"Think of my good fortune, dearest little mother," he wrote. "I have got a place, and such a place! You'd fancy it was made for me, for I have neither to talk, nor to think, nor to read, nor to write-all my requirements are joints that will bear bumping, and a head that will stand the racket of railroad and steamboat without any sense of confusion, beyond what nature implanted there. Was he not a wise minister who named me to a post where bones are better than brains, and a good digestion superior to intellect? I am to be a messengera Foreign Service Messenger is the grand title-a creature to go over the whole globe with a white leather bag or two, full of mischief, or gossip, as it may be, and whose whole care is to consist in keeping his time, and being never out of health. They say in America the bears were made for Colonel Crocket's dog, and I'm sure these places were made for fellows of my stamp-fellows to carry a message, and yet not intrusted with the telling it.

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"The pay is capital, the position good that is, three-fourths of the men are as good or better than myself; and the life, all tell me, is rare fun-you go everywhere, see everything, and think of nothing. In all your dreams for me, you never fancied the like of this. They talk of places for all sorts of capacities, but imagine a berth for one of no capacity at all! And yet, mother dear, they have made a blunder-and a very absurd blunder too, and no small one!—they have instituted a test-a sort of examination for a career that ought to be tested by a round with the boxing-gloves, or a sharp canter over a course with some four-feet hurdles !

"I am to be examined, in about six weeks from this, in some foreign tongues, multiplication, and the state of my muscles. I am to show proof that I was born of white parents, and am not too young or too old to go alone of a message. There's the whole of it. It ain't much, but

it is quite enough to frighten one, and I go about with the verb avoir in my head, and the first four rules of arithmetic dance round me like so many furies. What a month of work and drudgery there is before you, little woman. You'll have to coach me through my declensions and subtractions. If you don't fag, you'll be plucked, for, as for me, I'll only be your representative whenever I go in. Look up your grammar then, and your history too, for they plucked a man the other day that said Piccolomini was not a General, but a little girl that sang in the Traviata!' I'd start by the mail this evening, but that I have to go up to the officeno end of a chilling place-for my examination-papers, and to be tested by the doctor that I am all right, thews and sinews; but I'll get away by the afternoon, right glad to leave all this turmoil and confusion, the very noise of which makes me quarrelsome and ill-tempered.

"There is such a good fellow here, Skeffington-the Honourable Skeffington Damer, to speak of him more formally-who has been most kind to me. He is private secretary to Sir Harry, and told me all manner of things about the Government offices, and the Dons that rule them. If I was a clever or a sharp fellow, I suppose this would have done me infinite service; but, as old Dr Kinward says, it was only putting the wine in a cracked bottle;' and all I can remember is the kindness that dictated the attention.

"Skeff is some relation-I forget what to old Mrs Maxwell of Tilney, and, like all the world, expects to be her heir. He talks of coming over to see her when he gets his leave, and said-God forgive him for it-that he'd run down and pass a day with us. I couldn't say Don't, and I had not heart to say Do! I had not the courage to tell him frankly that we lived in a cabin with four rooms and a kitchen, and that butler, cook, footman, and housemaid, were all represented by a barefooted lassie, who was far

more at home drawing a fishing-net, than in cooking its contents. I was just snob enough to say, Tell us when we may look out for you; and without manliness to add, And I'll run away when I hear it. But he's a rare good fellow, and teases me every day to dine with him at the Arthur-a club where all the young swells of the Government offices assemble to talk of themselves, and sneer at their official superiors.

"I'll go out, if I can, and see Dolly before I leave, though she told me the family didn't like her having friends-the flunkies call them followers-and of course I ought not to do what would make her uncomfortable; still, one minute or two would suffice to get me some message to bring the Doctor, who'll naturally expect it. I'd like, besides, to tell Dolly of my good fortune, though it is, perhaps, not a very graceful thing to be full of one's own success to another, whose position is so painful as hers, poor girl. If you saw how pale she has grown, and how thin; even her voice has lost that jolly ring it had, and is now weak and poor. She seems so much afraid-of what or whom I can't make out-but all about her bespeaks terror. You say very little of the Abbey, and I am always thinking of it. The The great big world, and this great big city that is its capital, are very small things to me, compared to that little circle that could be swept by a compass, with a centre at the Burnside, and a leg of ten miles long, that would take in the Abbey and the salmon-weir, the rabbit-warren and the boat-jetty! If I was very rich, I'd just add three rooms to our cottage, and put up one for myself,

with my own traps: and another for you, with all the books that ever were written; and another for Skeff, or any other good fellow we'd like to have with us. Wouldn't that be jolly, little mother? I won't deny I've seen what would be called prettier places here-the Thames above and below Richmond, for instance. Lawns smooth as velvetgreat trees of centuries' growth, and fine houses of rich people are on every side. But I like our own wild crags and breezy hill-sides better; I like the great green sea, rolling smoothly on, and smashing over our rugged rocks, better than all those smooth eddied currents, with their smart racing-boats skimming about. If I could only catch these fellows outside the Skerries some day, with a wind from the northwest: wouldn't I spoil the colours of their gay jackets?

