IV.

His large brown eyes, half open still,

Were sunken-dim, like lead;

We kissed his little tuneful bill,

And smoothed his ruffled head.

V.

Poor, pretty Rob! to think while we
Were housed so warm and dry,
You had no home but that old tree,
To creep into and die.

VI.

Yet Rob! we always scattered round,
A meal of crumbs for you ;-

And sure with us you might have found

A winter-lodging too;

VII.

And stayed till May-boughs bloomed again,

And days grew warm and long,

And only paid at parting then,

THE YOUNG CRICKETERS;

Or, Pride shall have a Fall.

BY MISS MITFORD.

"So you Sandleford boys are about to play Malsanger!" said George Lucas to Horace Selby, "have you a good eleven?"

"Our players are pretty fair, I believe," replied Horace; "but the number is short. Both sides have agreed to take two mates from other parishes, and I rode over, to ask your cousin Charles and you to join our Sandleford party."

"Faith, you are in luck, my good friend," cried George Lucas; " 'you may look on the game as won. Charles, to be sure, is no great hand: can't bowl; hits up; and a bad fieldsman; a slow, awkward field. But I did you never see me play? And I am so improved this season! I ought to be improved, for I have seen such play, and such players! I am just returned from Bramshill—

old Sir John's, you know,-and there were all the great men of the day-all the Lord's men: Mr. Ward, and Mr. Budd,-I am thought to stand at my wicket very much like Mr. Budd;-Saunders, who is reckoned the best player in England — Saunders; and Broadbridge, the Sussex bowler; I don't patronize their system, though; I stick to the old, steady, scientific game; Lord Frederick, and Mr. Knight, he's a fine figure of a man, is Mr. Knight, and very great in the field; old Howard, the bowler,-he's my model; and Lilywhite, and Searle, and Marsden, and Beagley,-in short, we had nearly every celebrated cricketer in England. I know that you Westminsters think that nobody can do any thing so well as yourselves, —but as far as cricket goes, ask Charles! He'll tell you, that you are in luck to have me!"

And off the young gentleman strutted, to pay his compliments to some ladies, who were talking to his mother on the other side of the lawn, switching off the blossoms of some choice balsams and carnations in his way, with a little stick that he held in his hand this conversation having passed on a bright day in August, beneath the heavy shadow of some tall elms, in Mrs. Lucas's beautiful grounds. George's speech had been delivered in a high, solemn, vaunt

ing tone,-for George, who had at once the misfortune to be the only, and spoiled child of a widowed mother, and the heir to a large estate, was, at thirteen, a coxcomb of the graver sort, and considered his own perfections and accomplishments as no joking matter; but of his two companions, who still remained talking together under the trees,— Horace, a quick, arch, lively lad, laughed outright at his egregious self-conceit; and Charles, a mild, fair, delicate boy, could not help smiling.

"He gives himself a comfortable character, however," said Horace, " rather too good to be true; whilst of you he speaks modestly enough. Are you so bad, Charles? And is he such a paragon of cricketers? Does he bat like Mr. Budd, and field like Mr. Knight, and bowl like Howard?”

Why, not exactly;" was the reply: "but there's more truth than you think, in his vaunting. He's a shewy, but uncertain player; and I am a bad one-a very bad one! Shy, and timid, and awkward; always feeling, when the game is over, that I could have done better,—just as I have felt afterwards, when your father, or any other clever man, has been so good as to speak to me, how much better I ought to have talked. The power seems to be in me; but somehow, it never comes at the right time in either

game; so that I may say, as I have heard people say of cucumber, 'that I like cricket, but cricket does not like me.'"

"Good or bad, my dear fellow, I'll take you," said Horace, 66 nervousness and all. My father often says, its a pity that you two cousins could not make over to one another some parcel of your several qualities: you would be much the happier for a dash of George's assurance, and he could spare enough to set up a regiment of dandies; whilst he would be all the better of your superfluous modesty. I'll take you both, and thankfully,” reiterated Horace; and the arrangements were made forthwith. They were to meet on the ground the ensuing morning, to play the match; a dinner engagement preventing the Lucases from practising with the Sandleford side that evening, as Horace wished, and intended; for our friend Horace, ardent and keen in every thing, whether sport or study, had set his heart on winning this match, and was very desirous to try the powers of his new allies. Fifty times during the evening, did he count up all his own good players, and the good players of the other side, and gravely conclude, ❝ it will all depend on the Lucases! I wish to-morrow were come!" And he said this so often, that even his sister Emily, although the