eye intensely upon her, as if ready to check every point of explanation, but Charlotte ended her short statement without any expressed interruption on his part, and again his eye became selfcontained and indifferent.

The next expression of the boy's character was no less singular and unexpected. On observing a company of reapers, in a field by the way-side, taking their brief mid-afternoon rest, he advanced to the gate, opposite which, at a little distance, they were seated, and, unslinging his harp, began to play, filling up the sweetly dotted outline of the instrumental music with his own low but rich vocal song. After the first preamble, he nodded to his sister, and instantly her loud and thrilling voice turned magnificently into the same strain. On first view of the musician and his party, the rude young swains of the field, for favour, no doubt, in their mistresses' eyes, began to play off their rough wit; but in another minute these bolts were forgotten, and the loud daffing of the whole company was completely hushed. At first the song was grave and lofty, but by degrees it began to kindle into a more airy strain, till, as it waxed fast and mirthful, the harvest maids began to look knowingly to their partners, who, taking the hint, sprang to their feet, hauled up their sweet abettors, were mated in a moment, and commenced a dance among the stubble, so brisk, that the tall harvest of spiky wheat, standing by, rustled and nodded to them on its golden rods. Aged gleaners stood up from their bowing task, and listened to the sweet music, while the young came running from all parts of the field, and, throwing down their handfuls, began madly to caper and to mix with the more regular dance. The old grey bandsters, as they stood, rubbing in their hands ears of the fine grain, smiled as much under the general sympathy, as from a consciousness of their own superior wisdom above such follies. Even the overseer himself, who stood back, silently, was, for a minute, not scandalized at such proceedings, which were converting a time of repose for his weary labourers into mad exertions, which went positively to unfit them for the remaining darg of the day. Consideration, remonstrance, anger, were, however, soon mantling on his face, and he came forward; but he was anticipated, for the principal minstrel, who, with something like a smile on his countenance, had seen at first the quick influence of his music on the swink't labourers of the sweltering day, had gradually grown dark and severe in his look, and now stopped his song all at once, he refitted his harp to his shoulder and walked away without looking for guerdon, and heedless of the rustic swains, who shouted after him and waved their rye-straw hats.

With the greatest good-humour our young surgeon had indulged, to the very top of their bent, this musical frolic of the two foreigners, sitting down by the wayside till it was fairly over, and now he resumed his way with them. Antonio was silent and shy as before; but the manner in which he looked round him over the beautiful country, showed that his spirit was touched with its glad scenes. All the western sky was like an inflamed sea of glass, where the sun was tracking it with his fervid and unallayed wheels. Beneath his golden light lay the glad lands, from right to left white all over with harvest; thousands were plying in the fields; sickles were seen glinting on the far yellow uplands, and nearer were heard the reapers' song, and the gleaners calling to each other to lay down their handfuls in the furrows.

The road now led our party by an orchard where boys were up in the trees shaking down the fruit. The little fellows, all joyous in their vacation from study, were tugging with might and main at and among the clefted branches; their sisters below gathered the apples in baskets, whilst the happy father, walking about with his lady, decided their appeals as to the comparative beauty of individual apples. Allured by the sound of the fruit hopping on the ground, two or three stray waifs had left off their gleanings in a neighbouring field; and the ragged little urchins were down on their hands and knees, thrusting their heads through holes in the hedge which separated the orchard from the road. One of them having been caught behind the ear by the stump of a thorn, found it impossible to draw back his head, and in this predicament he had to bawl for assistance. This drew the attention of the lady ; and, after the rogue had been released, the whole party were summoned to the gate, and blessed with a share of the bounties of the year, which the kind lady dispensed to them through means of her own dear little almoners. Whether it was that he liked the benevolence of this scene, or whether he was reminded of his own beautiful Italy, or from whatever other affection, the young harper again took his harp, and waked those wild and dipping touches, which seem more like a sweet preamble than a full strain. He again accompanied it with his voice, and his sister did the same. The young girls laid down their baskets of fruit, and drew to the gate; the trees had rest for a while from shaking, while the fairhaired boys, with faces flushed and glowing from their autumnal exercise, looked out in wonder from between the clefts of the boughs. When the song ceased, the lady offered money, but neither of the minstrels would accept it. On the contrary, Antonio took his sister by the hand, and hurried her away from the gate, ere one of the children could bring the basket of fruit for which

she had run, to give a largesse from it to the strangers. Frederick, after talking a few minutes to the lady and gentleman, and telling them how he had fallen in with the foreigners, followed and overtook his companions, just as they had come in sight of Greenwells cottage, where he resided. "So there is our house now, just beyond the village," said Frederick, advancing to them. "The lady with whom I live will be very kind to you; and you must stay with her for a few days, and give her music, which she loves. What say you, pretty Charlotte?" Antonio here stepped forward between his sister and Hume, and said, with quick emphasis, "I will go with you, sir, and I shall let Charlotte follow me."