"Here's Skeff come again. He says he is going to dine with some very pleasant fellows at the Star and Garter, and that I must positively come. He won't be denied, and I am in such rare spirits about my appointment, that I feel as if I should be a churl to myself to refuse, though I have my sore misgivings about accepting, what I well know I never can make any return for. How I'd like one word from you to decide for me!

"I must shut up. I'm off to Richmond, and they are all making such a row and hurrying me so, that my head is turning. One has to hold the candle, and another stands ready with the sealing-wax, by way of expediting me. Goodbye, dearest mother-I start tomorrow for home.-Your affectionate son, TONY BUTLER."

With the company that composed the dinner-party we have only a very passing concern. They were -including Skeffington and Tony -eight in all. Three were young officials from Downing Street; two

were guardsmen ; and one an inferior member of the royal household -a certain Mr Arthur Mayfair, a young fellow much about town, and known by every one.

The dinner was ostensibly to cele

brate the promotion of one of the guardsmen-Mr Lyner; in reality, it was one of those small orgies of eating and drinking, which our modern civilisation has imported from Paris.

A well-spread, and even splendid table, was no novelty to Tony; but such extravagance and luxury as this he had never witnessed before; it was, in fact, a banquet in which all that was rarest and most costly figured, and it actually seemed as if every land of Europe had contributed some delicacy or other to represent its claims to epicurism, at this congress. There were caviare from Russia, and oysters from Ostend, and red trout from the Highlands, and plover eggs and pheasants from Bohemia, and partridges from Alsace, and scores of other delicacies, each attended by its appropriate wine; to discuss which, with all the high connoisseurship of the table, furnished the whole conversation. Politics and literature apart, no subject could have been more removed from all Tony's experiences. He had never read Brillat Savarin, nor so much as heard of M. Ude-of the great controversy between the merits of white and brown truffles, he knew positively nothing, and he had actually eaten terrapin, and believed it to be very exquisite veal!

He listened, and listened very attentively. If it might have seemed to him that the company devoted a most extravagant portion of the time to the discussion, there was such a realism in the presence of the good things themselves, that the conversation never descended to frivolity; while there was an earnestness in the talkers that rejected such an imputation.

To hear them, one would have thought at least, Tony thought that all their lives had been passed in dining. Could any memory retain the mass of small minute circumstances that they recorded, or did they keep prandial records as others keep game-books? Not one of them ever forgot where, and

when, and how, he had ever eaten anything remarkable for its excellence; and there was an elevation of language, an ecstasy imported into the reminiscences, that only ceased to be ludicrous when he grew used to it. Perhaps, as a mere listener, he partook more freely than he otherwise might of the good things before him. In the excellence and endless variety of the wines, there was, besides, temptation for cooler heads than his. Not to add, that on one or two occasions he found himself in a jury, empannelled to pronounce upon some nice question of flavour, points upon which, as the evening wore on, he entered with a far greater reliance on his judgment than he would have felt half an hour before dinner.

He had not, what is called in the language of the table, a "made head." That is to say, at Lyle Abbey, his bottle of Sneyd's Claret after dinner was more than he liked well to drink; but now, when Sauterne succeeded Sherry, and Macobrunner came after Champagne, and in succession followed Bordeaux, and Burgundy, and Madeira, and then Bordeaux again of a rarer and choicer vintage, Tony's head grew addled and confused. Though he spoke very little, there passed through his mind all the varied changes that his nature was susceptible of. He was gay and depressed, daring and cautious, quarrelsome and forgiving, stern and affectionate, by turns. There were moments when he would have laid down his life for the company, and fleeting instants when his eye glanced around to see upon whom he could fix a deadly quarrel; now he felt rather vainglorious at being one of such a distinguished company, and now a sharp distrust shot through him that he was there to be the butt of these town-bred wits, whose merriment was nothing but a covert impertinence.

All these changeful moods only served to make him drink more deeply. He filled bumpers and drank them daringly. Skeffington

told the story of the threat to kick Willis-not much in itself, but full of interest to the young officials who knew Willis as an institution, and could no more have imagined his personal chastisement, than an insult to the royal arms. When Skeff, however, finished by saying that the Secretary of State himself rather approved of the measure, they began to feel that Tony Butler was that greatest of all created things, "a rising man." For as the power of the unknown number is incommensurable, so the height to which a man's success may carry him can never be estimated.

"It's deuced hard to get one of these messengerships," said one of the guardsmen ; "they say it's far easier to be named Secretary of Legation."

