among them. The ugly faces that haunt, in quick succession, the imagination of one oppressed by night-mare, might vie with those that passed successively in review before Ethel. Most of them hurried on, looking neither to the right nor left. Some entered the house; some glanced at her carriage one or two, perceiving a bonnet, evidently questioned the waiter. He stood there for her own service, Ethel thought; and she watched his every movement— his successive disappearances and returns-the people he talked to. Once she signed to him to come; but-" No, ma'am, the porter is not come back yet,' -was all his answer. At last, after having stood, half whistling, for some five minutes, (it appeared to Ethel half-an-hour,) without having received any visible communication, he suddenly came up to the carriage door, saying, "The porter could not stay to speak to you, ma'am, he was in such a hurry. He says, Mr. Villiers lodges in Duke Street, St. James's he should know the house, but has forgotten the number. “Then I must wait till he comes back again. I knew all that before. Will he be long?" "A long time, ma'am; two hours at least. He said that the woman of the house is a widow woman-Mrs. Derham. Thus, as if by torture, (but, as with the whipping boys of old, her's was the torture, not the delinquent's,) Ethel extracted some information from the stupid, conceited fellow. On she went to Duke Street, to discover Mrs. Derham's residence. A few wrong doors were knocked at; and a beer-boy, at last, was the Mercury that brought the impatient, longing wife, to the threshold of her husband's residence. Happy beer-boy! She gave him a sovereign : he had never been so rich in his life before;-such chance-medleys do occur in this strange world! CHAPTER XXXIV. O my reviving joy! thy quickening presence Sit like a youthful spring upon my blood. MIDDLETON. THE boy knocked at the door. A servant-girl opened it. "Does Mr. Villiers lodge here?" asked the postillion, from his horse. "Yes," said the girl. Open the door quickly, and let me out!" cried Ethel, as her heart beat fast and loud. The door was opened-the steps let down-operations tedious beyond measure, as she thought. She got out, and was in the hall, going up stairs. “Mr. Villiers is not at home," said the maid. Through the low blinds of the parlour window, Mrs. Derham had been watching what was going on. She heard what her servant said, and now came out. "Mr. Villiers is not at home," she reiterated; 66 will you leave any message?" 66 No; I will wait for him. Show me into his room. "I am afraid that it is locked," answered Mrs. Derham repulsively "perhaps you can call again. Who shall I say asked for him?" : 66 "O no!" cried Ethel, "I must wait for him. Will you permit me to wait in your parlour? I am Mrs. Villiers. " 66 "I beg pardon," said the good woman; Mrs. Villiers is in the “And so I am,” replied Ethel—“at least, so I was this morning. Don't you see my travelling carriage?—look; you may be sure that I am Mrs. Villiers. " She took out of her little bag one of Edward's letters, with the perusal of which she had beguiled much of her way to town. Mrs. Derham looked at the direction-"The Honourable Mrs. Villiers;"-her countenance brightened. Mrs. Derham was a little, plump, well-preserved woman of fifty-four or five. She was kindhearted, and of course shared the worship for rank which possesses every heart born within the four seas. She was now all attention. Villiers's room was open; he was expected very soon:-"He is so seldom out in an evening: it is very unlucky; but he must be back directly," said Mrs. Derham, as she showed the way up the narrow staircase. Ethel reached the landing, and entered a room of tolerable dimensions, considerably encumbered with litter, which opened into a smaller room, with a tent bed. A little bit of fire glimmered in the grate. The whole place looked excessively forlorn and comfortless. 66 be alone. Mrs. Derham bustled about to bestow a little neatness on the room, saying something of the "untidiness of gentlemen," and so many lodgers in the house." Ethel sat down: she longed to There was the post-boy to be paid, and to be ordered to take the carriage to a coach-house; and then-Mrs. Derham asked her if she would not have something to eat she herself was at tea, and offered a cup, which Ethel thankfully accepted, acknowledging that she had not eaten since the morning. Mrs. Derham was shocked. The rank, beauty and sweet manners of Ethel had made a conquest, which her extreme youth redoubled. “So young a lady," she said, "to go about alone: she did not know how to take care of herself, she was sure. She must have some supper: a roast chicken should be ready in an