"Pray what!"

"To dig in my garden," said Jack.

"I have heard of such things, but never saw them," replied the host.

"Then come to Bachelor's Hall, and I'll shew you cauliflowers and cucumbers of my own raising, that beat even our friend's there," pointing towards Evelyn Hall; "indeed, it's the only thing he is a little touchy about."

"But how if it rains?" remarked Tremaine.

"Oh! I have abundant employment, for I make fish and fruit nets, play the fiddle, and have the best turning lathe in the county."

"Bachelor's Hall must be a place worth seeing," observed Tremaine.

"I shall be proud to shew it you," answered Careless. "I suppose you read, too.”

"Oh yes, a great deal: indeed there is now so much reading in the papers, that they take a great deal of time to keep up with them. The landlord of the Hound-andHorn sends me an evening, three times a week, and I have myself the county papers; so that with all this, the Gentleman's Magazine, and the Annual Register, I have never been a week behind things since the French Revolution. But besides this, I have my brother's interest to manage at Belford, where there are a number of votes for his borough. I set up the club at the Hound-and-Horn on purpose, and this takes up a deal of time."

"And you are perfectly happy?"

"Perfectly."

"I really believe it," continued the host, "and if I might say such an ill-bred thing, if I were not Tremaine, I would be Careless."

"And if I were not Careless, I would be Tremaine," said Jack "that is "-after a pause, "provided you dined at four, and drank port.”

;

"Oh! I dare say, when you began you would have several other provisos."

"Why, yes!" observed Jack, looking round; "I would not let this old hall be so thinly inhabited."

Why, what would you do ?"

"I would marry Miss Evelyn," said Jack, abruptly. Tremaine was half choked.

"Marry, and keep good fellowship," continued Jack. "I am too old, by your own account," observed Tremaine with emotion.

"That was as a poor man; but with your fortune!" Tremaine looked grave, and a cloud shot across his brow. But he proceeded, "why even with my fortune, I fear-"

"Fear!" cried Careless, " pshaw! faint heart never won fair lady,' or as we used to say out of the Grammar, Fortuna favet fortibus. But talking of fortune, my good friend, will you now allow me to tell you what made me beat up your quarters so soon this morning?"

"It is time, I think," said Tremaine; "I had hoped it was because you had the same pleasure in coming to see me, as I had in receiving you."

66

Why, yes! certainly that was one reason," answered Careless," but I own I had another."

He then told him a story of distress, which as he himself was mixed up in it in a manner very much to his own credit, he explained not very perspicuously; but the result, as Tremaine gathered, was this:-That a neighbouring squire of immense estate, and very dissolute life, infamous withal for having ruined several young women, had let out to him his designs upon a tenant's daughter of great beauty and little prudence; that he (Careless) had warned the father of it, who, though deeply in debt to his landlord for rent, had forbidden him the house, and kept his daughter out of sight; that the squire had notwithstanding contrived to elope with the daughter on foot, who before she had gone half a mile had repented, and, while struggling to get free, was met by Careless; that much roughness, amounting to blows, had passed between him and the spoiler, who however was forced to forego his prize, whom Careless restored to her father; and in

revenge, the father had been ruined, by the seizure of everything he had. A threatened duel awaited Careless, who at the same time said, he did not think the fellow had pluck enough to go through with it; he was only indignant, that an injured man should be ruined, merely because the injury was not so great as had been intended.

"Thank God, however," exclaimed Careless, rubbing his hands, "I have been lucky for these poor people: the debt is above a hundred pounds, but I have already got above fifty. Dr. Evelyn gave me ten guineas, and my dear Georgy three; and to tell you the truth this is one reason for my visit to Lord Bellenden, where I know I may count upon at least twenty more; and here I own," added he, after a pause, and looking at the end of his whip, which he kept twirling on the ground, "I own all the folly of never, in my circumstances, having taken to any trade or profession. I have, by my idleness, deprived myself of all power to help these poor devils, except by turning beggar for them myself."

