tinued the lady in the same shrill voice. "Mamma wants the pudding!"

"TELL HER TO FETCH IT HERSELF!" roared Becky, at which remark Gann and his facetious friend once more went off into fits of laughter.

"This is too bad!" said Mrs. G., starting up; "she shall leave the house this instant!" and so no doubt Becky would, but that the lady owed her five quarters' wages; which she, at that period, did not feel inclined to pay.

Well, the dinner at last was at an end; the ladies went away to tea, leaving the gentlemen to their wine; Brandon, very condescendingly, partaking of a bottle of port, and listening with admiration to the toasts and sentiments with which it is still the custom among persons of Mr. Gann's rank of life to preface each glass of wine. As thus:

Glass 1. "Gents," says Mr. Gann, rising, "this glass I need say nothink about. Here's the King, and long life to him and the

family!"

Mr. Swigby, with his glass, goes knock, knock, knock on the table; and saying gravely, "The King!" drinks off his glass and smacks his lips afterwards.

Mr. Brandon, who had drunk half his, stops in the midst and says, "Oh, 'The King!'

Mr. Swigby. "A good glass of wine that, Gann my boy!" Mr. Brandon. "Capital, really; though, upon my faith, I'm no judge of port."

I

Mr. Gann (smacks). "A fine fruity wine as ever I tasted. suppose you, Mr. B., are accustomed only to claret. I've 'ad it, too, in my time, sir, as Swigby there very well knows. I travelled, sir, sure le Continong, I assure you, and drank my glass of claret with the best man in France, or England either. I wasn't always what I am, sir."

Mr. Brandon. "You don't look as if you were.' Mr. Gann. "No, sir. Before that gas came in, I was head, sir, of one the fust 'ouses in the hoil-trade, Gann, Blubbery and Gann, sir-Thames Street, City. I'd my box at Putney, as good a gig and horse as my friend there drives.”

Mr. Swigby. "Ay, and a better too, Gann, I make no doubt." Mr. Gann. "Well, say a better. I had a better, if money could fetch it, sir; and I didn't spare that, I warrant you. No, no, James Gann didn't grudge his purse, sir; and had his friends around him, as he's 'appy to 'ave now, sir. Mr. Brandon, your 'ealth, sir, and may we hoften meet under this ma'ogany. Swigby my boy, God bless you!"

Mr. Brandon. "Your very good health.”

Bless you,

Mr. Swigby. "Thank you, Gann. Here's to you, and long life and prosperity and happiness to you and yours. Jim my boy; Heaven bless you! I say this, Mr. Bandon— Brandon-what's your name-there ain't a better fellow in all Margate than James Gann,-no, nor in all England. Here's Mrs. Gann, gents, and the family. MRS. GANN!" (drinks).

Mr. Brandon. "MRS. GANN. Hip, hip, hurrah!" (drinks).

Mr. Gann. "Mrs. Gann, and thank you, gents. A fine woman, Mr. B.; ain't she now? Ah, if you'd seen 'er when I married her! Gad, she was fine then-an out and outer, sir! Such a figure!"

Mr. Swigby. "You'd choose none but a good 'un, I war'nt. Ha, ha, ha!"

Mr. Gann. "Did I ever tell you of my duel along with the regimental doctor? No! Then I will. I was a young chap, you see, in those days; and when I saw her at Brussels--(Brusell, they call it)—I was right slick up over head and ears in love with her at once. But what was to be done? There was another gent in the case-a regimental doctor, sir- a reg'lar dragon. 'Faint heart,' says I, 'never won a fair lady,' and so I made so bold. She took me, sent the doctor to the right about. I met him one morning in the park at Brussels, and stood to him, sir, like a man. When the affair was over, my second, a leftenant of dragoons, told me, 'Gann,' says he, 'I've seen many a man under fire-I'm a Waterloo man,' says he,' and have rode by Wellington many a long day; but I never, for coolness, see such a man as you.' Gents, here's the Duke of Wellington and the British army!" (the gents drink).

Mr. Brandon. "Did you kill the doctor, sir?"

Mr. Gann. "Why, no, sir; I shot in the hair.”

Mr. Brandon. "Shot him in the hair! Egad, that was a severe shot, and a very lucky escape the doctor had of it? Whereabout in the hair? a whisker, sir; or, perhaps, a pigtail?"

Mr. Swigby. "Haw, haw, haw! shot'n in the hair—capital, capital!"

Mr. Gann (who has grown very red). "No, sir, there may be some mistake in my pronunciation, which I didn't expect to have laughed at, at my hown table."

I gave you my best, and If you like better to make genteel way, but hang me if

Mr. Brandon. "My dear sir! I protest and vowMr. Gann. "Never mind it, sir. did my best to make you welcome. fun of me, do, sir. That may be the it's hour way; is it, Jack? Our way; I beg your pardon, sir.”

Mr. Swigby. "Jim, Jim! for Heaven's sake!-peace and harmony of the evening-conviviality-social enjoyment-didn't mean it-did you mean anything, Mr. What-d'-ye-call-'im?"

