kito, bowing; consequently, I appreciate the compliment -but think it over-it may not be too late, even now— twelve thousand, even twelve thousand-and such an angel for a wife! Besides, you really, I might-and at your time of life—you may reform-think of Mary Lorton as your wife?" "Wife-wives! a precious bargain I have had of wives," sighed forth the Count: "but come, let us shove off-our fishing has been but poor to-day. What an admirable cloak for roguery is a sail!--we will talk this over some other time.;' "It must be soon,” replied Muskito; and then he hailed the men to come on board: "it must be soon-for, to use the nautical phrase of which I have learnt much-'I shall soon be without a shot in the locker."" "And I the same." "It would be easy to ascertain, I should think, exactly how their affairs stand "Ay-ay!" "And then act accordingly.-Why, man, you are not going to be sentimental about it ?" "No, not that; but there are some things that make men feel." "So there are starvation in the stone jug, or a hempen cravat." "Sacre!" shouted the Count with a ferocity of tone that was appalling-coming from such a man." Sacre! -here take the helm, lest I steer you at once to the devil." In a few minutes the pretty craft had glided from its moorings-and before it reached its destination, the evening moon had crested it with silver. Oh, silly moon !—to shine on such a pair! CHAPTER V. I know not which is the most fatal gift, L. E. L. UNCLE HORACE was about the worst person in the world to encounter a fit of illness, he resembled an ailing porcupine: if you attempted to relieve him in any way, he immediately presented his quills. You could as easily have smoothed a grizly bear into a silken lap-dog, as soften down his discontent into any species of patience.— Confinement is especially irksome to a man accustomed to air and exercise, and it is curious to observe how ill men bear it; but Uncle Horace appeared to have inherited perpetual health; he had never suffered an hour's indisposition in his life:-he could understand why women were ill, and was fond of saying that their constitutions bore the same proportion to the constitution of man, as silver does to iron;—but he exceedingly disliked the idea of men suffering illness; indeed, he was rather a disbeliever in the fact; he did not think they were really ill, because he was never ill; and he was disposed to look with a certain degree of contempt upon every male creature who was in "delicate health." Major Blaney, though frank-hearted and good-tempered, was anything but a "ministering angel" in sickness; and though he offered most kindly to remain with Uncle Horace the night of the accident, our uncle only trespassed upon his kindness so far, as to request him to write to Philip Marsden, who came before the evening closed. The surgeons in attendance sent for a nurse: but all they could obtain was permission for her to wait in an outer room, and midnight found the excellent man stretched on a sofa, in a high state of feverish excitement, while Philip sat at his feet to prevent him, if possible, from moving the injured limb. “All through a Frenchwoman!" he would repeat—“a foolish, jabbering Frenchwoman!—a wrong-headed woman, whose conversation was broken to pieces by most abominable English-and that tall Irishman sneering!— My God, what beasts men are! By the way, that idiot, James-Well, well-it is really bad, but it cannot be helped. Ring, Marsden, ring for writing materials; if I write now, it will be sure for to-morrow's post." "My dear Sir, I really must request, must insist upon it, that you remain quiet. I have written, as you desired, to Magdalene, but there must be no more writing, nor thought of writing, to-night. This was especially commanded by the surgeons," said Philip. "A plague on all surgeons!" exclaimed the fevered patient; "parcel of smooth-faced, humbugging bone-setters! My father used to say that the skill of the faculty disappeared with their wigs. Rare stuff! if they had let the bone alone, it would have set itself; nature provides for these things. The very iron grows in the bowels of the earth-mean to tell me the bones of a man's leg are Jess tractable than iron? I know better, Sir." 66 'My dear friend," argued the young sculptor, "painful as it is, you must keep quiet; you will throw yourself into a fever." “No, no, I shall not throw myself into a fever; but your oracles will throw me into one! Ring for the ink." Philip remained firm in his denial, and Uncle Horace, unaccustomed to open contradiction, became more and more angry-it is useless to argue with an angry man; -at last Horace made an effort to rise and reach the bell that was near the sofa;-it was but an effort the agony occasioned by even that slight movement of his foot overcame him completely, and the strong man fainted. It is impossible to imagine anything more crest-fallen than his manner after he recovered from this miserable symptom of either pain or weakness. In a subdued and altered tone he requested Philip to arrange his pillows, and remained silent until some time after the deep-mouthed sentinel of St. Paul's had flung the hour of one into eternity. 