that Jeet Singh was illegitimate. He appealed to the Kangra Rajah, who in an evil hour supported his claim, and supplied him with matchlocks and horsemen. With these Kishen Singh made war on his nephew; but was defeated, taken prisoner, and incarcerated. His wife, however, and the friendly Ghyru, resolved at once to anticipate the probable death of Kishen Singh, which would leave Jeet Singh in undisputed possession of the throne, by pretending that she was about to give birth to a child. After a short time, an infant, the child of Ghyru, was surreptitiously introduced into Kishen Singh's house for a consideration of five hundred rupees; his wife was declared to have given birth to a son, and the event was duly notified to the neighbouring Rajahs. It was also communicated to Kishen Singh in his prison; but, instead of rejoicing, like a worthy Rajpoot, at the birth of a son, he repudiated the unexpected honour, saying that it was no child of his. Two days after, he was found dead in his prison; and when shortly afterwards Ghyru demanded the five hundred rupees, the price of the child, he was put out of the way by the two brothers of Kishen Singh's

wife.

Such was the origin of Purtâb Singh. This youth began active life as a Sowar, or trooper, in the service of Sirdar Lehna Singh, through whose influence he hoped to have his pretensions to the Kooloo Raj recognised. His supposititious origin was, however, too generally known, and his claim was always rejected, though he was permitted to use the title of Meean, or Prince. He was engaged in the Sikh campaign of 1845-46, and was supposed to have been killed at Moodkee; on such belief, a small money-pension and some land were settled on his widow, with the title of Ranee.

In 1855, after a lapse of ten years, there appeared in the village of Tiramli, a fakir, declaring himself to be the long-missing Purtâb Singh, and claiming his Jagheer. The wife at first declared she could not identify him; but at length, by the persuasion of her brother, one Beer Singh,

she consented to acknowledge this man as her long-lost husband. He then took up his abode in Sheoraj, and began to gather round him a small retinue, and even to collect revenue from some Kooloo villages. Armed also with some papers which he contrived to get from the Ranee, giving him a semblance of a claim to the Kooloo Guddee (throne), he renewed his attempts to have his pretensions recognised, but in vain; and the Deputy-Commissioner at Kangra warned him that an armed retinue and extravagant mode of life did not suit his position, and he would be only tolerated on condition he lived peaceably.

2

From that time he did not attempt by any overt act to violate this condition; but the general excitement caused by the Poorbeah mutiny seemed to afford an opportunity too favourable to be lost. He could not resist the temptation. His emissaries were soon out in all parts of the neighbouring villages but the people of Sheoraj were first he raised. He appealed to them on hereditary claim to their fealty, as well as to their religious antipathy to the English. He proclaimed that in Delhi, Simla, and Lahore, every European had been massacred. He bade the people rise quickly, and come armed, for that now or never was their time. As if confident of success, he called upon one Soorut Ram, whose father had been an old Vizeer of the Kooloo Rajah's, to take his hereditary place beside the heir of the Kooloo throne. Happily all this seditious correspondence was intercepted by the promptness of Major Hay, who had long been suspecting and watching this pretender. It may perhaps be a question whether this man originated this conspiracy, or was not rather the tool of others, who remained concealed behind the dignity of their position, and put him forth as the firebrand to kindle the flames of sedition throughout that country, ready themselves to step in and reap the fruits of the intrigue. There is little doubt, however, that wherever it originated, it had drawn within its influence several of the neighbouring chiefs, and the whole

"the ups and downs in this mortal sphere of trial, 'specially in the mercantile community. If ever, when I'm dead and gone, adversity should come upon you, you will gratefully remember that I have given you the best of education, and take care of your little brother and sister, who are both stupid!"

These doleful words did not make much impression on Arabella, uttered as they were in a handsome drawingroom, opening on the neat-shaven lawn it took three gardeners to shave, with a glittering side-view of those galleries of glass in which strawberries were ripe at Christmas, and cucumbers never failed to fish. Time went on. Arabella was now twentythree-a very fine girl, with a decided manner-much occupied by her music, her drawing, her books, and her fancies. Fancies-for, like most girls with very active heads and idle hearts, she had a vague yearning for some excitement beyond the monotonous routine of a young lady's life; and the latent force of her nature inclined her to admire whatever was out of the beaten track-whatever was wild and daring. She had received two or three offers from young gentlemen in the same mercantile community as that which surrounded her father in this sphere of trial. But they did not please her; and she believed her father when he said that they only courted her under the idea that he would come down with something handsome; "whereas," said the merchant, "I hope you will marry an honest man, who will like you for yourself, and wait for your fortune till my will is read. As King William says to his son, in the History of England, 'I don't mean to strip till I go to bed.'

