watches was the more astonishing from an event of the past night; our bachelor having, doubtless with the best intentions, put Patty Larkspur's watch at least fifty minutes behind his own.

"Well, it is strange," repeated Patty Larkspur. "I always thought my watch was an excellent one, if properly regulated; it never went so well: but then," and, oh! the smile discharged at our hero, “but then, it was never in such punctual company!"

"Your departure is somewhat sudden, Ma'am?" asked Snow, after half-an-hour's pause.

"Very," replied Patty Larkspur; "I had thought to be happy at Hastings for a month, but a letter followed me here, and a family affair of some delicacy has imperatively called me to London."

"Do you stay long in town, Ma'am?" asked our bachelor.

"Very uncertain," answered our spinster; and the answer destroyed the hopes of Snow, who had secretly determined on returning to Hastings in a couple of days, if assured of Miss Larkspur's detention in the metropolis. The time passed, and at the appointed hour, the coach arrived in London.

"What's o'clock, Sir ?" asked Patty Larkspur, with an ill-suppressed sigh.

"Permit me, Madam ;" and Snow, resolving to be polite for the last time, corrected Miss Larkspur's watch by his own, and returning it to her, vanished like a flash of light.

"Thank you, Sir," said Miss Larkspur; but there was no one to receive her gratitude; our bachelor running at the time towards his lodgings, the which he purposely arrived at through many winding passages. He had upon the road desired the guard to keep his luggage at the office until sent for.

Henry Snow had been a week from Hastings, and sitting one morning at his breakfast, his thoughts wandered to Patty Larkspur. "What a woman!" he mentally exclaimed; well, thank my stars! it was a narrow escape; but I am at last well rid of her."

66

"I beg your pardon, Sir," said our bachelor's landlady, “but I forgot to give you this little parcel; it came after you were in bed last night.” Saying which, she placed a small packet in the hand of Snow, and quitted the apartment. Snow paused ere he broke the seal; it was black: he expected two or three legacies, and was, therefore, greatly shocked at the funereal colour of the wax. As he sat, holding the unopened packet, the friends whom he had for the last five years expected to die, passed one by one before him. Was it his dear aunt Bridget, or that best of uncles, Jeremiah? Having nerved himself for the worst, Snow, with reverent fingers, broke the seal, and casting away three or four envelopes, drew forth a letter; something still remained: he pursued his task, and who shall tell his feelings, who shall paint his face, when Henry Snow laid his thumb and finger upon Patty Larkspur's watch! Had the woman given it to him? Was she a witch, and had she by her "so potent art," shut up some devil in the works to worry and destroy him? But there was a letter! With desperate hand he broke the seal, and, as if staring at a sheeted ghost, he looked at the contents; they were as follows

"MY DEAR SIR,-I know you will pardon the step I have taken. Yes, that considerate delicacy you possess for the wants and wishes of your fellow-creatures will, I am sure, forgive this seeming liberty. I

can never forget, I can never repay, your kind attentions. Deprived of the benefit of communion with you, my watch has been three times down. I cannot tell the hour; I wake and think it must be broad daylight, and I hear the watchman cry past two.' I have been tolda thousand times been told-that the watch was an excellent watch. In the vanity of my heart, I have thought so; but you, Sir, have proved how little it is worth, how meanly I ought to value it, if deprived of your guidance,-if wanting your regulation. I fear the watch is now become wholly useless; however, if you will deign to accept it,-if, for a short month or so, you will condescend to wear it, to correct it by your own chronometer,-to check its haste, and to urge its speed, as its wants may require, the watch may yet-by the very force of sympathy -recover its wonted fidelity, and again faithfully mark the time to her, who feels that to her, time is every day becoming more irksome. I am, dear Sir, truly yours, "MARTHA LARKSPUR."

"P.S. If, in a month, I should not send for the watch, may I ask you still to wear it, as the legacy of one who has done with time and begun-but my pen falters!"

The first determination of Snow was to send back the watch, and to leave his country under a false name. That he should ever have been the fool to vaunt the virtues of his own watch,-to attempt to correct the wanderings of a spinster's! And now, to be asked to wear the fiend in his pocket! No; he would instantly return it to Miss Larkspur, and with it a letter that should,—but where to find her? she had given no address, and no intelligence could Snow obtain from his landlady, whereby he might discover the melancholy owner. And then the black seal! Poor woman! she had doubtless suffered some domestic affliction: yes, that was made too plain by the postcript. She was evidently a woman of education; and-for the watch was surrounded by brilliants -of some property. These thoughts passed rapidly through the perplexed brain of our bachelor, who, in his forty-third year, was seriously perplexed for the first time. At length, he ceased to think, resigning the matter to the hands of destiny.