"Of course it is. Fifty fellows are able to ride in a coach for one that can read and write," said Mayfair.

"What do you mean by that?" cried Tony, his eyes flashing fire.

as we used to call her; a name she'll scarce go by in a year or two."

"I don't think," said Tony, with a slow, deliberate utterance "I don't think that he has made me a suit— suit-suitable apology for what he said eh, Skeff?"

"Be quiet, will you?" muttered the other.

"Kitty had ten thousand pounds of her own." "Not sixpence."

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I tell you she had."

"Grant it. What is ten thousand pounds?" lisped out a little pinkcheeked fellow, who had a hundred and eighty per annum at the Board of Trade. "If you are economical, you may get two years out of it."

"If I thought," growled out Tony into Skeff's ear, "that he meant it for insolence, I'd punch his head, curls and all.”

"Will you just be quiet?" said Skeff again.

"I'd have married Kitty myself," said pink cheeks, "if I thought she had ten thousand."

"And I'd have gone on a visit to you," said Mayfair, "and we'd have played billiards, the French game, every evening."

"I never thought Harris was so weak as to go and marry," said the youngest of the party, not fully oneand-twenty.

"Every one hasn't your experience, Upton," said Mayfair.

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Why do the fellows bear all this?" whispered Tony again. "I say-be quiet-do be quiet," mumbled Skeff.

"Who was it used to call Kitty Beaumont the Lass of Richmond Hill?" said Mayfair; and now another uproar ensued as to the authority in question, in which many contradictions were exchanged, and some wagers booked.

Sing us that song Bailey made on her- Fair Lady on the River's Bank;' you can sing it, Clinton ?"

"Yes, let us have the song," cried several together.

"I'll wager five pounds I'll name a prettier girl on the same spot," said Tony to Skeff.

"Butler challenges the field," cried Skeff. "He knows, and will name, the prettiest girl in Richmond."

"I take him. What's the figure?" said Mayfair.

"And I—and I!" shouted three or four in a breath.

"I think he offered a pony," lisped out the youngest.

"I said, I'd bet five pounds," said Tony, fiercely; "don't misrepresent me, sir."

"I'll take your money, then," cried Mayfair.

"No, no; I was first; I said done before you," interposed a guards

man.

"But how can it be decided? we can't summon the rival beauties to our presence, and perform Paris and the apple," said Skeff.

"Come along with me, and you shall see her," broke in Tony; "she lives within less than five minutes' walk of where we are. I am satisfied that the matter should be left to your decision, Skeffington."

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No, no," cried several together; "take Mayfair with you; he is the fittest man amongst us for such a criticism; he has studied these matters profoundly."

"Here's a health to all good lasses! cried out another; and goblets were filled with champagne, and drained in a moment, while some attempted the song; and others, imagining that they had caught the air, started off with "Here's to the Maiden of Blooming Fifteen," making up an amount of confusion that was perfectly deafening, in which the waiter entered to observe, in a very meek tone, that the Archdeacon of Halford was entertaining a select party in the next room, and entreated that they might be permitted to hear each other occasionally.

Such a burst of horror and indignation as followed this request! some were for an armed intervention at once; some for a general smash of all things practicable; and two or three, haughtier in their drunkenness, declared that the Star

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and Garter should have no more of their patronage, and proudly ordered the waiter to fetch the bill. Thirty-seven-nine-six," said Mayfair, as he held the document near a candle; "make it an even forty for the waiters, and it leaves five pounds a-head, eh?—not too much after all."

"Well, I don't know; the asparagus was miserably small."

"And I got no strawberries." "I have my doubts about that Moselle."

It ain't dear, at least: it's not dearer than anywhere else."

While these criticisms were going forward, Tony perceived that each one in turn was throwing down his sovereigns on the table, as his contribution to the fund; and he approached Skeffington, to whisper that he had forgotten his purse, his sole excuse to explain, what he wouldn't confess, that he believed he was an invited guest. Skeff was, however, by this time so completely overcome by the last toast, that he sat staring fatuously before him, and could only mutter, in a melancholy strain, "To be, or not to be; that's a question."

"Can you lend me some money?" whispered Tony. "I want your purse."

"He takes my purse-trashtrash- -" mumbled out the other. "I'll book up for Skeffy," said one of the guardsmen ; "and now it's all right.'

"No," said Tony aloud; "I haven't paid; I left my purse behind; and I can't make Skeffington understand that I want a loan from him;" and he stooped down again, and whispered in his ear.

While a buzz of voices assured Tony that "it didn't matter,—all had money, any one could pay," and so on, Skeffington gravely handed out his cigar-case, and said, Take as much as you like, old fellow; it was quarter-day last week."

In a wild uproarious burst of laughter they now broke up; some helping Skeffington along, some performing mock ballet steps, and