"His lordship! his lordship will be delighted, Mr. Windoor," cried Mr. Treeby. "He'll have you down to his place, and talk to you face to face, by Jove! But there's your memory, you know, how'll you manage about it?"

"Do you think I could trust it, my dear sir?" returned Mr. Wardour, with a sad smile. "I commit everything to paper at once."

And he drew a bulky memorandum-book significantly from his pocket.

"If none of you will do further justice to my '36, gentlemen, I propose that we join the ladies," said the host. And the four adjourned to the drawing-room.

VI.

PRELIMINARY.

MEANWHILE, at Treeby Cottage, Austin Reefer was taking the opportunity of confiding his passion to Kate. He had seen Mrs. Treeby alone that morning, and had told her that he presumed she had been made aware of the conversation which had taken place between himself and Mr. Treeby.

"Yes, Mr. Reefer," she said, "Mr. Treeby told me about it, and of course the suddenness of it took me a little by surprise; but I am quite willing with Mr. Treeby that you should speak to Kate herself, and ascertain what her sentiments are."

"Then I have your fullest consent?" he said.

"It is sudden-very sudden," she replied, speaking more to herself than to him; "and you must not feel surprised, Mr. Reefer, if it should seem so to Kate, and should startle her a little. A young girl's feelings, you know, are usually much slower of development than a man's."

Mrs. Treeby advanced this proposition with the most charming forgetfulness of the fact that her own impulsive love for young Mr. Treeby gave a flat denial to it. Her theory was, that maidens should, and that they did, deliberate a good deal before falling in love with men; and, like many other worthy theorists, it never seemed to occur to her that theories are occasionally contradicted in practice. How these elderly people, while remembering definite events, gradually lose the perception of past modifications of emotional and mental circumstance. As age advances memory seems to become dead to the world of feeling, and to live only in the world of material fact.

"If my daughter," continued Mrs. Treeby, "should give you a favourable answer, I would be the last to stand in the way of her wishes, for I cannot tell you, Mr. Reefer, how deeply I feel on such matters. I think one cannot hold too sacred, or cherish too

carefully, the feelings of a young girl's heart on a question like that of marriage; and I am strongly opposed to a mother's using her influence either in the way of coercion or prohibition, unless there is some urgent reason for doing so. You will be the only man who has ever asked Kate to be his wife-the only man, indeed, in her own station with whom she has ever had the opportunity of becoming acquainted. Perhaps it would have been better if she could have seen a little more of society; but I think Katie is one who knows her own mind, and if she accepts you, I shall feel quite sure she gives herself to you heart and soul; I don't think you are one who would be satisfied yourself unless you knew that that was the case," she added, looking up in his face and smiling. "And I like you, Mr. Reefer; I know scarcely anything of you beyond what I have seen of you myself in these last three days, but I think you are true and good, and will watch over my darling."

"It is very generous of you to say so, Mrs. Treeby," replied Austin. "I hardly feel that I deserve such a good opinion; I assure you I feel as if I was going to do a guilty thing in asking your daughter to be my wife-as if I was making you a base return for your hospitality; but I am buoyed up by the hope that if she gives me a favourable answer, I shall be able to prove that your confidence in me is not misplaced."

"Yes, I like you, Mr. Reefer," repeated Mrs. Treeby, looking at him tenderly; and perhaps a little sadly too. "I wish I was as certain that the blessed One, whose birth we commemorated together yesterday, was as dear to you as my daughter-nay, a thousand times more precious."

"I fear that I do not devote as much time and thought to religious matters as I ought," he replied, gravely; "but do not think I am wholly indifferent to them, Mrs. Treeby. If one thing is calculated to attract our adoration and love more than another, surely it is our Lord's character."

"Yes, dear Mr. Reefer; but don't be content with loving and admiring at a distance-with looking at the Saviour of men merely as a far-off being in history. Go near to Him, and see what a glorious person He is, and how in all the world He is the only friend any one can have worth the name. What would I have done without Him all these years! Don't think me intrusive, Mr. Reefer, but I had four brothers once, all very dear to me, and I know how loveable, and noble and high-minded young men may be without having learned what the great object of life ought to be-the only object which will really repay pursuit to merge self in God, to nail the heart to the Cross, and to have no life but in Him who hangs there. My brothers are all dead. Did they learn the secret before they went? God knows -God only knows. He has been very gracious to me; it seems

sometimes as if I heard His voice saying, 'All are safe.' Would that the voice could always ring in my ears. How can I look forward to not meeting them again? Yet if they were without that knowledge I never shall."

She paused a moment, tears rolling down her cheek; and as she repeated with most mournful but most decided emphasis, "I never shall," Austin felt the words entering into him and thrilling him with their infinite pathos.

"You are young now, Mr. Reefer, and rejoicing like a giant to run your race, and if Kate is to run it with you, I would like to think of you as both with your eyes set on the best goal, so that beyond it you may be sure of meeting again where marriage is unknown. Forgive me, Mr. Reefer. I am an old woman, who has known something of the bitterness of life, and who knows the only true source of its sweetness; but perhaps I may be rude and over-earnest in speaking of the matter which lies nearest my heart."

