little companion with an indignation which was splendid to behold. "Your mamma knows," she said, "and permits it! Oh, Pamela ! that I should have been so fond of you, and that you should treat me like this!"

"I am not treating you badlyit is you," said Pamela, with a sob which she could not restrain," who are cruel to me.'

"If you think so, we had better part," said Sara, with tragic grandeur. "We had better part, and forget that we ever knew each other. I could have borne anything from you but being false. Oh, Pamela! how could you do it? To be treacherous to me who have always loved you, and to correspond with Jack!"

"I-don't- correspond - with Jack," cried Pamela, the words being wrung out of her; and then she stopped short, and dried her eyes, and grew red, and looked Sara in the face. It was true, and yet it was false; and the consciousness of this falsehood in the spirit made her cheeks burn, and yet startled her into composure. She stood upright for the first time, and eyed her questioner, but it was with the self-possession not of innocence but of guilt.

"I am very glad to hear it," said Sara-" very glad; but you let him write to you. And when I see his handwriting on your table what am I to think? I will speak to him about it to-night; I will not have him tease you. Pamela, if you will trust in me, I will bring you through it safe. Surely it would be better for you to have me for a friend than Jack?"

Poor Pamela's eyes sank to the ground as this question was addressed to her. Her blush, which had begun to fade, returned with double violence. Such a torrent of crimson rushed to her face and throat that even Sara took note of it. Pamela could not tell a lie -not another lie, as she said to herself in her heart; for the fact

was she did prefer Jack-preferred him infinitely and beyond all question; and such being the case, could not so much as look at her questioner, much less breathe a word of assent. Sara marked the silence, the overwhelming blush, the look which suddenly fell beneath her own, with the consternation of utter astonishment. In that moment a renewed storm of indignation swept over her. She stamped her foot upon the grass in the impatience of her thoughts.

"You prefer Jack," she cried, in horror-"you prefer Jack! Oh, heaven! but in that case," she added, gathering up her long dress in her arms, and turning away with a grandeur of disdain which made an end of Pamela, "it is evident that we had better part. I do not know that there is anything more I can say. I have thought more of you than I ought to have done," said Sara, making a few steps forward and then turning half round with the air of an injured princess, "but now it is better that we should part."

With this she waved her hand and turned away. It was in her heart to have turned and gone back five-and-twenty times before she reached the straight line of the avenue from which they had strayed. Before she got to the first laurel in the shrubberies her heart had given her fifty pricks on the subject of her cruelty; but Sara was not actually so moved by these admonitions as to go back. As for Pamela, she stood for a long time where her friend had left her, motionless under the chestnut-trees, with tears dropping slowly from her downcast eyes, and a speechless yet sweet anguish in her heart. Her mother had been right. The sister's little friend, and the brother's betrothed were two different things. This was how she was to be received by those who were nearest in the world to him; and yet he was a man, and his own master; all she could do was in

vain, and he could not be forced to give up. Pamela stood still until his sister's light steps began to sound on the gravel; and when it was evident the parting had been final, and that Sara did not mean to come back, the poor child relieved her bosom by a long sob, and then went home very humbly by the broad sunny avenue. She went and poured her troubles into her mother's bosom, which naturally was so much the worse for Mrs Preston's headache. It was very hard to bear, and yet there was one thing which gave a little comfort; Jack was his own master, and giving him up, as everybody else adjured her to do, would be a thing entirely without effect.

The dinner-table at Brownlows was very grave that night. Mr Brownlow, it is true, was much as usual, and so was Jack; they were very much as they always were, notwithstanding that very grave complications surrounded the footsteps of both. But as for Sara, her aspect was solemnity itself; she spoke in monosyllables only; she ate little, and that little in a pathetic way; when her father or her brother addressed her she took out her finest manners and extinguished them. Altogether she was a very imposing and majestic sight; and after a few attempts at ordinary conversation, the two gentlemen, feeling themselves very trifling and insignificant personages indeed, gave in, and struggled no longer against an influence which was too much for them. There was something, too, in her manner-something imperceptible to Mr Brownlow, perceptible only to Jack-which made it clear to the latter that it was on his account his sister was so profoundly disturbed. He said "Pshaw!" to himself at first, and tried to think himself quite indifferent; but the fact was he was not indifferent. When she left the room at last, Jack had no heart for a chat with his father over the claret. He too felt

