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eyes; but his self-complacency quickly decided, that although he might have offended her, yet it was quite impossible that she could despise him.

What now, Will?" said Sandon, touching him on the shoulder, as he stood gazing after Miss Sinclair's retiring form. "A lover's quarrel, aye?" "I'll never speak to that minx again, I vow I won't, she's as proud as Lucifer. But it is always the way with girls that have money, they want so much fuss and courting-I'm not so fond of flattering the haughty jades.'

Sandon thought if he were not he did not know who was; but seeing he was mortified, and wishing to divert his mind from the subject, he drew his friend's arm into his own, and led him across the room, to introduce him to his uncle and cousin. All remembrance of their former conversation about this introduction had passed away from Charles Sandon's mind-not so from Wyliehart's. Every word was deeply fixed in his memory; for he thought over and over again, that, notwithstanding his friend's prudent reasons against it, if he did succeed in becoming acquainted with Letitia Sandon, he would try to gain her, and leave the supercilious Miss Sinclair to her fate. Having now obtained an introduction, both to the young lady and her father, he determined to leave no means untried for the purpose of insinuating himself into their favour. By dint of tact and perseverance he succeeded in getting a kind of half invitation from Mr. Sandon to visit them at their residence at Hampstead, of which, of course, he did not fail to avail himself. From that time he became a constant visitor; but with all his endeavours to please (and his conversational powers were of no mean order), he failed to gain upon the good opinion of Mr. Sandon, who, in confidence to his nephew, pronounced him a conceited, bombastical young fellow, and one who would practise any dissimulation or mean trick to answer his own purposes. Charles Sandon was surprised at the warmth with which he spoke; for though he admitted that Wyliehart's manners might convey the impression of his self-sufficiency, yet he could not agree with his uncle that gross and mean-spirited deceit formed any part of his character. "Well, Charles," said the old gentleman, I have merely given you my opinion: I hope you may never suffer from his duplicity."

"The effect his conduct produced on Letitia's mind may be gathered from a conversation she had with Clara Hilton, a few weeks after the introduction at Sinclairs'.

"And so you have begun to sing sentimental songs, Letty," said the invalid; "I suppose you practise them with Wyliehart." The young girl's cheek was crimsoned over in a moment. "Now don't begin the old tale," said she;" cannot you speak of anything else?" I don't know why you should object to my talking of him," said Miss Hilton; "that is quite a new tale. Have you not told me again and again of his flattering speeches, and very particular attentionsfar too particular to mean nothing?"

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"But then, Clara, I am so young," she replied: and then, after a pause, said in a tone of great earnestness," Do you think any one could be sincere in professions of attachment to one of my age?" “Oh, then," said Clara, "it has come to that, has it? and Mr. Wylieh rt has really proposed?"

"I said nothing to lead you to that conclusion," said Letitia, turning her head as if to look through the window; "you are too hasty in forming an opinion on the subject."

"Not at all," replied Miss Hilton; "it was yourself who told me that he said he was never happy out of your society; and that he thought you grew more and more beautiful every time he saw you. Now confess to me honestly, have you not exchanged assurances of affection, and do you not consider yourselves bound to each otheraye, for life?" Letitia Sandon answered not a word; but, clasping her hands together, burst into a flood of passionate tears. "Why, how is this, Letty," said Miss Hilton; "what ails you, child, that you should weep so bitterly? Do you think he will not be true to his promise?" The young girl rose from her seat with a glance of pride and exultation flashing through her tears.

"No, Clara," said she: "I know his love for me is deep and strong; and I feel it will never, never, pass away; but yet I am unhappy." Then dropping on one knee beside the couch of the invalid, and taking her friend's hand in her's, she bent her head and whispered in a low voice-" He is teaching me my first lessons in disobedience."

"What do you mean?" said she; " tell me the circumstances, and I shall then be able to understand it."

"That is what I have wished to do, but dared not," replied Letitia ; "you must first promise me inviolable secresy, or I cannot tell you anything." The promise was made, and then the disclosure. Wyliehart had avowed his attachment, and obtained a similar acknowledgment from her; but at the same time informed her of a conversation he had had with her cousin Charles. It appeared that her father had lately begun to suspect Wyliehart's intentions towards her, and that he had mentioned his suspicions to his nephew; at the same time telling him, that he would rather follow her to the grave than see her the wife of Wyliehart. Charles Sandon had told him this conversation, in order to elicit the truth, or to deter him from endeavouring to gain Letty's affection, were that his object; but Wyliehart craftily avoided every effort of his friend's to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion, and left the affair in as unsettled a state as before the conversation took place.

