to her. She would have been glad of any accident which should have interrupted this daily intercourse; fervently did she pray for Charles's restoration to health, that, on his return to duty, she might gather strength in absence; yet she wanted firmness, when the hour of meeting returned, to remain in her chamber; and she shrank from the artifice of pleading indisposition. "Irwin was the first to observe the change which had come over her. He mentioned it to me, as I think, without any suspicion of its cause; he spoke with great anxiety about her; but as a brother would speak of a sister, for whose health he feared. And I believe that, so far from seeking his own amusement at the cost of her feelings, he thought that his presence contributed to hers; not from any vanity, but from a feeling that their tastes sympa thised, and that their minds were in harmony upon many subjects. Had he been a coxcomb, he (long before her manner betrayed her) would have come to the conclusion that his welcome was warmer than that of a mere acquaintance, however interestingly situated. But at thirty, unless the taint of vanity be very strong, a man's mind has, in general, lost that extreme quickness of apprehension which leads him, in earlier life, to over-estimate his influence in affairs of the heart. We all, however, observed that Fanny St. Aubyn was an altered woman. Yes,-woman: for the short space of three months had worked in her a change which could hardly have been anticipated in as many years. Whether, about this time, Charles Irwin began to feel that his position was at all ambiguous, or that his return to health gave him opportunities of forming other engagements, I cannot tell; but it is certain that the 'joyous science' had lost its power of detaining him at Fanny's side, and that the pupil had become remiss in his studies. Moreover, Major-General Bender was expected at head-quarters, and discipline, which had been a little relaxed, now resumed its full sway. "In due time, the general arrived. He was well stricken in years, and of a singularly unpromising aspect. A confirmed lumbar affection had given a projection to the upper part of his person, which was surmounted by a head that, in conjunction with his posture, had secured him the name, more appropriate that courteous, of the battering ram.' In temper, he was explosive, but not malignant; in mind, purely military; in information, a cyclopædia of changes of station, deaths, promotions, and vacancies. Immediately upon his arrival, he conceived a distaste for Mrs, St. Aubyn and her daughters, which withstood all their blandishments, assiduously lavished upon him. He considered the residence of women in barracks as an obstruction to the formation of the military character;' more especially where their personal attractions were conspicuous, and their manners armed at all points with fascination. As, however, he could not, without rudeness, repel their advances, and the colonel's style of cuisine and wines were a sufficient counterbalance to the irregularities, as he termed them, of his lady's soirées, he continued upon a kind of neutral footing with the family. He was the last man, as one would think, to make an inroad upon the happiness of any member of that family, through the medium of the affections: yet was he destined to consummate the misery of poor Fanny. General Bender, in the fifty-fourth year of his mortal existence, declared himself, after a few weeks, the ardent admirer of the artless and almost unobserved Fanny. "I have bestowed some considerable attention upon the subject, and have never as yet wholly satisfied myself, why age and infirmity should be so anxious to link itself with youth and spring-like beauty. Can it be, that a prospect of sharing the sympathies of the young, in their generous ardour, deludes the mind into anticipations of a new youth; or is it not, rather, that the taste for all that is pure and beautiful, which often lies dormant during the vigour of ambition or the turmoil of active life, and still more often is obscured by the vehement passions of the soul, revives when ambition is sated and toil rests, and, though far more rarely, when those passions are calmed down? Be it as it may, the simple beauty of Fanny's character sank down into the general's soul, like the summer sun behind the purple hills to the eye of the toil-worn husbandman; and the many gentle charms, which had escaped the eye of youth, dazzled by the broader lights of her sisters' pretensions, touched the old man's heart with a restless emotion. To be brief,-he proposed. I will not attempt to describe the mother's surprise, or the daughter's horror. The colonel, anxious for peace (domestic only, of course), was willing to agree with either party. He was not blind to the feelings of his loved daughter; but he could not conceal from himself that the liaison was, in many respects eligible; a point upon which Mrs. St. Aubyn exhausted her whole artillery of reasons. And with what arguments could Fanny combat the prudent and practical persuasions of those to whom she had always looked for guidance? She dared not, for very shame, avow her unrequited passion for Irwin. Hope, the 'lover's staff,' had she none. Her heart sunk within her, as, with tears and agony, all misinterpreted by those around her, she besought her parents to do with her as they would, but to save her from her impending fate. Mrs. St. Aubyn had not anticipated such opposition, but she was too able a tactician to yield at once. She felt that a prudent temporizing would succeed best with Fanny's tender and affectionate nature; and she employed the interval in persuading her husband