ing to Miss Helen Convolvulus. "It is a dan gerous thing," said she, timidly, "to marry a man so admired,—will you always be faithful?" heaven!" cried the lover 66 66 By Heigho!" sighed Miss Helen Convolvulus, and Lord Rufus Pumilion entering, the conversation was changed. But the day of the marriage was fixed; and Mr. Ferdinand Fitzroy bought a new curricle. By Apollo, how handsome he looked in it! A month before the wedding-day the uncle died. Miss Helen Convolvulus was quite tender in her condolences" Cheer up, my Ferdinand," said she, "for your sake, I have discarded Lord Rufus Pumilion !" "Adorable condescension !" cried our hero; "but Lord Rufus Pumilion is only four feet two, and has hair like a peony." "All men are not so handsome as Mr. Ferdinand Fitzroy!" was the reply. Away goes our hero, to be present at the opening of his uncle's will. "I leave," said the testator, (who, I have before said, was a bit of a satirist,) "my share of VOL. II. G the bank, and the whole of my fortune, legacies excepted, to"-(here Mr. Ferdinand Fitzroy wiped his beautiful eyes with a cambric handkerchief, exquisitely brodé)" my natural son, John Spriggs, an industrious, pains-taking youth, who will do credit to the bank. I did once intend to have made my nephew Ferdinand my heir; but so curly a head can have no talent for accounts. I want my successor to be a man of business, not beauty; and Mr. Ferdinand Fitzroy is a great deal too handsome for a banker; his good looks will, no doubt, win him any heiress in town. Meanwhile, I leave him, to buy a dressing-case, a thousand pounds." "A thousand devils!" cried Mr. Ferdinand Fitzroy, banging out of the room. He flew to his mistress. She was not at home. "Lies," says the Italian proverb, "have short legs;" but truths, if they are unpleasant, have terribly long ones! The next day Mr. Ferdinand Fitzroy received a most obliging note of dismissal. "I wish you every happiness," said Miss Helen Convolvulus, in conclusion-" but my friends are right; you are much too handsome for a husband!" And the week following, Miss Helen Convolvulus became Lady Rufus Pumilion! "Alas! sir," said the bailiff, as a day or two after the dissolution of Parliament, he was jogging along with Mr. Ferdinand Fitzroy, in a hackney coach bound to the King's Bench,"Alas! sir, what a pity it is to take so handsome a gentleman to prison !" |