as it escaped, that the good Fothergill was affected; his rough exterior gave way; he took my hand, and his hard features softened into more than common fellow-feeling; but he told me that nothing but a total and complete banishment of the very name, and of course all that bore it, from my memory, could work any cure. "Were you like her brother himself," said he, "and could you, like him, fly from flower to flower, and amuse yourself with beauties de garnison,' or seek the thousand diversions of thought which the ambition of being a "renowner" occasions, I might have some hopes for you; but you are jeune homme a parfait amour; you walk gardens and court cloisters, rather than the High Street or the cricket-ground; you prefer sighing to merriment; you are like Jaques, you do love melancholy better than laughing,' and the hold the brother has upon you is cherished a thousand times more fondly, because in the brother is cherished the thought of the sister."

Though I felt every word of this to be true, and mourned that it should be so, yet I could not help woudering where my tutor had got this penetration, on a subject to which, from his habits, manners, and appearance, it should seem he must have been a stranger. But at any rate, the reasoning was good, and the power only, not the will, was wanting. For I found myself unequal to the promise be demanded of me, to use all means and appliances to drive the whole family from my memory.

"It will smooth your path here," said he, "as well as there ; for this unhappy accident (as I may call it), which has so lifted you above yourself, has placed you every way in a false position, and your intiniacy with Mr. Hastings, even if renewed, which is doubtful, will only be pregnant with mortification; while to cherish your feelings for this young lady must plunge you in despair."

"There is not a word you have said," I answered, "to which I do not defer. And yet"

"What?"

"The despair would be welcome, in preference to oblivion ;' and I would rather be hopeless in my love, than not love Bertha."

"I give you up," said Fothergill, somewhat ruffled, and he walked away.

This troubled me: and not the less because he was right. Then, again, though he was my cousin, and had shown himself my real friend, he was also my tutor, and a high college official. But I was a real lover, and to a real lover, even without hope, and though his mistress may even be ignorant of his passion, the dream of that mistress is often sweeter than liberty itself.

Fothergill, however, had been too abrupt. He was perhaps himself invulnerable, and therefore hard to others. I sulked also, and walked away to commune with my own heart, in my chamber," though not to be still; rather indeed the reverse; for in my chamber I did not stay ten minutes, but sallied forth into the town, unknowing where to go.

My steps, however, were soon directed, for 1 met my friend's French valet, who, accosting me with the consequential national politeness of a French valet of fashion, said he had brought me "von letter from his master, le jeune Seigneur Hastings, who vas a leetel indispose, and wish mosh for de company of monsieur, for one petit quaat d'heure."

Recollecting the preceding evening's conversation, my heart leaped up at this, as it looked like an alteration of sentiment."

"I am sorry he is ill," said I.

"Not ver ill," replied the valet, 'mais il veut bien se fortifier contre l'ennui, avec monsieur.'

"Has he not his friend, Lord Albany, with him?" asked I. "Mi lor," replied La Fleur (for so, as I have said, his master had christened him), was gone to Blenheim, with a party of jeunes dames, to visit the chateau of le grand Malbrook, and jeune Monsieur Hastings was au desespoir that he no go too, pour cause

Here La Fleur shook his head almost as significantly as Lord Burleigh.

"And what cause?" asked I with curiosity.

"Von leetel (how you call it?) imposition," replied the valet," for which he is aux arrets, and can no stir; but monsieur will open his billet and will see all about dat, sans doute."

It was time I should; but meanwhile I dismissed the valet with my compliments, and I would come directly.

I then opened the note, and read as follows:

"MY DEAR ORESTES,

"Our ruler has had the audacity to confine me, because I refused to obey a nonsensical order, that none of us should attend the race ball last night. What makes it worse, all my friends have flown off in different directions. Pray, therefore, come, if only for half-an-hour. A sober Queen's man for an associate and counsellor may perhaps redeem me with the tyrant, who has been most pragmatical in this matter. "Yours,

"PYLADES."

This allusion to our school nicknames by no means displeased me. It is impossible, I said, to myself, that he wishes to forget old friendship; Fothergill is wrong:-and I quickened my pace to Christ Church.

CHAPTER XI.