He blushed as he spoke the wodrs, but it was the blush of virtue, as well as of shame. Tremaine was penetrated; his heart was of kindred with the best, when called upon to act, and his indignation at an injury recited was ever ready to boil over. All the eloquence in the world could not have produced a more instantaneous effect than the simple narration of Careless, to whom he warmed as to a brother. Squeezing him therefore by the hand, he begged, if that were all, that he would give up his visit to Lord Bellenden, as he would himself cheerfully pay the balance of the farmer's debt. "And if the oppressor put his threat into execution, I shall think myself honoured," added Tremaine, "in attending you to the field."

Why, as to the first, I will take twenty guineas, if you please," said Jack; “and as to the last, I am for ever bound to you, and it is spoke like true Yorkshire. But I fancy Squire Brown (who, by the way, I am glad to find has nothing of Yorkshire in him, but springs from a stocking-maker at Nottingham), will never court another meeting the rascal has tasted a little crab-stick already,

and, as it is four days ago, I fancy he is in no humour to covet anything else."

"But my Lord Bellenden," said Tremaine.

My dear friend," returned Jack, "the lad will never hook a pike as long as he lives, unless I go over to him: so thank you a thousand times, and pray give me leave to order Lightfoot."

The bell rang; the horse was brought; and Tremaine was left alone, thoughtful, occupied, and affected; and, let us add, less displeased than usual with himself, and with all the world.

CHAPTER XXXII.

SELF-EXAMINATION.

Pacing the forest,

Chewing the cud of sweet and bitter fancy.

SHAKSPEARE.

"IT is certain," said he, as he walked through the garden-door towards the terrace, "that useful lessons may be gathered from small things. Who would have thought that this uninformed, untravelled, rough diamond, would furnish food even for Socrates!"

It was not that Tremaine thought himself Socrates; but he wished that Socrates could have had a Careless for a subject, in his reasoning upon human nature.

"He would have given a rare lecture upon it," said Tremaine, pacing the terrace.

The meditation continued some time, when he began to be clouded, by asking himself the important question, whether, with all his attainments, riches, and personal consequence, Jack was not the happier being of the two.

"And yet," continued he, advancing quicker along the terrace, as he advanced with his soliloquy "and yet as

happiness must be in the mind, and must therefore exist in proportion to the mind's cultivation, how is it possible? To dig in a garden, weave a net, or rub down a horse, is surely a very common affair, and not calculated to produce what all of us are courting with such eagerness, and none of us ever attain. He is indeed a benevolent, and kindhearted creature," proceeded Tremaine, "and that does much;-but so are many: I cannot tax myself with any deficiency in this respect."

"I will consult Dr. Evelyn about him," concluded Tremaine. "He will dogmatize a little, and we shall have a dispute. No matter the truth may be struck out between us."

Now it may have occurred to the reader, that whatever good sense may have appeared in Evelyn, anything but the truth had been infused by him into the mind of Tremaine. Yet that is not exactly so.

To have yielded his theories to Evelyn, would never have entered his contemplation; but as truth is the fairest flower of history, our duty requires that we should confess he was at least sometimes in the situation of that illustrious fellow-theorist, who, inculcating the sublime doctrine that pain was no evil, and seized with the gout in the midst of it, though he would not give up his theory, was forced to allow it an inconvenience. Now, as seclusion to the one philosopher was as incontestably an inconvenience as the pangs of the gout to the other, the pride of opinion had insensibly, and just so far yielded in Tremaine, that he thought Evelyn seemed the happier man of the two; and though it was still a problem in his mind, whether his happiness was on account, or in spite of his way of life, yet he was forced to own that the pursuits and tastes of such a man must at least be very bearable things.

The perpetual droppings, therefore, of Evelyn's maxims, began to be a little like the perpetual droppings of water upon marble; and obstinate as the mind of Tremaine may appear, it could not, any more than the marble, be exposed to these unceasing efforts, without insensibly giving way.

"There must be more in my friend's notions of life, than I am aware of," said the man of refinement, canvassing