999

One night, at a ball in Clapham, Arabella saw the man who was destined to exercise so baleful an influence over her existence. Jasper Losely had been brought to this ball by a young fellow-clerk in the same commercial house as himself; and then in all the bloom of that conspicuous beauty, to which the miniature Arabella had placed before his eyes so many years afterwards did but feeble justice, it may well be conceived that he concentred on himself the

admiring gaze of the assembly. Jasper was younger than Arabella; but, what with the height of his stature and the self-confidence of his air, he looked four or five and twenty. Certainly, in so far as the distance from childhood may be estimated by the loss of innocence, Jasper might have been any age! He was told that old Fossett's daughter would have a very fine fortune; that she was a strong-minded young lady, who governed her father, and would choose for herself; and accordingly he devoted himself to Arabella the whole of the evening. The effect produced on the mind of this ill-fated woman by her dazzling admirer was as sudden as it proved to be lasting. There was a strange charm in the very contrast between his rattling audacity and the bashful formalities of the swains who had hitherto wooed her, as if she frightened them. Even his good looks fascinated her less than that vital energy and power about the lawless brute, which to her seemed the elements of heroic character, though but the attributes of riotous spirits, magnificent formation, flattered vanity, and imperious egotism. She was as a bird gazing spell-bound on a gay young boa-constrictor, darting from bough to bough, sunning its brilliant hues, and showing off all its beauty, just before it takes the bird for its breakfast.

When they parted that night, their intimacy had made so much progress that arrangements had been made for its continuance. Arabella had an instinctive foreboding that her father would be less charmed than herself with Jasper Losely; that, if Jasper were presented to him, he would possibly forbid her farther acquaintance with a young clerk, however superb his outward appearance. She took the first false step. She had a maiden aunt by the mother's side, who lived in Bloomsbury, gave and went to small parties, to which Jasper could easily get introduced. arranged to pay a visit for some weeks to this aunt, who was then very civil to her, accepting with marked kindness seasonable presents of strawberries, pines, spring chickens, and so forth, and offering in turn, whenever it was convenient, a spare room,

She

and whatever amusement a round of small parties, and the innocent flirtations incidental thereto, could bestow. Arabella said nothing to her father about Jasper Losely, and to her aunt's she went. Arabella saw Jasper very often; they became engaged to each other, exchanged vows and lovetokens, locks of hair, &c. Jasper, already much troubled by duns, became naturally ardent to insure his felicity and Arabella's supposed fortune. Arabella at last summoned courage, and spoke to her father. To her delighted surprise, Mr Fossett, after some moralising, more on the uncertainty of life in general than her clandestine proceedings in particular, agreed to see Mr Jasper Losely, and asked him down to dinner. After dinner, over a bottle of Lafitte, in an exceedingly plain but exceedingly weighty silver jug, which made Jasper's mouth water (I mean the jug), Mr Fossett, commencing with that somewhat coarse though royal saying of William the Conqueror, with which he had before edified his daughter, assured Jasper that he gave his full consent to the young gentleman's nuptials with Arabella, provided Jasper or his relations would maintain her in a plain respectable way, and wait for her fortune till his (Fossett's) will was read. What that fortune would be, Mr Fossett declined even to hint. Jasper went away very much cooled. Still the engagement went on. The nuptials were tacitly deferred. Jasper and his relations maintain a wife! Preposterous idea! It would take a Clan of relations and a Zenana of wives to maintain in that state to which he deemed himself entitledJasper himself! But just as he was meditating the possibility of a compromise with old Fossett, by which he would agree to wait till the will was read for contingent advantages, provided Fossett, in his turn, would agree in the meanwhile to afford lodging and board, with a trifle for pocket-money, to Arabella and himself, in the Clapham Villa, which, though not partial to rural scenery, Jasper preferred, on the whole, to a second floor in the city,-old Fossett fell ill, took to his bed; was unable to attend to his business, some one else attended to it; and the conse

quence was, that the house stopped payment, and was discovered to have been insolvent for the last ten years. Not a discreditable bankruptcy. There might perhaps be seven shillings in the pound ultimately paid, and not more than forty families irretrievably ruined. Old Fossett, safe in his bed, bore the affliction with philosophical composure; observed to Arabella that he had always warned her of the ups and downs in this sphere of trial; referred again with pride to her first-rate education; commended again to her care Tom and Biddy; and, declaring that he died in charity with all men, resigned himself to the last slumber."