his secret on his mind, and became uncomfortable when he was drawn at all into a confidential attitude; and to-day, in addition to this, there was in his heart a prick of alarm. Did Sara know? was that what she meant? Jack knew very well that sooner or later everybody must know; but at the present moment a mingled sense of shame and pride and independence kept him silent. Even supposing it was the most prudent marriage he could make, why should a fellow go and tell everybody like a girl? It might be well enough for a girl to do it a girl had to get everybody's consent, and ask everybody's advice, whereas he required neither advice nor consent. And so he had not felt himself called upon to say anything about it; but it is nervous work, when you have a secret on your mind, to be left alone with your nearest relative, the person who has the best right to know, and who in a way possesses your natural confidence, and has done nothing to forfeit it. So Jack escaped five minutes after Sara, and hastened to the drawing-room, looking for her. Perhaps she had expected it-at all events she was there waiting for him still as solemn, pathetic, and important as it is possible to conceive. She had some work in her hands, which of itself was highly significant. Jack went up to her, and she looked at him, but took no further notice. After that one glance she looked down again, and went on with her work-things were too serious for speech.

"What's the matter?" said Jack. "Why are you making such a tragedy-queen of yourself? What has everybody done? My opinion is you have frightened my father to death."

"I should be very sorry if I had frightened papa," said Sara, meekly; and then she broke forth with vehemence, "Oh, how can you, Jack? Don't you feel ashamed to look me in the face?"

"I ashamed to look you in the face?" cried Jack, in utter bewilderment; and he retired a step, but yet stared at her with the most straightforward stare. His eyes did not fall under the scrutiny of hers, but gradually as he looked there began to steal up among his whiskers an increasing heat. He grew red though there was no visible cause for it. "I should like to know what I have done," he said, with an affected laugh. Anyhow, you take high ground."

66

"I couldn't take too high ground," said Sara, solemnly. "Oh, Jack! how could you think of meddling with that innocent little thing? To see her about so pretty and sweet as she was, and then to go and worry her and tease her to death!"

66 Worry and tease whom?" cried Jack, in amaze. This was certainly not the accusation he expected to hear.

"As if you did not know whom I mean!" said his sister. "Wasn't it throwing themselves on our kindness when they came here? And to make her that she dares not walk about or come out anywhere-to tease her with letters even! I think you are the last man in the world from whom I should have expected that."

Jack had taken to bite his nails, not well knowing what else to do. But he made no direct reply even to the solemnity of this appeal. A flush of anger sprang up over his face, and yet he was amused. "Has she been complaining to you?" he said.

"Complaining," said Sara. "Poor little thing! No, indeed. She never said a word. I found it out all by myself."

"Then I advise you to keep it all to yourself," said her brother, "She don't want you to interfere, nor I either. We can manage our own affairs; and I think, Sara," he added, with an almost equal grandeur, "if I were you I would not notice the mote in my brother's

eye till I had looked after the beam in my own."

The beam in her own! what did he mean? But Jack went off in a lofty way, contenting himself with this Parthian arrow, and declining to explain. The insinuation, however, disturbed Sara. What was the beam in her own? Somehow, while she was puzzling about it, a vision of young Powys crossed her mind, papa's friend, who began to come so often. When she thought of that, she smiled at her brother's delusion. Poor Jack! he did not know that it was in discharge of her most sacred duty that she was civil to Powys. She had been very civil to him. She had taken his part against Jack's own refined rudeness, and delivered him even from the perplexed affabilities of her father, though he was her father's friend. Both Mr Brownlow and Jack were preoccupied, and Sara had been the only one to entertain the stranger. And she had done it so as to make the entertainment very amusing and pleasant to herself. But what had that to do with a beam in her eye? She had made a vow, and she was performing her vow. And he was her father's friend; and if all other arguments should be exhausted, still the case was no parallel to that of Pamela. He was not a poor man dwelling at the gate. He was a fairy prince, whom some enchantment had transformed into his present shape. The case was utterly different. Thus it was with a certain magnificent superiority over her brother's weakness that Sara smiled to herself at his delusion. And yet she was grieved to think that he should take refuge in such a delusion, and did not show any symptom of real sorrow for his own sin.

