Hyperion never looked so well as when he was placed in comparison to a satyr; and after a long time, having contemplated the various phases of swarthy humanity, which meet your gaze in India, you arrive where beings of a different order congregate, your heart must be of the coldest if you view them unmoved.

Right joyfully did William Sharman proceed to his parents' home in Berkshire, and most cordial, indeed, was his reception by his father, his mother, and two sisters. His brothers were away: one being at Oxford, and the other having a living in Kent. Their house was situated far from any town, and their life was a very quiet one. The coming home of their son was quite an event in the neighbourhood.

Near Mr. Sharman's house, in a small cottage, was living a widow lady, called Wilson, who had an only daughter. This widow lady was young, and, report said, she had an admirer living in the town of Reading. His business obliged him to reside constantly there, but he managed sometimes to come to the cottage and pay her a short visit. He had, as yet, made no open declaration of his love to Mrs. Wilson, but she was in daily expectation of some avowal of the kind. He was a business man and unwilling to involve himself in an engagement, until he found that his means were such as to warrant him to make an offer of his hand. His business, as a solicitor, gave him rarely leisure to absent himself, except on a holiday, or between Saturday and Monday; but he seldom missed such times, making an excursion to Woodville Cottage to see Mrs. Wilson, who was by no meaas past the time of life that would entail her to be called a fine woman. But her daughter was a person of the most striking loveliness, the very picture of softness, the biondina whose every look was witchery, in her features the most mild and innocent expression, and, when animated, they lit up with a smile of fascinating sweetness, and showed teeth of dazzling whiteness. She was scarcely more than sixteen; but her mother had been married very young, and almost envied her, as she saw her daily growing more and more beautiful, and, of the two, the matre pulchra filia pulchrior was the grand attraction of the neighbourhood.

There was also an attachment of a character somewhat more interesting than that of the solicitor for the widow. Its progress was almost unknown to Mrs. Wilson and felt unconsciously by her daughter. This was the feeling that existed between young Clarence Hervey, formerly a cadet at Addiscombe, but now serving in India in the Company's service; he had taken his departure for that country a short time before William Sharman's arrival in England. Mrs. Wilson looked upon this understanding between them as a sort of juvenile farce, and would not hear Eliza

speak of it; yet the little that passed between them on, the night before he left Woodville Cottage was of the sort that left a most lasting impression, and though Eliza did not speak much, she still felt resolved in her heart that no circumstance or course of events should ever turn her fancy from the idol which it had set up. His protestations were vehement, and very bitterly did he feel the penury which he knew to be now his lot, precluding him from a prospect of offering a home to the girl who had so captivated his fancy. But his father was only a half-pay captain, and his means, taking the requirements of a gentleman's station in life into consideration, more straitened than if he were a mere farmer or person who looked to trade for advancement in life.

In Captain Hervey's days, or forty years ago, there was really no prospect for a poor man entering a regiment of the line. Now it seems very doubtful what an officer's prospect may be; but at that time, when money was all in all, advancement was wholly hopeless. So he decided upon getting his only sou an appointment at Addiscombe. As his own profession was closed to him, he thought that the East India service was a line of life which, notwithstanding its drawbacks, could afford better openings to his son, without fortune, for realising an independence. Neither he nor Mrs. Wilson could be wholly ignorant of the understanding which prevailed between Clarence and Eliza; but on her part she was determined to treat it as a youthful freak of an effervescent kind, which, considering the age and prospect of the two persons principally concerned, was only to be laughed at. Certainly Clarence at nineteen was not in the least more matured into manhood or fitted to be head of a family than was Eliza into womanhood at sixteen. I have often wondered at the extreme celerity with which girls ripen into maturity compared with the boobyism, crudity, and laughable juvenility which mark the action of youths ere they can call themselves men, few being at all sensible, in a worldly point of view, until twenty-two, and most of them taking three years more to come under that denomination. Despite the precocity of Pitt and a few-very few-others, the general rule of those who have been slow in becoming men turning out the most worthy specimens of the genus homo holds good. But Captain Hervey, who was Clarence's only parent, did not think that this youthful attachment was of sufficient importance to be commented upon by him, and fancied that it would be only elevating a childish sentiment into undue regard were he to speak of it to his son. Accordingly, when he saw him off at his embarkation for Calcutta from Portsmouth, he paid every attention to all that concerned his outfit, his cabin. accommodation, his stock of money, his friends to whom he should introduce himself, bu never touched upon the subject of his affec

tion. Indeed, he fondly hoped that it would fare with him as it most commonly does with young men of his age; that the different pursuits, sports, business, and engagements of manhood would contribute to wean him from the recollection of a subject of such a hopeless, and such a romantic character; and his visions of love would flee away, to be replaced by other and more sensible considertions.

