prouder and less vain natures of Jeannetta and Miss Macpherson. Lady Beauchamp's inuendo that such lofty alliances were quite out of the question for her nieces, and the quiet contemplation of their remaining single many years, and at the best, forming such humdrum connexions (as those with Gerard Esdaile and young Squire Moody would be), had raised a fierce flame of maternal indignation in Mrs. Orde's bosom, and made her not only resolved that her girls should, if possible, eclipse their cousins, but caused her to hate the very presence of poor Gerard, and the young fox-hunter, as having been even named with her daughters. All this was very weak and commonplace; but who shall deny that it was natural-natural to the ordinary run of mothers-ay, even of what the world calls good mothers, too! Mothers who are perhaps more fondly loved, and more bitterly lamented, than those who take a wiser and a calmer view of the things of this life, and act upon a juster estimate of its perishing fripperies. Madame de Stael with searching and mortifying truth exclaims: "C'est par nos défauts que nous gouvernons." And alas! who that ever watched the effect of a passionate, an obstinate or a sarcastie temper, in any household, can dispute the miserable fact. But if it be true that it is by our very faults we govern others, it is no less a fact, and far from an exhilarating one too, that it is by our foibles we attach them. The mother who, with a most enviable faith and a heart somewhat weaned from too much of earthly love, gently and resolutely performs her maternal duties, and quietly trusts all things to the Great Dispenser of all, is an admirable Christian philosopher; but is she ever adored in childhood, cherished through life, and passionately and lastingly lamented in death, like that fond, anxious, erring, trembling mother who acts as if she thought her short-sighted devotion and her foolish cares could be a Providence to her child ?-the mother who alas, does not calmly trust that all will be well, but passionately fears lest ill should come- -whose cheek grows white with fear if that of her darling pales for a moment-to Those ear a cough is a knell-and who at dead of night steals from her warm couch, not merely to "watch the stars out by the bed of pain" (the less earthly mother will do that); but to torture herself with fancying fever in the warm glow of health, perhaps even to disturbing, by the very anxiety meant to protect. The memory of such a mother bending over our little beds with " dewy looks of love," is one of the most passionate and haunting, when in arid after years, we wake to real suffering of mind or body, and find none watching, and hear no voice of comfort, and feel no kiss of unutterable love; and so on, through life, even when we are no longer of an age "to hear as a child, to see as a child," but when it is indeed time" to put away childest things," how the heart clings to the mother, whose eye kindles, and whose cheek burns at our wrongs (fancied or real), who glories even in her daughter's silly triumphs, her vanities and her conquests over" fellow worms;" yea, takes a pride in every new ball dress and new admirer. "Blind guides leading the blind." The gentle hand that in infancy takes a pride in fixing in our hats or caps the gay cockades which, to the thinking, are perhaps the colours of Belial, or the badges of Mammon, is dearer than that which wisely plucks away, with a gentle firmness, anything that savours of the livery of vanity; and the fingers that are never weary of training our silky tresses into graceful curls, are lovelier even to our memories than those which calmly sever the useless ornaments from the empty head, or neatly and hastily braid them away, as things too paltry to matter to one who has to win and wear the helmet of righteousness and the shield of faith; and so on throughout the weak indulgences, which it is such pleasure to bestow and such virtue to refuse! How even the recollection of them binds wise and strong men to the fond and feeble mother, long gone down to the grave! Who does not sympathize with Cowper's passionate tribute to her, whose very weaknesses he has clothed with so beguiling and immortal a charm ?— "Thy nightly visits to my chamber made, That thou might'st know me safe and warmly laid; The fragrant waters on my cheeks bestowed By thine own hand, till fresh they shone and glowed." Ah, how much of woman's weak indulgence of her own fond heart, does even the pious Cowper immortalize in this most exquisite of his poems: "the nightly visit," "the fragrant waters," "the biscuit or confectionery plum." The weak indulgence, not the wise denial. But Johnson! even Johnson, he too hesitates not to declare, that he should never have loved or mourned his mother as he had done, had she not in his childhood indulged his appetite beyond what was reasonable, and allowed him coffee and other dainties which she could ill afford, and which it would have been much wiser to have denied. With the most devout of poets, and with "the colossus of literature" on their sides, who shall blame weak woman for indulging the very foibles which, as we have too clearly proved, attach even the strongest? Who shall marvel that Mrs. Orde was all the dearer, even to the most lofty-minded of her daughters, for her maternal indignation at the mortifying inuendoes of the cat-like aunt, whose patte de velours scarcely concealed the sharp and ready claws? who shall marvel that none blamed ss she built her airy castles on no better foundation than vanity and vengeance, and that if Rosalie eagerly tried to shield poor guiltless Gerard Esdaile from her mother's ill deserved anger and contempt, the effort was owing not to evenhanded justice, but to a onesided partiality ?