Henry Snow was constant in his attendance at the Institution. It was about three weeks after the receipt of Miss Larkspur's letter, that, having listened attentively to a lecture on chemistry, he was about to leave the theatre, considerably edified on the subject of acids, when a tall young man who had sat behind him during the discourse, requested the favour of his ear at a neighbouring tavern. The stranger was not a man to be refused, for he had very large moustachios, with beard and hair disposed after Eastlake's best bandit; he was, moreover, dressed in a half-military style, which left it a matter of doubt, with waiters at least, whether he was a lieutenant-colonel or a major. "I believe, Sir," said the hairy young gentleman to Snow," I believe, Sir, you have a watch in your pocket?" Now, the stranger and our bachelor were alone in a room, and Snow, in his ignorance, thought it possible that a pickpocket might wear moustachios, and therefore he merely stepped back, and returned an anxious look at the question. "Your name, Sir?" said the stranger.

Snow, Sir, Henry Snow," said our bachelor, getting near the bell. "I have seen the watch, Sir; and now, Sir, upon your honour, is it not the property of a lady?" thundered forth the stranger. 'Certainly, Sir," said Snow; "and if you can tell me where the

lady is to be found and saying no more, Snow took Patty Larkspur's watch from his waistcoat-pocket; when the stranger approached him, and bending towards the chronometer, and, after surveying it through an eye-glass, he rose to his full height, and thus addressed our hero,- Sir, you are a villain !”

"Sir!" exclaimed Snow, and he wanted breath for another syllable. My cousin, Sir, my cousin! You are aware, Sir," and the stranger twisted his moustache round his forefinger, "that some things can only be washed out with blood! You will not deny, Sir, that you know a lady named Larkspur ?"

"I met her, Sir, at '

"Met her!" vociferated the young gentleman; "what! a woman is to be robbed of".

"Robbed, Sir!" cried Snow; "mind what you are about,-this watch, I can prove, was

"I spoke not of the watch, Sir, but of my cousin's heart. Poor dear girl! but chance has discovered to me her betrayer,-she, patient saint, would have died with the secret, as she will die, but not, I thank Heaven!"-and he flung up his right arm- -" but not alone!"

"Is Miss Larkspur ill?" asked Snow, not knowing what to say. The stranger smiled bitterly upon Snow, and, almost bursting into tears, exclaimed, shaking his head, "That you could see the ruin you have made! But you shall hear from me, Sir; to-morrow, Sir." And with this threat Patty Larkspur's cousin left the tavern; and Henry Snow returned to his uncomfortable home, though not before he had promised a handsome reward to the waiter if he could discover for him the abode of the lady, which intelligence the man was enabled soon after to communicate, having been informed of it, though with strict injunctions to be secret, by the cousin himself.

At nine o'clock the next morning, Henry Snow stood at the door of Miss Larkspur. "Could he see her?" for he was resolved to return the watch into her own hands. "Could he see Miss Larkspur ?"

The servant shook her head, and laconically replied, "Sir, she's dying." Snow started, when the servant considerately added, “but if you'll give your name "-Snow complied with the suggestion, and having waited some minutes, was requested to walk "very softly" upstairs. He entered the room, and saw Miss Larkspur very pale, indeed, seated in an easy chair.

"I am sorry, madam," said Henry Snow, and he was proceeding into his grief, when he was interrupted by "a short, shrill shriek" from the lady, and a shower of tears.

"I am afraid, Sir, I have been very troublesome to you?" said Patty Larkspur.

"Not at all, ma'am," replied Snow, softened by the appearance of the spinster into a benevolent falsehood; "not at all; my purpose in calling upon you is to

"Your cousin, ma'am," proclaimed the servant, with a look of horror. "That rash boy! If he sees you here, Mr. Snow,-for the sake of your precious life,-I care not for myself,-but hide! hide!"

Hide, ma'am," exclaimed our old bachelor, quite bewildered at the proposal.

"If not," said Miss Larkspur, and she spoke with a deep, solemn voice; "if not-I know his temper-there'll be murder."