Arabella at first sought a refuge with her maiden aunt. But that lady, though not hit in pocket by her brother-in-law's failure, was more vehement against his memory than his most injured creditor-not only that she deemed herself unjustly defrauded of the pines, strawberries, and spring chickens, by which she had been enabled to give small parties at small cost, though with ample show, but that she was robbed of the consequence she had hitherto derived from the supposed expectations of her niece. In short, her welcome was so hostile, and her condolences so cutting, that Arabella quitted her door with a solemn determination never again to enter it.

And now the nobler qualities of the bankrupt's daughter rose at once into play. Left penniless, she resolved by her own exertions to support and to rear her young brother and sister. The great school to which she had been the ornament willingly received her as a teacher, until some more advantageous place in a private family, and with a salary worthy of her talents and accomplishments, could be found. Her intercourse with Jasper became necessarily suspended. She had the generosity to write, offering to release him from his engagement. Jasper considered himself fully released without that letter; but he deemed it neither gallant nor discreet to say so. Arabella might obtain a situation with larger salary than she could possibly need, the superfluities whereof Jasper might undertake to invest. Her aunt had

"the ups and downs in this mortal sphere of trial, 'specially in the mercantile community. If ever, when I'm dead and gone, adversity should come upon you, you will gratefully remember that I have given you the best of education, and take care of your little brother and sister, who are both-stupid!"

These doleful words did not make much impression on Arabella, uttered as they were in a handsome drawingroom, opening on the neat-shaven lawn it took three gardeners to shave, with a glittering side-view of those galleries of glass in which strawberries were ripe at Christmas, and cucumbers never failed to fish. Time went on. Arabella was now twentythree-a very fine girl, with a decided manner-much occupied by her music, her drawing, her books, and her fancies. Fancies-for, like most girls with very active heads and idle hearts, she had a vague yearning for some excitement beyond the monotonous routine of a young lady's life; and the latent force of her nature in clined her to admire whatever was out of the beaten track-whatever Iwas wild and daring. She had received two or three offers from young gentlemen in the same mercantile community as that which surrounded her father in this sphere of trial. But they did not please her; and she believed her father when he said that they only courted her under the idea that he would come down with something handsome; "whereas," said the merchant, "I hope you will marry an honest man, who will like you for yourself, and wait for your fortune till my will is read. As King William says to his son, in the History of England, I don't mean to strip till I go to bed.'

One night, at a ball in Clapham, Arabella saw the man who was destined to exercise so baleful an influence over her existence. Jasper Losely had been brought to this ball by a young fellow-clerk in the same commercial house as himself; and then in all the bloom of that conspicuous beauty, to which the miniature Arabella had placed before his eyes so many years afterwards did but feeble justice, it may well be conceived that he concentred on himself the

admiring gaze of the assembly. Jasper was younger than Arabella; but, what with the height of his stature and the self-confidence of his air, he looked four or five and twenty. Certainly, in so far as the distance from childhood may be estimated by the loss of innocence, Jasper might have been any age! He was told that old Fossett's daughter would have a very fine fortune; that she was a strong-minded young lady, who governed her father, and would choose for herself; and accordingly he devoted himself to Arabella the whole of the evening. The effect produced on the mind of this ill-fated woman by her dazzling admirer was as sudden as it proved to be lasting. There was a strange charm in the very contrast between his rattling audacity and the bashful formalities of the swains who had hitherto wooed her, as if she frightened them. Even his good looks fascinated her less than that vital energy and power about the lawless brute, which to her seemed the elements of heroic character, though but the attributes of riotous spirits, magnificent formation, flattered vanity, and imperious egotism. She was as a bird gazing spell-bound on a gay young boa-constrictor, darting from bough to bough, sunning its brilliant hues, and showing off all its beauty, just before it takes the bird for its breakfast.