A month had just passed away from the time of Clarence's departure for Calcutta, when William Sharman arrived at his parent's home. Poor Eliza felt the pain of absence very acutely, and the prospect of having another parent to render her home still more painful to her was daily getting nearer. For Mrs. Wilson, who, like Cleopatra, as well as like most of her sex, whether trained in the school of worldly knowledge or unsophisticated, except in the untaught instincts of female wit, had determined upon treating the solicitor with becoming coolness, unless he should choose to avow his attentions more openly; and accordingly, about a fortnight after the time that Clarence had taken his departure, she intimated to him that it would be, under all the circumstances of the case, much better for him to leave off making his visits to her house, as she really dreaded the scandal that would ensue if he persisted in coming. She thought, perhaps, that this avowal on her part would bring on the proposal; but Mr. Dowling, the courteous solicitor, did not at once respond in the way that a more sanguine and demonstrative admirer would have responded, and shortly after her having made this speech, took his departure, having, however, adduced many expressions of his sorrow at finding that his visits had, unconsciously to himself, been the means of causing her uneasiness. He then went on his way homeward, to Reading; but, only three days after he had arrived there, a long and very interesting letter reached Mrs. Wilson's house. She was closeted with it for a long time, perusing over its contents, before she called her daughter, and told her what the import of it was, and also half asking her advice, and half stating her own decided opinions, imparted to her her thoughts on the subject, which Mr. Dowling had brought so urgently before her. He had made her, in short, an offer of his hand. There were a good many preambles, and a great deal of flattery, of protestations of apology; but the main import of the epistle was unmistakeable. Of course, Eliza could not but assent to all that her mother said; she knew that the frequent assertion that she would never accept him unless he promised to treat her daughter as his own child did not go for much, that when her mother went the length of telling Mr. Dowling that she agreed to his proposal, it was equivalent to her resigning every thought, every wish, and all

appertaining to her own prospects, into his hand, and that a man with a mind like his could fashion and contrive all things to suit his own purposes. So she did not venture even to hint her objections, or offer the slightest mention of any obstacle to what she well knew was her mother's fixed determination. But with the native tact and prescience which womankind are generally found to possess, she saw that it was certain that her mother would accept this offer by Mr. Dowling, and accordingly felt that it would only go to alienate her affections from her were she to show herself opposed to her wishes.

Not long after the receipt of the letter, Mrs. Wilson wrote in answer, and then Mr. Dowling, who rightly knew that he who loves a widow must not coy and feign, and flatter too much, found himself an accepted suitor, and solicited the favour of being allowed to pay a visit two days after the date that he sent his answer. When a match is in any way a marriage of convenience, it ceases to be interesting. The Court fashion, which decrees alliances only conformable to rank, and the foreign fashion, whichj ignores the choice resting with those most especially concerned in the union, are, however politic and refined they may be, hateful to the healthful sentiment of the English mind. So also the man who allies himself with a lady for the purpose of bettering his connection, his fortune, or his position, however prudently he may act, or however he may be congratulated by hosts of applauding worldlings, is not the being to whom one would willingly accord respect, or be inclined to admire. If not altogether a match which was made for pecuniary considerations, Mr. Dowling's was one in which connection was wholly looked to. He was a man of low birth, and Mrs. Wilson had been educated as became her birth, in the most careful manner, and her connections were the highest in rank. Her husband, also, though not wealthy, was a man of good family, and though he had not, being a clergyman, at his death left her more than a small sum together with the thousand pounds for which he had insured his ife, yet she had still managed to bring up her daughter well and to live quietly and respectably in the small cottage near the town of Woodville. It was the management of the money, which naturally came strange to her, that had first brought on her acquaintance with Mr. Dowling, as by his aid she was enabled to invest her small capital favourably, and secure an income of about two hundred pounds a year for the maintenance herself and her daughter. had been at odd times employed by her late husband, and when Mr Wilson's sudden death plunged her, in grief and perplexity, she first turned to him for advice in the pecuniary way, as to settling her affairs, and his ready help on that occasion had made her look upon him with regard.

He

out.

Though Mr. Wilson did not die intestate, yet the wording of the will was as an unknown tongue to his poor widow, and she was very glad to have the assistance of a legal interpreter in making it The commencement of their intercourse had been about two years before the momentous letter had been written, but it had been growing gradually more and more close. But now that the matter had been settled, and that the rubicon had been crossed, it only remained for her to fix the day; and it was agreed that the wedding should take place very shortly after her answer had been received. Mr. Dowling was fifty years old, but that itself did not offer any barrier to their union, as Mrs. Wilson was anxious rather for a steady protector than a young gallant.

Poor Eliza was very sad. She was wholly forced to smother her feelings. She dared not say what she thought of her mother's conduct in thus wedding this man; neither dared she, on any account, acknowledge her own predilections in favour of the youth who had just sailed for Calcutta. When she went into her own room she indulged in secret grief, but when she was with her mother she wholly concealed her emotions. But a few days passed over, and the thoughts of the wedding, its preparations, its cares, its anxieties, and all about its management-matters to women of most absorbing importance-engaged her and her mother so fully that she could only in secret even give a thought to her own prospects.

The wedding was a private one, and took place in the delightful month of August; so, soon after, the bride and bridegroom went to the seaside, to Bournemouth, and Eliza, who had really no home but her mother's to look to, of course, accompanied them.

William Sharman had only once had an opportunity of seeing Miss Wilson and her mother, and that was in a transient way. Shortly after his arrival at home, he saw her coming out of the village church along with her mother, when she appeared to him an angel of loveliness; he felt no thought as to what was her position in life, who were her friends, what her fortune, a creature of such transcendent beauty must surely be a match for a prince. Both his father and mother had but a slight acquaintance with these two ladies, and, on this occasion, nothing further than a few words of recognition, and remarks of congratulation relative to his return from abroad, passed between them.

Very few days after this the private wedding, at which none but a few friends were present, took place; and, for his part, William regretted the consequence of it, as it took away from the neighbourhood the only interesting-looking person whose appearance had such charms for him. But the unavoidable absence of the bridal party obliged him to have patience. He thought to himself,