"I have some idea what a saint is like now," thought Austin, returning the gaze of the deep-set eyes, in which the quiet light of a rich and steady enthusiasm burned, of such a type as we may imagine kindled in the eyes of the martyrs. "This is truth," he thought; "this earnestness of hers comes from the facts of experience, not from the appearances of fancy. Her beliefs are entwined with the fibres of her being, and she speaks of what she knows, not of what she imagines."

"What need of apology, Mrs. Treeby?" he said. "Rather accept my thanks, and the assurance of how much I feel your kindly interest in me. If I am to be made happy before I go, it will add not a little to my happiness to remember who is to be my mother-in-law."

"You are going to speak to her to-day?"

"Yes, this evening, when you are all away; it will be a good opportunity."

"And if you win her, Mr. Reefer," said Mrs. Treeby, taking his hand in hers and holding it caressingly, "if my darling gives herself into your keeping, you will guide her and cherish her with all tenderness, will you not?"

Austin replied by squeezing the hand that rested in his own, and went away to his brother's room, feeling as if he would like to have some image of that saintly presence constantly by him, which he might sometimes look at and worship. Mrs. Treeby sat for a few minutes in a meditative mood, wondering within herself how the matter would end; strong in belief of Austin-forgetful, as simple well-wishing minds like hers are apt to be, of the dire betrayal of her own young trust-and ready to wish him God speed, yet with an unaccountable presentiment that he would meet with disappointment-that Kate would give him an absolute refusal.

BARON TAUCHNITZ.

BRITISH and American writers owe a large debt of gratitude to BARON TAUCHNITZ, who came forward at a time when the rights of English Authors were wholly unprotected, and constantly invaded, and without any possible claim on their part, offered them most liberal terms for the Continental Copyright of their productions.

Conduct so honourable, and liberality so remarkable, could not fail of reward. The Tauchnitz Collection speedily superseded all others, and is now unrivalled and unapproachable. No English or American traveller on the Continent fails to provide himself with a supply of those handy and well-printed volumes, which prove such pleasant companions on railway and steam-boat, and serve to beguile the tedium of a long evening at an hotel.

The Collection, which comprises the best works of all the most eminent writers of the present day, now numbers One Thousand Volumes. BARON TAUCHNITZ has worthily marked this point in his great undertaking, by an exceedingly beautiful reprint of the New Testament;* and has confided the supervision of the volume to the learned PROFESSOR TISCHENDORF, of Leipsic, than whom no one better qualified for the task could be found.

Well is it observed by PROFESSOR TISCHENDORF, in his Introduction to this beautiful reprint: "A magnificent display of human intellect in the Literature of England and America was that which the noble originator of this Collection aspired to accomplish for the benefit of the educated world beyond the native countries of the authors represented. As the Thousandth Volume he introduces the Word of God which we have received at the hands of the Apostles of the Lord; and it is without a doubt the most worthy crown of this edifice erected by human genius."

Vast as it is, the edifice is not more than half completed; and we hope to record the publication of the Two Thousandth Volume of the Collection.

The New Testament. The Authorised English Version, with Introduction and Various Readings from the three most celebrated manuscripts of the original Greek Text. By Constantine Tischendorf. Tauchnitz Edition; vol. 1000. Leipzic, 1869.

HOW SIR COURCY DE VERE WAS WATER

BEWITCHED.

BY WILLIAM JONES.

I.

SIR COURCY DE VERE was a mettlesome knight,
A crusader famed in the Holy Land;
The Soldan oft cursed him in words unpolite,

For he poach'd on his Moors with a pitiless hand.
In the field, in the breach, in the press of the battle,
His blows on the Moslemites' thick skulls would rattle;
He made them "eat dirt" in a manner most striking,
And gave them much more than they had to their liking.
On his steed, white as snow,

Through their ranks he would go,

At a speed that exceeded the flight of a crow,
Slashing high, cutting low,

Now a head, now a toe,

Of each heathenish foe,

As reckless and bold as a Visgoth or Viking!

But the crusades were over, De Vere was a lover,
He had satisfied conscience and duty,

So home he return'd, with his trophies well earn'd,
To share them with love and with beauty.
He travell'd by night,

He travell'd by day,

His spirits were light as a roundelay,
Yet, old chroniclers say,

At that time 'twas a perilous journey to take,
And such as would make us now nervous and quake,
To cross the wild sea in a vessel so small,

That chances were few it would weather a squall;
And quarters so cramp'd, that a man who was tall
Had to bend himself double to find room at all;
Pigs, horses, and passengers huddled together,
Exposed to rough usage and still rougher weather,
While the craft, unless bless'd by a fortunate wind,
Would take its own time and be some months behind.

By land it was worse,
For Mercury's curse-