When they parted that night, their intimacy had made so much progress that arrangements had been made for its continuance. Arabella had an instinctive foreboding that her father would be less charmed than herself with Jasper Losely; that, if Jasper were presented to him, he would possibly forbid her farther acquaintance with a young clerk, however superb his outward appearance. She took the first false step. She had a maiden aunt by the mother's side, who lived in Bloomsbury, gave and went to small parties, to which Jasper could easily get introduced. arranged to pay a visit for some weeks to this aunt, who was then very civil to her, accepting with marked kindness seasonable presents of strawberries, pines, spring chickens, and so forth, and offering in turn, whenever it was convenient, a spare room,

She

quence was, that the house stopped payment, and was discovered to have been insolvent for the last ten years. Not a discreditable bankruptcy. There might perhaps be seven shillings in the pound ultimately paid, and not more than forty families irretrievably ruined. Old Fossett, safe in his bed, bore the affliction with philosophical composure; observed to Arabella that he had always warned her of the ups and downs in this sphere of trial; referred again with pride to her first-rate education; commended again to her care Tom and Biddy; and, declaring that he died in charity with all men, resigned himself to the last slumber.

and whatever amusement a round of small parties, and the innocent flirtations incidental thereto, could bestow. Arabella said nothing to her father about Jasper Losely, and to her aunt's she went. Arabella saw Jasper very often; they became engaged to each other, exchanged vows and lovetokens, locks of hair, &c. Jasper, already much troubled by duns, became naturally ardent to insure his felicity and Arabella's supposed fortune. Arabella at last summoned courage, and spoke to her father. To her delighted surprise, Mr Fossett, after some moralising, more on the uncertainty of life in general than her clandestine proceedings in particular, agreed to see Mr Jasper Losely, and asked him down to dinner. After dinner, over a bottle of Lafitte, in an exceedingly plain but exceedingly weighty silver jug, which made Jasper's mouth water (I mean the jug), Mr Fossett, commencing with that somewhat coarse though royal saying of William the Conqueror, with which he had before edified his daughter, assured Jasper that he gave his full consent to the young gentleman's nuptials with Arabella, provided Jasper or his relations would maintain her in a plain respectable way, and wait for her for tune till his (Fossett's) will was read. What that fortune would be, Mr Fossett declined even to hint. Jasper went away very much cooled. Still the engagement went on. The puptials were tacitly deferred. Jasper and his relations maintain a wife! Preposterous idea! It would take a Clan of relations and a Zenana of wives to maintain in that state to which he deemed himself entitled Jasper himself! But just as he was meditating the possibility of a compromise with old Fossett, by which he would agree to wait till the will was read for contingent advantages, provided Fossett, in his turn, would agree in the meanwhile to afford lodging and board, with a trifle for pocket-money, to Arabella and himself, in the Clapham Villa, which, though not partial to rural scenery, Jasper preferred, on the whole, to a second floor in the city,-old Fossett fell ill, took to his bed; was unable to attend to his business, some one else attended to it; and the conse

Arabella at first sought a refuge with her maiden aunt. But that lady, though not hit in pocket by her brother-in-law's failure, was more vehement against his memory than his most injured creditor-not only that she deemed herself unjustly defrauded of the pines, strawberries, and spring chickens, by which she had been enabled to give small parties at small cost, though with ample show, but that she was robbed of the consequence she had hitherto derived from the supposed expectations of her niece. In short, her welcome was so hostile, and her condolences so cutting, that Arabella quitted her door with a solemn determination never again to enter it.

And now the nobler qualities of the bankrupt's daughter rose at once into play. Left penniless, she resolved by her own exertions to support and to rear her young brother and sister. The great school to which she had been the ornament willingly received her as a teacher, until some more advantageous place in a private family, and with a salary worthy of her talents and accomplishments, could be found. Her intercourse with Jasper became necessarily suspended. She had the generosity to write, offering to release him from his engagement. Jasper considered himself fully released without that letter; but he deemed it neither gallant nor discreet to say so. Arabella might obtain a situation with larger salary than she could possibly need, the superfluities whereof Jasper might undertake to invest. Her aunt had