"He's coming up-stairs, ma'am," cried the girl. "Hide! hide! for the love of mercy-to save blood-hide! hide!" And Patty Larkspur-what cannot woman do for him she loves ?— moved by her fears for the life of Snow, rose above sickness, and vigorously seconded by her maid, almost ere our bachelor was aware of it, twirled him into an empty closet, and buttoned the door; at the same instant, the "armed heels " of Patty's cousin were heard by Snow upon the stairs, and in another instant his terrible voice sounded in the apart

ment.

William," said Miss Larkspur, weakly; she had again fallen into the chair, quite exhausted by her late exertion.

"Gracious powers! Patty, you are worse; yes, it is in vain to cheat you with hope; poor blighted flower, you are dying."

"I know it," said Patty Larkspur," and am content to die."

“Oh, villain! villain!" cried cousin William, and he strode up and down the room; "but by this time he has my message, and in an hour hence

"What mean you, William ?" said Patty; "why do you frown sowhy roll your eyes-what horrible thoughts possess you ?",

"I have found him," cried William, in a sepulchral note.

"Him!" said Patty Larkspur.

"Snow!" and William roared out the name, to the terror of its owner in the closet.

"Well!” cried Patty, trembling at the word.

"He dies," said William, in thorough bass.

"No, no, no, William ! if it be my last effort-upon my knees I ask it he is innocent-'tis I who "

"Innocent! What, have I not seen you waste, day by day, since that accursed day you went to Hastings?-do I not know that-(there is none but Susan here, and she is faithful)—that he took two places back to London-that you are no longer the same blithe, happy being that -and here cousin William became very impressive," and will not the ancestors of our house pursue me if I suffer what is that ?" And cousin William glared at Patty Larkspur's watch laid by Snow upon the table.

"The watch, Sir, the watch!" said Susan.

"And has he had the meanness-has he further insulted you by sending"

"No, Sir, he didn't send it," said Susan,

66 Not send! Why, then-he-ha!-that closet door!—what moves it ?" The closet was small, and the door shutting close upon Snow, and Snow, with the threats of cousin William, beginning to tremble, proclaimed the culprit in his hiding-place.

"William !" shrieked Patty Larkspur, and fell upon her knees, when the closet-button being turned by the indignant thumb and finger of the young gentleman, Henry Snow stood in all his dark iniquity revealed.

Cousin William, after a great effort, said, with apparent composure, "Very well, Sir; follow me," and quitted the house, Patty Larkspur, however, preventing Snow from obeying the orders of her murderous cousin.

Snow was much affected by the devotion shown to him by Patty Larkspur; like Benedick, he had "never thought to marry;" but we will not hold the reader by a long narration of the causes which pre

vailed upon our old bachelor: ere two hours had elapsed from the exit of the fiery William, Henry Snow had made a formal offer of his hand to Patty Larkspur, who consented to accept it, with this condition, if her life were spared.

About a twelvemonth after their marriage-for the life of Patty was spared-Mrs. Snow fell into a serious fit of illness. We know little of the domestic felicity of the pair up to that period; we only know that the husband would look at his wife's face, glance at her watch, and say, with a sigh-"Too slow, much too slow." For the watch itself, great deception-as Mrs. Snow averred-had been practised on her: that which she had bought for pure gold, was only metal gilt; and the brilliants were, to her confusion, discovered to be only tolerable crystals. Cousin William having, as Mrs. Snow lamented, lost his patrimony at hazard, condescended to shave, and, Mr. Snow having advanced the money, to re-enter life as a linen-draper.

Mr. Snow died at sixty, having survived his wife about nine months. He had a favourite nephew, to whom he left the bulk of his property, enhanced, as he said, by this golden advice,-" George, my dear George, if you live to be an old bachelor, never-never attempt to regulate the watch of a middle-aged maid."

Poor Gentleman, Act II. Scene 2.

ALTHOUGH the honeymoon has pass'd,
My heart is still in raptures,

For I have made, methinks, the best
Of matrimonial captures ;-

My wife's not young, but then she boasts
The sweetest of complexions;

And though she's somewhat short herself,
She has such high connexions!

Of that provision people call

In worldly parlance "dower,"

To say that I got much with her,

It is not in my power;

Oh, no! from fortune-hunting free,
That vilest of infections,

I'm happy-as a man can be

Whose wife has high connexions.
We're rather poor, for I must state
In this my frank confession,
She has no lands, and I profess
That I have no profession-
But what of that, since I have got
The wife of my affections-

And such a wife, for has she not

Such very high connexions?