"Had I been worth my thousands," said he to Letitia, with a melancholy air, "I might have been deemed worthy of such a treasure; but you see, my dearest Letty, how poverty is persecuted and affection neglected!" He took her hand in his-and, looking earnestly in her face, asked if there was not so much as one generous heart in the world that could scorn mercenary motives, and return an attachment for its own sake, without needing to be bought with gold. Letitia did not tell her friend the reply: but it may easily be imagined that a young and untried heart would, after such an appeal, give the rein to a generous, confiding, and boundless affection. When this point was gained, he showed her how fatal it would be to their happiness if her father suspected their attachment, and in the excitement of highly-wrought feeling he extracted from her a promise that she would not by word or sign discover, to her natural guardian and guide, the secret of their engagement.

"The time would come," he said, "when they might announce it; but not yet." "And now," said Letitia, "I am returning all my dear papa's kindness with deceit and disobedience." Miss Hilton smiled at her friend's severity on her own conduct, and wondered she should call it by so harsh a name.

"If you are sure," said she," that the knowledge of your mutual affection would cause your father to treat you with unkindness, to separate you from each other, and fix in your heart the deepest wound it has ever known, I think you have a right in this way to guard your own happiness. And even if you could bear these things yourself, how could you endure to see him slighted, wronged, and miserable?" It was this consideration, supported by the sophistries of Wyliehart, that had already operated on the mind of Letitia Sandon, and decided her in disguising her real sentiments both from her father and cousin. Poor girl! she found this course of action vain for the protection of her happiness; there was a continual sense of oppression on her mind; a vague and unsatisfactory feeling in the performance of all her duties. Once she used to fly to meet her father on his return from town, with a light and gladsome footstep and a buoyant heart. Now the pleasant task was not neglected, but her pace was slow and measured, and her laugh had lost its joyousness. It was true she strove to hide the change she felt, and occasionally for a time succeeded; at other times she drooped under the deadly spell-the consciousness that she was deceiving her father. Wyliehart's feelings at the success of his project were little short of triumphant. He had gained the heart of the gentle and affectionate creature as completely as he could have desired, and it would now be comparatively easy to gain her hand. "Old Sandon," thus ran

his thoughts," could never be such a brute as to tear his child from the object of her affections. If he did, there was another chance: -he must get up a clandestine marriage-or an elopement: it was a thing that was done every day—and he always noticed that fathers forgave their daughters, though mothers did not; and as Letty had no mother, the thing would soon be made up-and she would have her portion the same as if it had been done in the regular way." Wyliehart was in good spirits on another account also. He had obtained an apprentice, with whom he was to have two hundred pounds premium, which he considered would completely set him up till his marriage, when his wife's fortune and the income from his practice would place him in comfortable circumstances.

This apprentice was as perfect a specimen of human nature run wild as was ever exhibited on the stage of life. At the time of his entering Wyliehart's establishment, he had just reached his sixteenth year, although, judging by his figure alone, you would scarcely believe him to be more than fourteen. His features were regular and well defined, with an expression of reckless daring about the mouth, which was yet relieved and softened by a dimpled cheek, rounded and blooming with almost feminine delicacy. But the tout-ensemble of the face, which would otherwise have been a handsome one, was rendered disagreeable by a most complete and perfect squint, the left eye being turned inward till the pupil and nearly all the iris had disappeared. At an early age, Henry Wilde had been left an orphan, under the guardianship

of a friend of his father, who took no interest in his charge beyond seeing him placed in a public school, where he was to fight his own way; and when he was of an age to choose his future path, to see that he was properly settled according to his wishes. This good old gentleman had been in company with Wyliehart, who had entertained a select circle with accounts of cases where patients had been put under his care in the last, the very last, stage of many different disorders; and of course he had cured them all. He also boasted of having operated on dozens for squinting, not one of which, according to his own account, had failed. Henry Wilde had that morning decided upon becoming a surgeon, and that evening his guardian decided upon binding him to Wyliehart, with but one condition, that he should perform on him the operation which had succeeded with so many. To this, of course, he gladly acceded, the indentures were signed, the premium paid, and all parties were satisfied with the bargain. Two months had passed away, and Harry Wilde heard nothing of the intended operation, till at length he determined to inquire of his master the cause of the delay.