Mr. Brandon. "Nothing, upon my honour as a gentleman!" Mr. Gann. "Well, then, there's my hand!" and good-natured Gann tried to forget the insult, and to talk as if nothing had occurred but he had been wounded in the most sensitive point in which a man can be touched by his superior, and never forgot Brandon's joke. That night at the club, when dreadfully tipsy, he made several speeches on the subject, and burst into tears many times. The pleasure of the evening was quite spoiled; and, as the conversation became vapid and dull, we shall refrain from reporting it. Mr. Brandon speedily took leave, but had not the courage to face the ladies at tea; to whom, it appears, the reconciled Becky had brought that refreshing beverage.

F

CHAPTER IV

IN WHICH MR. FITCH PROCLAIMS HIS LOVE, AND MR.
BRANDON PREPARES FOR WAR

ROM the splendid hall in which Mrs. Gann was dispensing

her hospitality, the celebrated painter, Andrea Fitch, rushed forth in a state of mind even more delirious than that which he usually enjoyed. He looked abroad into the street: all there was dusk and lonely; the rain falling heavily, the wind playing Pandean pipes and whistling down the chimney-pots. "I love the storm," said Fitch solemnly; and he put his great Spanish cloak round him in the most approved manner (it was of so prodigious a size that the tail of it, as it whirled over his shoulder, whisked away a lodging-card from the door of the house opposite Mr. Gann's). "I love the storm and solitude," said he, lighting a large pipe filled full of the fragrant Oronoko; and thus armed, he passed rapidly down the street, his hat cocked over his ringlets.

Andrea did not like smoking, but he used a pipe as a part of his profession as an artist, and as one of the picturesque parts of his costume; in like manner, though he did not fence, he always travelled about with a pair of foils; and quite unconscious of music, nevertheless had a guitar constantly near at hand. Without such properties a painter's spectacle is not complete; and now he determined to add to them another indispensable requisite—a mistress. "What great artist was ever without one?" thought he. Long long had he sighed for some one whom he might love, some one to whom he might address the poems which he was in the habit of making. Hundreds of such fragments had he composed, addressed to Leila, Ximena, Ada-imaginary beauties, whom he courted in dreamy verse. With what joy would he replace all those by a real charmer of flesh and blood! Away he went, then, on this evening -the tyranny of Mrs. Gann towards poor Caroline having awakened all his sympathies in the gentle girl's favour-determined now and for ever to make her the mistress of his heart. Monna-Lisa, the Fornarina, Leonardo, Raphael-he thought of all these, and vowed that his Caroline should be made famous and live for ever on his

canvas.

While Mrs. Gann was preparing for her friends, and enter

tainining them at tea and whist; while Caroline, all unconscious of the love she inspired, was weeping upstairs in her little garret ; while Mr. Brandon was enjoying the refined conversation of Gann and Swigby, over their glass and pipe in the office, Andrea walked abroad by the side of the ocean; and, before he was wet through, walked himself into the most fervid affection for poor persecuted Caroline. The reader might have observed him (had not the night been very dark, and a great deal too wet to allow a sensible reader to go abroad on such an errand) at the sea-shore standing on a rock, and drawing from his bosom a locket which contained a curl of hair tied up in riband. He looked at it for a moment, and then flung it away from him into the black boiling waters below him.

"No other 'air but thine, Caroline, shall ever rest near this 'art!" he said, and kissed the locket and restored it to its place. Light-minded youth, whose hair was it that he thus flung away? How many times had Andrea shown that very ringlet in strictest confidence to several brethren of the brush, and declared that it was the hair of a dear girl in Spain whom he loved to madness? Alas! 'twas but a fiction of his fevered brain; every one of his friends had a locket of hair, and Andrea, who had no love until now, had clipped this precious token from the wig of a lovely lay-figure, with cast-iron joints and a cardboard head, that had stood for some time in his atelier. I don't know that he felt any shame about the proceeding, for he was of such a warm imagination that he had grown to believe that the hair did actually come from a girl in Spain, and only parted with it on yielding to a superior attachment.

This attachment being fixed on, the young painter came home wet through; passed the night in reading Byron; making sketches, and burning them; writing poems to Caroline, and expunging them with pitiless india-rubber. A romantic man makes a point of sitting up all night, and pacing his chamber; and you may see many a composition of Andrea's dated "Midnight, 10th of March, A. F.," with his peculiar flourish over the initials. He was not sorry to be told in the morning, by the ladies at breakfast, that he looked dreadfully pale; and answered, laying his hand on his forehead and shaking his head gloomily, that he could get no sleep and then he would heave a huge sigh; and Miss Bella and Miss Linda would look at each other, and grin according to their wont. He was glad, I say, to have his woe remarked, and continued his sleeplessness for two or three nights; but he was certainly still more glad when he heard Mr. Brandon, on the fourth morning, cry out, in a shrill angry voice, to Becky the maid, to give the gentleman upstairs his compliments-Mr. Brandon's compliments-and tell him that he could not get a wink of sleep for the horrid trampling he

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