little while his fame flew throughout all Estremadura, and there was not a village around in which the grace and acquirements of the gay young Andres were not praised. The fame of Preciosa was also spread, and in every village, town and hamlet they were sent for to exhibit on feast-days and holidays. The fraternity soon became rich and joyous; while the two lovers who brought this prosperity cared for nothing except the pleasure of gazing upon each other.

Their camp was pitched in a grove of evergreen oaks far from the public road, and one night they were all awakened by the violent barking of their dogs. Several gipsies arose to see what might be the cause of all this disturbance, among whom was Andres. They soon came up to the dogs who were all ranging around a man dressed in white, two of them fast hold of his knees. One of the gipsies soon freed him, exclaiming

"nor

"Who the devil brought you here, man, at such an hour, and so far from the road? Do you come to steal, if so you have hit upon the right place." "I come not to steal," replied the stranger, knew I that I was not in the right road. Tell me, sirs, if there is a village near, where I may pass the night and heal the wounds your dogs have made?"

"There is no village nor inn, in which you can repose," replied Andres; "but to cure your wounds and get a little rest, we can offer you one of our huts for this night. Come then with us, for although we are gipsies, we are not wanting in charity."

"May God be charitable to you. Take me where you like, for my leg pains me much," replied the stran

ger.

"I BEG your pardon, Madam; but you are a little too fast."

"I think, Sir, you are a little too slow."
"No, Madam-no, indeed."

"Are you sure you are right, Sir?"

"As the sun, Madam-as the sun."

"Well, I confess it-I am one of the giddiest things at a watch!"

"Will you, Madam, permit me to regulate your chronometer by mine?"

Henry Snow was a placid bachelor of two-and-forty. The whole world was to him one green spot, in which comforts grew as thick daisies. Cupid had very often aimed at him, but never shot. "I hate that Mr. Snowhe's so polite!" was the hasty expression of a young lady in the five-and-twentieth year of Mr. Snow's ageHenry at the time having affability for a bevy of thirty women; and, a justice that is sometimes very annoying, scrupulously sharing his politeness among all. Not one young lady gained half a look, an approach to a smile, more than another. Now, there is an implied invulnerAndres supported him with the help of another charitable gipsy-for among devils there are some worse ability in such conduct very galling to the enemy. But than the rest, so among bad men there are some worse so it was with Henry Snow; he would hand his heart, than others. The night was clear, brightened by a brilso to speak, in slices to a large circle, and with the liant moon, which enabled them to observe the stranger same agreeable equanimity that an undertaker walks was young, and possessed of a pleasing face and figure.round with funeral cake. However, Achilles had his He was dressed entirely in white linen, having a jacket over the shoulders and crossed upon the bosom. Arrived at the hut of Andres, a light was struck, and Preciosa's grandmother, who had been sent for, dressed the wounds of the stranger. She took some hairs from the dog who had bitten him, which she fried in oil, and having washed the wounds with wine, placed the plaster of hair and oil upon them, over which she placed some green rosemary which had been previously crush- || ed, this was bound on with a band of clean linen, and the whole received the sign of the cross. “Sleep, friend,” she said to him, “with the blessing the single power of the lady; we think it more than

of God this will soon be healed."

Preciosa in the mean while stood by gazing upon the stranger with curious attention, while he watched her motions so eagerly that Andres observed it, but thought it quite natural all eyes should be taken with her beauty. Andres retired eagerly to await the coming of day, as he then could interrogate the man as to his intentions. His soul was in a tumult of fear and distrust, for he was convinced that it was another lover who had followed them in hopes of obtaining Preciosa. However, she had given such demonstrations of her faithfulness that it would be a sin to doubt her sincerity.

(To be continued.)

E. R. S.

heel-and Henry Snow met Patty Larkspur.

To a contemplative mind, autumn brings a sweet and bitter melancholy. The leaves, "thin dancers upon air," do not take our thoughts to Taglioni; and the mind, moaning, sobbing through the branches, does not always carry us to the last new opera. It is highly necessary that the reader should pay due attention to this, our profound reflection, inasmuch as he will then the more deeply sympathize with our hero, believing the very season to have taken part with Patty Larkspur against him. Not that we are disposed to undervalue

probable, from the knowledge of her great spirit of en-
terprise, that, at any quarter of the year, Henry Snow
must have fallen; still, had it been spring instead of
autumn, we are inclined to think he would have made a
We have said that, to all men of any
longer fight of it.
degree of sensibility, autumn brings its gentle sadness;
but in a bachelor of two-and-forty there arises a peculiar
train of reflection; he begins to doubt the efficacy of a
warming-pan contrasted with other means of effecting
the same result; his housekeeper begins to merge her
deference to the master in friendship to the man; there
are twenty delicate household appeals, too delicate to be
shaped into language. In a word, it was the beginning
of autumn when Henry Snow, bachelor, sat, in the

Hastings coach, opposite to Patty Larkspur, spinster. | That the ruin of the man should be complete, there was no other passenger, save a large brown pointer, the favored property of the lady. Poor Henry Snow!