"When am I to have my eye set right, Sir?" said he, when Wyliehart was in one of his merriest moods; "everybody tells me I ought to have it cured."

"Well now, I'll tell you why it is, Harry," replied he; "I have resolved to let all my friends see you beforehand, that they may be able to appreciate the cure after the operation is performed." "Oh, that's it, is it?" said he, thrusting his hands into his pockets, and whistling two or three notes of a country jig; then, stopping short, and looking Wyliehart full in the face, he said, in a respectful tone of voice," Pray, Sir, how long am I to be made a show-sign of?" and then, without waiting for an answer, walked slowly out of the room finishing the tune he had before begun.

"In my opinion it's all gammon," said he to himself, as he slammed the surgery door after him; "he'll either never do it at all, or if he does, it won't answer-he knows that very well, and so do I too." And here the young gentleman opened a drawer full of empty pillboxes, and having arranged a number of them so as to form a kind of pyramid, he went to the other side of the counter and amused himself by pelting it, while he enlivened his employment by whistling sundry tunes, and singing snatches of songs broken up into innumerable fragments. He had not been long engaged in this occupation, when he was interrupted by the entrance of Mr. Hamilton, who had called on Wyliehart to accompany him to some "interesting case." Now it so happened, that this gentleman was a great favourite with Master Wilde, for he had shown no dislike to his wayward manners, and had even sympathized with him in some of his frolicsome amusements. "If you'll take my advice, Mr. Hamilton," said he, "you won't go with him."

"And why not, Harry ?" he asked: "what have you to say against it ?"

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Why, only this," said he; "that people will think you a great gull, if you do, after what I have heard."

"And what have you heard?" asked Hamilton, Jaughing, for the youth still continued pelting the pyramid, scarcely bestowing a look. on his companion.

"Well, then, I'll tell you," said Harry, "if you'll hear me out. You know that woman Sally Turner, that you and my master visited together. We had two gentlemen here the other day who were talking of cures and operations, and Mr. Wyliehart began with a grand and pompous

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"Now Harry, if you are at your old tricks, I shall not hear you out. It is not right for you to quiz your master in that fashion." Very well, then imagine for yourself how he looked, when he said in a low voice, almost under his breath, Have you heard of the wonderful operation I have performed? The gentlemen with one voice answered, No:' and then he proceeded to tell them that he had had a serious case of fistiler lachrymose, in which the crack-jaw aperture was completely closed, and that he had introduced a thing-amy-gigum into the passage, and that he hoped now in a few days. the saline secretions would find their way into the lachrymose duck." Hamilton shook from head to foot with laughter. Why don't you apply your mind," said he, "and learn to call things by their proper names? I never met with anything more ludicrous."

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"Aye, aye, you may laugh, Sir," said the youth, "but the fun is all to come. When my honour'd gov. had finished his speech, he lowered his eyebrows, raised his upper lip till it quite touched

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"Very well, then, I shall not listen to your tale, Harry; so go to your master and tell him I am waiting."

"I was only going to describe his looks; but, however, you must have seen him when he feels too clever to bear himself."

"Go along, you scrape-grace, and call Mr. Wyliehart. Now Harry, I am really serious."

"And so am I," said Master Wilde, placing his back determinately against the door," and you shall hear me out."

"Well, then, be quick about it, there's a good lad, for I'm really behind my time."

"I was just telling you how they stared at each other: the two gentlemen, because they could not understand a word they heard, and the gov. because-but you'll only blow me up, so I say nothing about it. I let them stand like Madame Tussaud's waxworks for at least five minutes, and then, out of sheer compassion, I told them the plain English of it. There's a hole,' says I, in the bone of the nose, a kind of water-pipe from the eye to the nostril, and Sally Turner's was stopped up; so Mr.Hamilton and master put a silver poker into it-that's what he calls the lachrymose duck.' Then, goodness gracious, there was such a thunder-storm look; but I smiled like a born innocent, and walk'd towards the door. Yes, leave the room Sir,' says gov., if you cannot command your tongue; it is great impertinence to volunteer a part in the conversation.""

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"Now Harry," interrupted Hamilton, "say no more, and let me go immediately. I shall begin to think you are impertinent to me." "You shall have your wish, Sir," said Harry, leaving the doorway free; "but it was only what they said of you that 1 wanted to tell you."

"Then be quick about it," said Hamilton, whose curiosity was roused: "who said anything about me?"

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'Why, Mr. Hilton and the other gentleman too: just as I was

VOL. I.

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