that Fanny had shown no more reluctance than became a maiden's modesty ; admitting that the general was under some personal disadvantages. He, in the meanwhile, pressed his suit to the bewildered Fanny with a delicacy and sentiment for which his ordinary bearing little prepared us. To conclude; after two months' harassing, persuading, coaxing, and threatening, Fanny was brought to give what was interpreted into her consent; and in due time became Mrs. General Bender. The marriage display was all that a mother's heart could wish; at least, such a mother as could forget, in the excitement of the occasion, the force which had been employed upon a tender-souled girl of sixteen, to bring her into a position so rich in promise of misery. The bridal party left immediately. It may fall to our lot to see more of them hereafter; but, at present, Fanny appears to me to have sufficient evil accumulated upon her: a forced, disproportioned union, and a love which dares not be named." THE NON-INTERVENTION SYSTEM. J. H. THE different principles of policy which, at various times, have been introduced into our Indian government,-itself one of a most unprecedented and anomalous character,-have produced an incongruous state of political relations with those native powers, whose territories do not form an integral part of British India. There are states which are independent, in the true meaning of the term,-others existing under what is termed British protection, and others which, by virtue of subsidiary treaties, have nothing left but a shadow of free power, and but the name of " independent:" the King of Oude and the Raja of Mysore, for example, are as much under British control, as if they were deputies of our Governor-general of India. The horror professed and recorded by Parliament at the prospect of increasing our possessions in the East, after they had become by the force of events too large to remain at a stationary point, has proved a violent disturbing force in all the great political arrangements in India, consequent on our military successes there. It was necessary to resort to a species of subterfuge, whereby the substance of power could be acquired, without the invidious assumption of its symbols and trappings. Hence the subsidiary treaties, which, whilst they stipulate protection on the part of the British Government against all enemies, and mutual co-operation in the event of hostilities, impose a British force on the allied state for its "protection," and a British ruler, under the inoffensive name of a Resident, through whom all the political intercourse of the prince with other powers must be carried on. Soon, however, this expedient was proscribed for the future; either because it threw too flimsy a veil over our real design, or because it was calculated to hold out an encouragement to misgovernment, and to support every species of oppression by the ruler we protected. When the events of the great war of 1817-18 expelled the Mahrattas and Pindarries from the Rajpoot states of Central and Western India, those states, small and weak in themselves, were in the last stage of exhaustion, through misrule and oppression, and might have been made the subject of any experiment. Three courses of policy were open-first, to treat them as conquered territory, and annex them to our own possessions; secondly, to grant them subsidiary treaties; and, lastly, an intermediate course, to place them under British protection, exacting only in return a renunciation of connexion with other states, and an acknowledgment of our supremacy. The latter expedient was adopted. The treaties with these principalities differ in their stipulations; some of the states are required to furnish contingents; others to place the whole of their resources at our disposal; some pay a tribute to the British Government; others are exempt from this obligation. In the policy pursued by the Anglo-Indian government, with respect to the Rajpoot States, their peculiar character was probably not altogether overlooked. Little as we then knew of Rajasthan, it was easy to perceive that the Rajpoots were a martial race, proud of their descent and supposed pre-eminence, in having once given a chackraverti, or sovereign, to India, and jealous of any encroachments upon their own and their princes' rights. Divested, as our proffered protection was, of all repulsive pretensions, and recommended by the services our army had rendered in liberating their country from the intolerable yoke of the Mahrattas, it was with difficulty accepted by the Rajpoot rulers, and was almost forced upon Jeypore. This intermediate course of policy, whatever its motives, like most middle and temporizing measures, has not succeeded. It is too much to say, that the present disorganized condition of Rajpootana is to be attributed to this abstinent policy, but it is owing to this policy that it cannot be readily remedied. Had we, when they were delivered from Mahratta thraldom, relinquished to the Rajpoot princes the entire and uncontrolled government of their states, they might have been impelled by stronger motives and purer principles than they now obey, to work out the regeneration of their country, and even a struggle for supremacy amongst the states might have had an ultimate good effect. On the other hand, had we confined them in the close embrace of a subsidiary treaty, the fruits of it might have been as beneficial to the Rajpoots as Col. T. Munro tells us have been produced by the subsidiary system in Mysore and Travancore. The Rubicon is, however, passed, and the non-intervention system is now acted upon with the most inflexible scrupulosity. We are conse |