distinguished beauty, manfully assuring her that he had given up his ungrateful cousin for ever and a day.

"Ho, ho, ho!" finished Mr. D——, “to breakfast-to breakfast! Well done, Damon and Pythias! Well done, Gog and Magog! Our names are up! we shall both marry fortunes, and then I'll build a three-decker."

THE PROTEGÉE.

Poor wretches, that depend

On greatness' favours, dream as I have done

Wake, and find nothing.

Shakspeare.

Ir is melancholy to reflect how often the warm impulses of kindness grow chilled by the prospect of a wearying perseverance, and how many causes for repentance arise out of the violation of laws which we have imposed upon ourselves. The truth of this observation is constantly exemplified by the patronizing propensity which is the property of every goodnatured, unthinking person who may happen to be endowed with means or influence. Promises are made without regard to the difficulties of performance, or the capacity of the object; and hopes are raised, of which the disappointment has many a time depressed a life, which would otherwise have been contented

and happy, into sorrow, discontent, and even death itself. We have all of us witnessed instances of this nature, in a greater or less extent; and I fear that the following little history, which occurred under my own eye, will only be thought too common.

I lived some years ago in a small, retired village, which was chiefly the property of a great lady, who occupied a mansion that was considered the pride of the neighbourhood.

It was a noble place, surrounded by a huge park, studded with ornamental timber, and pleasure houses, and lakes, and grottoes, and other attractions, which filled it during the heat of summer with half the quality of the metropolis. During the London season, however, it is difficult for great people to find suitable companions elsewhere; and our lady, who considered her state of health inadequate to the labours of society, beyond the high and mighty circle I have mentioned, would sometimes amuse herself by condescendingly attending to the comforts of her humble dependents. She had not long lost her husband, had no children, and was not past the age of a degree of romance with

which young widows are apt inconsiderately to devote themselves to a world of melancholy re

signation, and the sole pursuit of promoting the happiness of others. The sincerity of these resolutions is seldom to be disputed at the time they are made, and I used to feel quite as much respect for Lady L——, when her stately form strolled down to the village, with these benevolent propensities, as the little boys and girls did for the gold lace and long stick of the footman who stalked behind her.

Among her especial favourites were an honest, industrious couple, who fully deserved the distinction. They had a large family of beautiful children, whom they brought up in a manner that did them credit, and whom they had afterwards the reward of seeing well off in life -all except one, and in this one they reposed their greatest hopes, for it was Lady L――'s god-daughter-a little beauty, who had drawn from her the most flattering promises of protection. I was always fond of children, and the young Queen Mab-for so I named her from her light and airy form and graceful expression was one of the most engaging I had

ever met with. She was not more than five or six years old; but, as I watched her sporting before the cottage-door, there was a sensibility and mind in her childish actions, which, when her fair hair and blue eyes were transported to the great house, deprived me of one of my most interesting contemplations. Mab became all at once a little lady, and I never saw her but when she came down with her patroness to astonish, her brothers and sisters, and soil her finery in the thoughtless joy of the meeting. I could not help thinking that there was something hard in the exaltation of one of the little brood over the rest, but yet the less favoured urchins seemed the happiest. They only looked upon her with a degree of fear, as if she were no longer one of them, and her departure was always a signal for a renewal of their gambols; but in Mab the tear of regret could hardly be restrained, and it was a matter of doubt whether the advantages she enjoyed were sufficient to heal the laceration of ties which were never intended to be broken.

The child which we take from its parents has in justice a claim upon us superior even to