On arriving at the cottage, Frederick introduced the strangers to his relative, Mrs Mather, with whom he resided, and who, on learning their circumstances, kindly received them as her guests. They would have taken their departure next day, but in this they were resisted by the charitable old lady, who farther won from them the promise that they would stay with her for at least a week. Ere the expiry of that time, whether from the caprice or benevolence of her nature, or from her especial liking for Charlotte, who had gained rapidly upon her affections, Mrs Mather had conceived the design of adopting the two Italians, and preparing them for situations worthy of their good descent; and she was confirmed in her purpose when, on breaking the matter to Frederick Hume, it met with his entire concurrence. The next step was to gain the consent of Antonio, which might be no easy matter, as he seemed a strange and impracticable boy; but, somewhat to the surprise of Frederick, no sooner was the proposal made to him, than he heartily acceded to it. As for his sister, independent of her dislike to a wandering life, and her growing attachment to Mrs Mather, her brother's will was, in all cases, her law. It was then settled that Charlotte should be confidential maid to the old lady, to read to her at night, and assist her in making dresses for the poor, among whom she had a number of retainers; while Antonio should be sent to the Rev. Mr Baillie's, a clergyman, a few miles off, to board with him, and finish his education, which had been neglected since his father's death, that so he might be fitted for a liberal profession. Proud though Mrs Mather was of this scheme, her selfcomplacency was not without one qualification, in the cold and doubtful manner in which Miss Pearce nodded to the old lady's statement and explanation of her plan. As this woman, Miss Pearce, had it in her power, ere long, grievously to affect the fortunes of young Hume, we shall notice her here a little fully. She was the only daughter of a half-pay captain, whose death left her with a trifling annuity, and the proprietorship of a small house in

the village of Holydean. After the death of her husband, a wealthy retired merchant, who had spent the last years of his life at Greenwells, Mrs Mather, having no family, began to cast about for a companion, and Miss Pearce was soon found out to be one of those indispensable parasitical maidens whom old ladies like Mrs Mather impress into active service, in the seasons of raspberries, and the elder-vintages;-hold long consultations with on the eve of entertainments;-retain as their own especial butt in company, and a fag partner at whist when a better fourth hand is wanting ;— appeal to in case of a (shall we name it?) lie, when there is danger of detection;-cherish and moralize with when the party is over; and, finally, would not dismiss, though one were to rise from the dead and cry out against the parasite. In addition to these implied qualifications, the amiable creature was a monopolist in ailments; and, of course, careless about the complaints of others, of which, indeed, when within reach of Mrs Mather's sympathy, she seemed to be jealous. In her person she was lean and scraggy, with a hard brown face, kiln-dried by nervous headachs. Her figure was very straight, and she was elastic in her motions as whalebone or hiccory, and might have been cut with advantage into tapes for tying up bundles of her favourite tracts, or sinewy bowstrings for Cupid, for his arrows, not to be shot at, but to be shot from. We need scarcely add, after all this, that her nose was very long, and so sharp it might have cleft a hailstone. When Frederick Hume was thrown a helpless orphan on the world, and Mrs Mather, who was a distant relative of his mother's, proposed to take him to herself and bring him up as if he were her own son, Miss Pearce, though she could not set her face directly against such a charitable arrangement, yet laboured to modify it by a counter-proposition, that the boy should be provided for, but by no means brought to the cottage. She was then, however, but in the spring-dawn of favour with her patroness, and her opinion being over-ruled, the boy was brought home to Mrs Mather, and daily grew in her affections. During his childhood, Miss Pearce advanced steadily in favour, and she was too jealous of divided influence, and too Jesuitical in her perseverance, not to improve every opportunity of challenging and modifying the growing affection of Mrs Mather for her adopted son, whose bold and frank nature was endearing him to every one. When this would not do, she began to change her battery, and tried by a new show of kindness, to make a party in the young eléve himself, whom yet she thoroughly hated. Whether it was, however, that he knew her enmity, and never forgave her for having once or twice secretly and severely pricked him with pins; or, whether, with the quick

instinct of childhood, which knows in a moment, and despises, the kind notice bestowed upon it for the sake of currying favour with parents, he virtually set down Pearce's new attentions to such a motive, certain it is, if he did not positively hate her, he never once stroked her purring vanity; and she, on the other hand, was, from his indifference, confirmed in her dislike. As Frederick grew up, he had many opportunities of shaking Miss Pearce's influence with her patroness; but, as he thought her despicable merely, and not dangerous, he was too magnanimous to molest her. In that scheme of life to which the heart has long responded, what was at first a jarring element hath become a constituent part of the general sympathy; and from this it might be that Hume not only continued to endure Miss Pearce, but even loved her with the affection of habit.

One might have supposed, that ere the time to which our narra➡ tive now refers, Miss Pearce would have been tired of intrigue, and would have seen the folly of being jealous in the favour which she had proved exactly, and from which she knew so little was ever to be gained or lost; but a Jesuit would be a Jesuit still, were the Church of Rome utterly annihilated, and petty intrigue merely for its own sake, and little selfish arrangements of circumstances, although nothing was to be gained, constituted the very breath of Miss Pearce's nostrils; and, therefore, it is not to be wondered at, that, when Mrs Mather stated her design of adopting the two Italians, as above mentioned, she heard it with that umph, and nod, which express-not that a thing has been assented to—but merely that it has been literally and distinctly heard. Her objections were entered under a masked battery. She began by praising Mrs Mather's unbounded benevolence of heart. She hoped they would be grateful; they could not be too grateful; nay, they could never be grateful enough. She allowed the conversation to take a general turn, then tried to control it gradually to her purpose, and found an opportunity of relating, as if incidentally, how a certain lady, whom once she knew, had been ruined by a foreign protegee whom she had unwisely cherished. She touched upon swindling, vagrants, and obscurely alluded to legislature, and the alien act. Notwithstanding all such hints, however, the thing was settled in the affirmative; the boy Antonio was sent to stay with Mr Bailie, and Charlotte commenced work under the immediate auspices of her new patroness. The regularity and certainty of her new mode of life, soon subdued the roving qualities which her character might have slightly acquired, and which quickly give a corresponding wildness to the features. Her dark and comely beauty remained quick and expressive, but it was sobered under the accom