I TELL MY MIND TO FOLJ AMBE-THE CONSEQUENCES OF IT.

My old friend the porter received me at the gate with still improved obsequiousness (another barometer of the surrounding atmosphere); for La Fleur, with whom he had struck up an alliance (I suppose not unequal, and therefore likely to last), had informed him of the message to me, as he did of every thing else concerning his master, and this made the shrewd janitor suppose that I could be no common person. He treated me accordingly.

For my own part, I no longer played the meek freshman of Queen's, but received his salutation as my mere due, and passed on with a sort of calm dignity (at least what was in

tended for such), which I took no pains to repress, and it lasted all the way into Hastings's presence, of whom I felt, or thought I did, less and less afraid. I at any rate resolved to probe both his heart and character to the bottom. If he really loves, and does not disdain me, thought I, I will make him disclose himself unequivocally; if he is what Fothergill thinks, and I am sacrificed either to the caprice or pride of Alcibiades, it is time to show him how I value the one or the other.

With this, assuming a determined air, I suffered La Fleur to usher me to his master, in a bumour which perhaps augured little good to the explanations I sought, as was proved by my reception of the first words he uttered when he saw me.

"I have sent for you," said he, as a man I could depend upon in the absence of Lord Albany, and I am sure you will serve me faithfully in a point in which I find my honour concerned."

He said this with a sort of lofty sternness, which he could assume, and totally free from that flippant tone which had characterized our last meeting. In fact, he seemed much impressed with the wrong which he supposed had been done him. His language, however, did not satisfy me.

So then, thought I, he sends for me, as a patron to his client, in the very spirit of patrician arrogance, and only because his brother patrician is absent. This will never do. I however answered, not over pleased, "I await your commands; who is it that has offended your honour?"

"The tyrant of this place, he replied: first, in refusing me a favour (a paltry one), which I condescended to ask, when I might have enjoyed what I wanted at less inconvenience, without asking. Next, in abusing his power to punish me for acting in despite of his refusal. You are ignorant of the ambiguous position a man is in, when thrown with another to whom he is superior in point of station in the world, inferior in the little circle of official powers. But though you may not be a judge of this, from want of opportunity to observe it among your own associates, I know you to have a great deal of common sense, and it is to that, as an old acquaintance, I wish to appeal.”

"Old acquaintance!" thought I. "What, then, has become of friendship!" I however bowed my thanks for his

condescension in allowing me common sense, although, in other respects so incapable of appreciating a case between persons of such high degree.

Thus we set out ill; for he began by undervaluing, and therefore by indisposing to his service, the counsellor he had chosen. Hence, I was somewhat stiff in my reply.

be

"The situation you have described," said I, " and of which you say, truly, I can be no judge, being so inferior myself, and so wanting experience of the ways of great men, may one of difficulty, but surely not what you have called it, ambiguous. I suppose your course is clear, and you have nothing to do but to obey. Indeed, I have always understood, that to learn obedience when young, if only to know how to command when old, is one of the objects of education."

"Very sententious, truly !" replied Hastings, "and worthy the sage of Queen's, to say nothing of the disciple of old Crackenthorpe. Why, I should have thout it was that arch pedagogue and ornament of Coomberland himself who was speaking to me."

"He would have been a better adviser," said I; "but you asked my opinion, and I have given it, though only in generalibus; for as yet I know nothing of the case on which you do me the honour to consult me."

He measured me with his eye, as if surprised at my formality; then, after some hesitation, observed, “ You are right, quite right, and perhaps it would have been best not to have troubled you. Yet I wished to know what you advocates for obedience to those dressed in the little brief authority, for which, no doubt, you are already a candidate, could say in support of the veriest petty tyranny that ever was perpetrated."

He then informed me, that Lord Albany's sister, Lady Charlotte Saville, having come to the races, he had engaged to dance with her at the ball in the evening, spite of a college order, that no under-graduate should attend it; which little impediment he might have jumpt if he had pleased, undergoing he supposed, a slight punishment, but that, out of respect, he thought it best to ask permission; notwithstanding which, to his astonishment, it was refused, with the addition of a reason still more surprising, that if granted to him it must be granted to others" a want of tact," said he, "which I did not expect