surety brought them together. They had

worked up, through rubs and crosses, to this state of things. "The course of true love never did run smooth." The course of no love ever did run smooth!-with its first dart, peace is gone. To say what comes in its place, is the purport of the present story.

Sir Frederic Cleveland was a man well known in Devon, the county in which he lived; but his character was canvassed much more for what he did not do, than it was for what he did do, to render himself worthy of popularity. It was the wonder of every one that he was not in Parliament: that he should have paid the fine in preference to accepting the office of High Sheriff: that with so many poachers about, making his woods their own, he should not qualify himself to have a slap at them as a magistrate that he should not have mourned more for the early loss of an amiable wife: and that he should not, long ere the usual

time of widowhood had passed, have taken to himself another partner, from the very worthy stock of suitable ladies in the neighbourhood; if not for himself (for there was nothing but nots where the worthy baronet was concerned) yet, as it was said, for the sake of keeping his son and daughter in something of better order.

But Sir Frederic Cleveland saw no necessity for any of these things-they never entered his mind. He would as soon have thought of taking a stall in a crowded street, or of proffering about his pies, all hot, to the best bidder, as of troubling himself with even the remotest idea of the urgency of such affairs. The quiet life he lived was to him, here below, his only chance of bliss; to enter upon that of business and thought, a foretaste of the inevitable doom of sinners.

With these feelings, nothing could be more conducive to their comfort and en

couragement than the abode in which his

high birth had placed him. It was spacious and ancient; a precious jewel set in its own bright glades; sheltered by its deep woods; and by the aid of its imposing majesty, helping him so well to frown off all intruders. And the world, though confessedly very enterprising where there is any thing to be gained, is nevertheless to be daunted at last. 'It gave him up,' as it expressed it; and, to shew its displeasure, left him to himself. It was the very thing he desired: and though it was never intended the result should be taken so resignedly, or that he should smile as he passed his neighbours the same as before, yet they had no alternative left, and no other mode of venting their spleen than in keeping an angry look-out, and in passing uncharitable animadversions on the extraordinary manner in which he brought up his children.

And in this there was enough to occupy them. Yes, Miss Cleveland had actually

been seen, perched with her brother, between the noble branches of the large spreading trees that overhung the paling of the park: yes, high in the air there she had stood! And what had she done? Why, giggled in just as unseemly a manner as her brother as they passed: and when they had looked up again, merely to be sure that it was she, oh monstrous! she had kissed her hand; that is—for it was necessary to be perspicuous in relating so heinous a crime-she had put her hand to her brother's mouth, as her arm encircled his neck; and therefore though he had kissed the hand, the enormity was the same; and Sir Frederic and his single life were very much to blame on account of it. It was high time that Miss. Cleveland should be at school, or else have a governess at home; and then they went to work to decide, whether Sir Frederic was of a safe age to admit of a resident governess with propriety.

It is not to be wondered at, with all this tittle-tattle and system of espionage going on without, that Sir Frederic should have kept himself ensconced within his own domain; neither was it surprising that the whole sense of the thing should be misunderstood; and that long and abstruse views were given of the case, in this strict line of demarcation kept up between himself and his neighbours, that never entered into his conception. The real fact was, that Sir Frederic was one of those idle beings—or as he would have himself expressed it, contented mortals-who expect to be let alone by the world, in return for the little intercourse they wish to keep up with it-all was a trouble to him but the usual routine of his daily life. If by chance in the warmth of an unguarded moment he made an engagement with a friend, he would awake out of spirits and depressed the next morningask himself what calamity was about to befal