-else poor young Moody would have shared in her eloquent endeavours to justify the innocent, and that was very far from being the case. Nay, as it was the young foxhunter who had ever seemed disposed to bestow on Rosalie whatever time and attentions he could spare from his dogs, his horses, and his chief cronies, the whippers-in of the hunt, so it was the ungrateful girl herself, who was most anxious to do away with any impression that his visits had any particular object, or that he had presumed to raise his eyes to one who so entirely despised him, his tastes, habits, and pursuits. What a pity that from all time Dan Cupid has ever been at cross purposes! The juice of "the little western flower, purple with love's wound" is in every love philtre, and plays as wild work now as it did with Helena and Hermia, Demetrius and Lysander, Titania and he of the ass's head. Yes, it was to Jeannetta Orde that Gerard raised his eyes as to the load-star of his very soul. It was her face which made "The star-light of his boyhoood, He had no thought, no being but in hers. Upon a tone, a touch of hers, his blood would ebb and flow, But she in these fond feelings had no share. She had not loved him, nor given him cause to deem himself beloved. To her he was even as a brother, it was a name Which pleased him, and yet pleased him not, for why? CHAPTER VII. THE SURPRISE. THE Ordes did not inhabit the whole of the spacious and very expensive house on the Marine Parade, in which we find them located; they had hired only the upper portion of it, and that at an enormously high rent; but as they had only part of their establishment with them, and meant to give no parties, they found they had room, and to spare." The proprietor of the house lived in some remote part of it, no one knew where; he was an old oddity, a reputed miser, and very rarely to be seen, except at the hiring of his apartments, or once a month to receive his exorbitant rents. The ground-floor of this mansion, which was very spacious, and very elegantly furnished, was unlet during the first month of Mrs. Orde's residence at Brighton. All the old landlord's movements were so quiet and cat-like, that none of our party were aware of the event, that the ground-floor was taken on a bright morning when Rosalie and Jeannetta, who were taking singing lessons of a celebrated pro fessor then at Brighton, left home, as usual, for that purpose, directly after breakfast, and before their mother had appeared. On their return, about three hours later, they found a note from her lying on the hall table. It had been given to the young ladies' maid, who, slipping out on a shopping expedition for herself, had put it down there that her mistresses might see it directly they came in. Jeannetta eagerly tore it open, and read, "DEAREST GIRLS,-The post brought me word that your aunt Beauchamp is ill, alone in London, and in some great distress. She begs me to come to her at once, not to lose the first train, so I start directly; but shall be back this evening. If you and Rosalie will come to meet me in the pony phaeton, as I shall dine in town, we can drive, as we proposed, to the Devil's Dyke, before returning home. See old Grimes, and tell him I will settle with him to-morrow. I shall go to Coutts's, and bring all the money we want. Your aunt goes with me both for company's sake, and to receive her dividends. "Jeannetta, love, you will drive, and the page will be enough. "Dine early, as I shall do; and meet me at four.Your fond mother, "R. O." "I wonder what can be the matter with aunt Beau champ," said Jeannetta. "There seems some mystery. I hope that wicked-looking old earl has not turned out to have been married before, or done Louisa any harm." "Oh, no, dearest," replied, laughingly, the more shrewd and matter-of-fact Rosalie; "I suspect she wants to borrow more money of mamma, and, perhaps, to get invited here, that she may see what is going on, and put a stop, if possible, to any chance of your marrying as well as our cousins have done." "Of my marrying as well? Say, rather, your doing so, Rosalie. I am the last person in the world to make what is called a good match. I shall consult nothing but my heart if I ever do marry, and a mariage de convenances is very seldom one of inclination too; but you, darling, who laugh at what you call my 'romance,' it is |