Jack had hardly gone when Mr Brownlow came up stairs. And he too asked Sara why it was that she sat apart in such melancholy majesty. When he had heard the cause, he was more disturbed than

either of his children had been. Sara had supposed that Jack might be trifling with her poor little friend-she thought that he might carry the flirtation so far as to break poor Pamela's heart, perhaps. But Mr Brownlow knew that there were sometimes consequences more serious than even the breaking of hearts. To be sure he judged, not with the awful severity of a woman, but with the leniency of a man of the world; but yet it seemed to him that worse things might happen to poor Pamela than an innocent heartbreak, and his soul was disturbed within him by the thought. He had warned his son, with all the gravity which the occasion required; but Jack was young, and no doubt the warning had been ineffectual. Mr Brownlow was grieved to his soul; and, what was strange enough, it never occurred to him that his son could have behaved as he had done, like a Paladin. Jack's philosophy, which had so little effect upon himself, had deceived his father. Mr Brownlow felt that Jack was not the man to sacrifice his position and prospects and ambitions to an early marriage, and the only alternative was one at which he shuddered. For the truth was, his eye had been much attracted by the bright little face at the gate. It recalled some other face to him-he could not recall whose face. He had thought

she was like Sara at first, but it was not Sara. And to think of that fresh sweet blossoming creature all trodden down into dust and ruin! The thought made Mr Brownlow's heart contract with positive pain. He went down into the avenue, and walked about there for hours waiting for his son. It must not be, he said to himself—it must not be! And all this time Jack, not knowing what was in store for him, was hearing over and over again, with much repetition. the story of the envelope and Sara's visit, and was drying Pamela's tears, and laughing at her fright, and asking her gloriously what anybody could do to separate them?-what could anybody do? A girl might be subject to her parents; but who was there who could take away his free-will from a Man? This was the scope of Jack's conversation, and it was very charming to his hearer. What could any one do against that magnificent force of resolution? course his allowance might be taken from him; but he could work. They had it all their own way in Mrs Swayne's parlour, though Mrs Swayne herself did not hesitate to express her disapproval; but as yet Mr John knew nothing about the anxious parent who walked up and down waiting for him on the other side of the gate.

Of

THE reign of George III., as usually described in history, presents us with little else than a continuous narrative of fierce party struggles at home, and of long and sanguinary foreign wars in all parts of the world. Two historians indeed, both of them painstaking writers, have, within the last few years, stepped in this respect slightly out of the beaten track. Lord Stanhope first, and after him Mr Massey, saw the importance of at least touching on the inner life of the nation, and each has, in consequence, devoted a separate chapter to the discussion of other points than those of foreign and domestic policy. Even they, however, treat this portion of their subject with less breadth of detail than its importance seems to deserve. They describe some of the customs of a bygone age, and describe them well; but the picture which they paint is far from complete; and they fail to show by what process it assumed by degrees, like a dissolving view at a theatre, a new aspect. Even Mr Jesse, whom the greater freedom afforded to a biographer might have tempted to take a course of his own, has not, according to our judgment in the matter, quite come up to the point which was accessible to him. He gives us, it is true, pleasant glimpses of the domestic habits of the royal household, and exposes, without circumlocution, the low state of morals which prevailed a hundred years ago among the aristocracy. But of the marvellous changes which were going on under the hero of his tale in the constitution of English society at large, and of the causes to which they are attributable, even he takes little or no notice. We propose in the following pages to supply in some degree what we do not find in his pleasant pages, not because we desire to censure

him for turning aside from investigations the pursuit of which might have carried him outside the plan on which he proposed to construct his work, but because the student of his agreeable volumes will scarcely derive from them all the instruction with which they are fraught, unless he know something more than Mr Jesse tells him of what England was, while those sixty years were running their course during which the Government of this country was carried on in the name and under the authority of George III.

We must begin by reminding our readers that the incidents which mainly determine whether nations are to be accounted civilised or the reverse are the condition of their roads, the state of their agriculture, and the means of transport available, at all times, and under everyday contingencies, for the conveyance of goods and of persons from one point within the country to another. Wherever you find these three conditions of social existence in good order, there you may be sure that you are not sojourning with barbarians. There may be no high standard of art and literature among them; their manners, in the common intercourse of life, may be rough; and even in the views which they entertain of moral and religious requirements, you may encounter a good deal which offends your more just perception of what is right. But the people as a people are lifted above the line which divides civilisation from barbarism; they have made the first and certainly the most important advances towards national refinement. On the other hand, wherever these three conditions of social existence are in bad order, there, you may depend upon it, you have fallen among a rude people. Their country may have