66 'Philip," he said at last, in a low tone, "you were right, and I was wrong. It is very extraordinary that, all at once, I should be so bowed down by this cursed accident. How completely are our actions subject to our infirmities! I fear I have not been sufficiently thankful for the great blessings I have hitherto enjoyed. I will take the draught and try to sleep." Philip Marsden wished most sincerely that he might sleep, for he dreaded the effects of his irritable temper, and sleep he fortunately did until morning broke even through the atmosphere of the city! When he awoke, he fixed his eyes on the young sculptor, who was reading by the mingled gleams of day and candle-light; and, as if suddenly struck by the idea, exclaimed, "My God, Marsden, how ill you look! why did you not go to bed?" "I could not leave you alone, sir.” "But there was one of those hired watchers in the house, better leave me to her care, than for you to sit up, looking as you do: turn round, boy, that I may distinctly see your face, it must be the shadow." Philip turned his calm, colourless countenance on his friend: it was such a one as Flaxman would have called perfect-so beautifully marked were the features, so graceful the contour, so finely was the high forehead crowned by the darkest hair, laid on in deep heavy masses. "You are not well, Marsden?" "I am better than I was when you first spoke," returned the youth; "I have a heavy acute pain in my chest sometimes, that leaves me almost breathless, but it soon passes." “You must not work so hard; when I get better, of which Heaven knows there seems but little chance, for I feel more stiff than ever, I shall ship you off from Liverpool in one of my vessels, to make a voyage up the Mediterranean to the Grecian Isles, or perhaps to Mexico, just for a change, or to catch those fine ideas which travellers tell me go floating about foreign countries. Now I can understand people visiting Greece and Mexico, and Africa; the trade is excellent; and when I was a boy, I remember I often said I would visit Troy and Athens. I fancied, too, that I should like to see Rome, if I could get there comfortably without going through that cursed France. This unfortunate Jeg, which is lying there now, was injured when I was almost an infant, and some one persuaded my mother to strap the foot into a French wooden shoe!-Augh!-No wonder I should hate the French.!" Philip smiled, for he fancied he could trace some of the national hatred he bore La belle France to this simple cause. Uncle Horace, then talked on, wondering when Peter sue. could arrive, and if Mary would be able to leave her mother; and then his natural kindness of heart reverted to Philip Marsden's altered looks, and he pronounced a philippic against ambition, that was worthy of any of those philosophers who rail at what, under another name they purAnd the youth listened; that is, he listened with his ears, and smiled-and Horace really fancied his eloquence had made an impression-when he perceived that his fingers were employed in tracing something inside the cover of his book:-he asked to see it-alas! for the power of eloquence, against the absorbing feeling of the mind!— the young sculptor had sketched a figure of Ambition, trampling on the earth-while grasping at the heavens. Uncle Horace drank his weak tea in silence. That day passed, not unprofitably, either to the liberal friend (we will not degrade the giver, or the receiver, by calling him patron) or the befriended-for each was best informed upon those points on which the other was ignorant. Horace forgot his argument against ambition, while listening to the flights of Philip's bold and vigorous imagination; he painted the glories of ancient Rome-the relics of her magnificence—her degraded citizens, who bore unblushingly the reproaches frowned upon them by the silent ruins of the Queen of Nations. He talked of sculpture as the only art capable of immortalizing either persons or actions:-he grouped in the hardened marble the heroes of antiquity, with their several attributes—he spoke of palaces whose long arcades, supported by Corinthian pillars, should be tenanted only by the silent, yet eloquent creations of Genius. From the great sculptors of the ancient world he passed to those of modern Italy; spoke of Canova, as standing alone among them, like a giant in the midst of pigmies; and, to Uncle Horace's exceeding satisfaction, got at length to England;-censuring, however, first, the climate in a manner which his excellent friend by no means liked: talked of its effects on the spirits, as lowering and subduing the energy which, under the influence of a more genial atmosphere, produces things divine, and hinted that it sullied also the purity of the marble, which showed so white and dazzling beneath an Italian sky. The spleen of the young artist was, however, chiefly stimulated by the low roofs, confined rooms, and ungracefully-formed windows of our English mansions-disadvantages under which the painter suffered grievously, but which, to the sculptor, were absolute destruction. |