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Heaven! for what?" said Laura, thinking the Marquis de Tête Perdu was again apprehended for not having been hanged sufficiently. "Why-be prepared-Miss, he is going to tie the noose.' "Wretch! perfidious wretch!" shrieked Laura, as her fear now changed into jealousy; "do you mean that he is going to lead another to the altar?" 66 Exactly, Miss!" said the tailor, and off went his

high trotting horse.

CHAPTER IX. THE DENOUEMENT.

"It is not for myself I do these things, but for my country."

PLUTARCH'S APHORISM WHEN IN PLACE.
Common Aphorism among all Placemen.

"Poor cousin Jack!" said the lawyer, as he was eating his breakfast; "he has been playing very naughty pranks, to be sure: but he is our cousin, nevertheless. We should pay him all possible respect. Come, girl, get on your bonnet; you may as well come with me: it will divert your mind." "La! papa: but, to be sure, there will be a great crowd. It is a most affecting sight; and, after all, I think a drive may do me good." "That's right, girl," said the father: and they were soon on the road to the capital. They arrived at an open space, but filled with spectators; they beheld a platform, raised above the heads of the people; Laura grew very faint with anxiety and heat. She heard the spectators talking to each other. "They say," observed one," that it is with great difficulty he was persuaded to the calling-it has been four hundred years in the family-he took himself away, but came back when he heard the fees were augmented-you know he gets all the clothes." "There's poor cousin Jack," quoth the Attorney: "how pale he is!"'

Laura looked. To the side of cousin Jack, who was about to be hanged, moved a well-known figure. "The Marquis de Tête Perdu !” cried the Lawyer aghast? "My lover! my lover!" screamed Laura. "My eye! that's the Hereditary Hangman!" said a bystander with open mouth. "Hereditary Hangman!" said an English Lord, who was by chance an attendant at the spectacle. "Hereditary Hangman !—what a burlesque on the Peerage!"

Is it a burlesque truly, or is the one about as wise as the other? New Monthly Mag.

THE FRIARS OF DIJON.

WHEN honest men confess'd their sins,

And paid the church genteelly

In Burgundy two Capuchins
Lived jovially and freely.

They march'd about from place to place,
With shrift and dispensation;
And mended broken consciences,

Soul-tinkers by vocation.

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They bow'd and bless'd the dame, and then Has made the sinners, in a trice,

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Men left their beds, and night-capp'd heads Explaining lost but little breath :

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THE BANK NOTE.*

"ARE you returning immediately to Worcester ?" said Lady Leslie, a widow residing near that city, to a young officer who was paying her a morning visit. “I am; can I do any thing for you there"—"Yes; you can do me a great kindness. My confidential servant, Baynes, is gone out for the day and night; and I do not like to trust my new footman, of whom I know nothing, to put this letter in the post-office, as it contains a fifty-pound note.”. "Indeed! that is a large sum to trust to the post."-" Yes; but I am told it is the safest conveyance. It is, however, quite necessary that a person whom I can trust should put the letter in the box."-" Certainly," replied Captain Freeland. Then, with an air that showed he considered himself as a person to be trusted, he deposited the letter in safety in his pocket-book, and took leave; promising he would return to dinner the next day, which was Saturday.

On his road, Freeland met some of his brother-officers, who were going to pass the day and night at Great Malvern; and as they earnestly pressed him to accompany them, he wholly forgot the letter intrusted to his care; and, having despatched his servant to Worcester, for his sac-de nuit and other things, he turned back with his companions, and passed the rest of the day in that sauntering but amusing idleness, that dolce far niente, which may be reckoned comparatively virtuous, if it leads to the forgetfulness of little duties only, and is not attended by the positive infringement of greater ones. But, in not putting this important letter into the post, as he had engaged to do, Freeland violated a real duty; and he might have put it in at Malvern, had not the rencounter with his brother-officers banished the commission given him entirely from his thoughts. Nor did he remember it, till, as they rode through the village the next morning, on their way to Worcester, they met Lady Leslie walking in the road.

At sight of her, Freeland recollected, with shame and confusion, that he had not fulfilled the charge committed to him; and fain would he have passed her unobserved; for, as she was a woman of high fashion, great talents, and some severity, he was afraid that his negligence, if avowed, would not only cause him to forfeit her favour, but expose him to her powerful sarcasm.

To avoid being recognized was, however, impossible; and as soon as Lady Leslie saw him, she exclaimed, "Oh! Captain Freeland, I am so glad to see you! I have been quite uneasy concerning my letter since I gave it to your care; for it was of such consequence !

From "Illustrations of Lying in all its branches. By Amelia Opie." 1825. 2 vols. 12mo. Sweet doing nothing.

+ Night bag.

Did you put it into the post yesterday?" "Certainly," replied Freeland, hastily, and in the hurry of the moment, "Certainly. How could you, dear Madam, doubt my obedience to your commands?""Thank you! thank you!" cried she, "How you have relieved my mind!" He had so; but he had painfully burthened his own. To be sure, it was only a white lie,-the lie of fear. Still he was not used to utter falsehood: and he felt the meanness and degradation of this. He had yet to learn that it was mischievous also; and that none can presume to say where the consequences of the most apparently trivial lie will end. As soon as Freeland parted with Lady Leslie, he bade his friends farewell, and, putting spur to his horse, scarcely slackened his pace till he had reached a general postoffice, and deposited the letter in safety. "Now, then," thought he, "I hope I shall be able to return and dine with Lady Leslie, without shrinking from her penetrating eye."

He found her, when he arrived, very pensive and absent; so much so, that she felt it necessary to apologize to her guests, informing them that Mary Benson, an old servant of hers, who was very dear to her, was seriously ill, and painfully circumstanced; and that she feared she had not done her duty by her. "To tell you the truth, Captain Freeland," said she, speaking to him in a low voice, "I blame myself for not having sent for my confidential servant, who was not very far off, and despatched him with the money, instead of trusting it to the post."-" It would have been better to have done so, certainly !" replied Freeland, deeply blushing. "Yes; for the poor woman, to whom I sent it, is not only herself on the point of being confined, but she has a sick husband, unable to be moved; and as, but owing to no fault of his, he is on the point of bankruptcy, his cruel landlord has declared that, if they do not pay their rent by to-morrow, he will turn them out into the street, and seize the very bed they lie on! However, as you put the letter into the post yesterday, they must get the fifty pound note to-day, else they could not; for there is no delivery of letters in London on a Sunday, you know." "True, very true,” replied Freeland, in a tone which he vainly tried to render steady. "Therefore," continued Lady Leslie, "if you had told me, when we met, that the letter was not gone, I should have recalled Baynes, and sent him off by the mail to London; and then he would have reached Somerstown, where the Bensons live, in good time;—but now, though I own it would be a comfort to me to send him, for fear of accident, I could not get him back again soon enough;—therefore, I must let things take their chance; and, as letters seldom miscarry, the only danger is, that the note may be taken out." She might have talked an hour without answer or interruption;-for Freeland was too much shocked, too

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