hour-by the time Mr. Villiers came in." "But the tea, now ?" " said Ethel, smiling; 66 you will let me have that Mrs. Derham hurried away on this hint, and the young wife was left alone. She had been married a year; but there was still a freshness about her feelings, which gave zest to every change in her wedded life. "This is where he has been living without me, she thought; "Poor Edward! it does not look as if he were very comfortable." She rose from her seat, and began to arrange the books and papers. A glove of her husband's lay on the table: she kissed it with a glad feeling of welcome. When the servant came in, she had the fire replenished-the hearth swept ; and in a minute or two, the room had lost much of its disconsolate appearance. Then, with a continuation of her feminine love of order, she arranged her own dress and hair; giving to her attire, as much as possible, an at-home appearance. She had just finished-just sat down, and begun to find the time long-when a quick, imperative knock at the door, which she recognized at once, made her heart beat, and her cheek grow pale. She heard a step-a voice-and Mrs. Derham answer -“Yes, sir; the fire is in-every thing comfortable; "—and Ethel opened the door, as she spoke, and in an instant was clasped in her husband's arms. It was not a moment whose joy could be expressed by words. He had been miserable during her absence, and had thought of sending for her; but he looked round his single room, remembered that he was in lodgings, and gave up his purpose with a bitter murmur: and here she was, uncalled for, but most welcome: she was here, in her youth, her loveliness, her sweetness: these were charms; but others more transcendent now attended on, and invested her; the sacred tenderness of a wife had led her to his side; and love, in its most genuine and beautiful shape, shed an atmosphere of delight and worship about her. Not one circumstance could alloy the unspeakable bliss of their meeting. Poverty, and its humiliations, vanished from before the eyes of Villiers; he was overflowingly rich in the possession of her affections-her presence. Again and again he thanked her, in broken accents of expressive transport. "Nothing in the whole world could make me unhappy now!” he cried; and Ethel, who had seen his face look elongated and gloomy at the moment he had entered, felt indeed that Medea, with all her potent herbs, was less of a magician than she, in the power of infusing the sparkling spirit of life into one human frame. It was long before either were coherent in their inquiries and replies. There was nothing, indeed, that either wished to know. Life, and its purposes, were fulfilled, rounded, complete, without a flaw. They loved, and were together-together, not for a transitory moment, but for the whole duration of the eternity of love, which never could be exhausted in their hearts. After more than an hour spent in gradually becoming acquainted and familiar with the transporting change, from separate loneliness to mutual society and sympathy, the goodnatured face of Mrs. Derham showed itself, to announce that Ethel's supper was ready. These words brought back to Edward's recollection his wife's journey, and consequent fatigues: he grew more desirous than Mrs. Derham to feed his poor famished bird, whose eyes, in spite of the joy that shone in them, began to look languid, and whose cheek was pale. The little supper-table was laid, and they sat down together. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu has recorded the pleasure to be reaped "When we meet with champagne and a chicken at last; : and perhaps social life contains no combination so full of enjoyment as a tête-à-tête supper. Here it was, with its highest zest. They feared no prying eyes-they knew no ill it was not a scanty hour of joy snatched from an age of pain—a single spark illuminating a long blank night. It came after separation, and possessed, therefore, the charm of novelty; but it was the prelude to a long reunion-the seal set on their being once again joined, to go through together each hour of the livelong day. Full of unutterable thankfulness and gladness, as were the minds of each, there was, besides, 66 A sacred and home-felt delight, A sober certainty of waking bliss," which is the crown and fulfilment of perfect human happiness. "Imparadised" by each other's presence-no doubt-no fear of division on the morrow-no dread of untoward event, suspicion, or blame, clouded the balmy atmosphere which their hearts created around them. No Eden was required to enhance their happiness; there needed no 66 Crisped brooks, Rolling on orient pearl and sands of gold;" no "Happy, rural seat, with various view," |