The reader has, doubtless, pondered on the heroic feats of some happy child of Mars; has seen him-his white plume conspicious in the mélée-with a hundred Damascus blades playing like sunbeams about his unhurt head; has seen a whole troop discharge their carbines at him, to the waste of powder and shot, the hero still unwounded. Covered with laurels, he returns to his home; he is deemed by all men unconquerable, invulnerable-nothing can withstand him, nothing can hurt him. Alas, for the end! The unscathed victor, with no thought of war and death, in an evil hour carelessly takes an old rusty pistol from the shelf, loaded and overlooked for twenty years. The flint is worn, the trigger stiff, and the powder damp, and yet the conqueror, by an unlucky motion of the finger, fires the pistol, and its contents meet again in his heart. Unfortunate Henry!-we mean, unhappy conqueror !

two sistera to waylay, knockdown, or in any manner destroy the flies lured by the sweets of her paternal home. A trifling reward repaid the best destroyer. Matilda caught her victims in stale small beer; but Patty always carried off the prize, for she made war with melted sugar. Matilda died an old maid; for she ignorantly thought that the hearts of men were to be cut through, as Hannibal made through the Alps, with vinegar; whilst Patty Larkspur-but let us not anticipate her interesting history.

"Will you, Madam, permit me to regulate your chronometer by mine ?" asked Henry Snow in the fulness of his innocence.

"Oh, Sir, with pleasure-with many thanks," said Patty Larkspur; and taking her watch from her side, she gave it to Snow, as if she were making a present of that best estate in this world's paradise, the female heart. Could she have truly and absolutely conveyed away that precious immoveable, she could not have smiled with deeper meaning. Such was the outward manifestation of Patty Larkspur; but-shall we say it?

We began our mournful narrative with a short dialo--as she gave the watch to the mature bachelor-shall gue. The coach was running towards Hastings, the horses, like the steeds of Neptune, snuffing the sea, when Patty Larkspur, looking at her watch, pronounced it to be six o'clock.

we confess, that on the retina of Patty Larkspur's mind was painted, not a spare biped of two-and-forty, but that some association of ideas carried her back to the days of her youth-to the home of her father at Ux"I beg your pardon, Madam," said Henry Snow, bridge; and that she saw in Henry Snow-such tricks "but you are a little too fast." And then ensued the does errant fancy play the most innocent!-a large blue conversation which we have already faithfully register- fly approaching the fatal sugar? As he touched the ed; and which, for the sake of middle-aged bachelors-regulator, she saw him close to the luscious perdition; for it is in the middle state of bachelorship that the animal is in the greatest peril from his pursuers-we would we could cut in leaves of brass. We have given the words; but we have yet to describe-if, indeed, we can, the action with which Patty Larkspur took the watch from her side, and placed it in the open palm of Henry Snow. And first, a few words on the person of the fair. We can find no other word, and yet we are loth to call any lady plump; it is a word fitter for pullets than for virgins. However, in the poverty of our language-for we care not to be beholden to France for a phrase-we must call Patty Larkspur plump; nay, she was very plump. The truth is-and we have hugged it so close that we have nearly stifled it-the truth is, Patty Larkspur was fat. She had large blue eyes, which, when showing themselves to the best advantage, looked, as one of her lovers once informed her, like violets blown upon! She had a very fresh color-very fresh; her red morocco prayer-book was not redder. Her hair hung over her forehead and down her cheeks, like twenty corkscrews turned into flax. Her little comfortable nose was of the shape and size of that diminutive specimen of the mushroon which market-women call the button. Such was the face of Patty Larkspur; but it was a face highly varnished up with smiles. Nevertheless, beneath those smiles-difficult as it was for the sagacity of man to go so far-there was a terrible encrgy in the woman. But smiles, smiles were her weapons; a story of her girlhood cast the shadow of the coming woman.

and when he had performed his task, and looking in her face, held out the watch-the fly had tumbled in and was lost for ever! Again Patty Larkspur smiled, as she saw her victim vainly struggling in an ocean of sweets.

Patty Larkspur and Matilda Larkspur were the daughters of a small grocer at Uxbridge; now, grocers are the especial victims of Belzebub, known in learned writ as the god of flies. It was the pleasing duty of the

We have no doubt that, on the part of Patty Larkspur, it was love at first sight; an accident that, however finely handled, has never, in our uneducated opinion, been properly described. It is, however, very difficult to note the many freaks committed by people in that most interesting situation. We have read much upon the subject, and are almost convinced, from certain eloquent passages, that love, taken suddenly, operates like laughing gas; making men-according, we presume, to their nervous system-run at whatever may be before them; grin from ear to ear; knock their heads upon the mute earth; receive love's arrow as a juggler swallows a sword, wriggling most affectingly as the weapon enters him; run round and round, like a dog in the laudable pursuit of his own tail; shout, scream, cry "boh!" sneeze, or, indeed, commit any extravagance made pathetic by the occasion. Why is history silent on the interesting topic? When Petrarch first met Laura in the church of Santa Clara at Avignon, on the sixth of April, in the sixth hour of the morning (and yet people preach the benefit of early rising,) in the year thirteen hundred and forty-eight-is it not a fact, hitherto most shamefully hushed up, that so much was he removed from the earth by the glorious vision, that he stood upon one leg for three days afterwards? We are proud of a friendship with a traveller who has seen a portrait of the divine sonneteer, taken when undergoing love at first sight. When Henry, the Eighth, first beheld Anne Bullen, what was his kingly conduct? Historians have

"I tell you, Ma'am, I'm in bed."

"So I thought; but, Sir, if you'll only open the

door

"Good heavens !" thought Snow, and his knees smote one another. "But I-I have no light," said Snow. "I have brought one," was the reply.

Henry Snow rose, turned round, and fell against the door in silent horror. "There was no escape-how to give the alarm ?" was his thought. in the room?"

deemed the matter of no account; yet did he not, pass-mouth to the key-hole, said, quite unconscious of the ing over every form of decency, insist on playing at leap- falsehood he uttered— frog with Cardinal Wolsey, the Pope being unfortunately at Rome? There is nothing of this in Hume; but if the speculations of the most approved writers on love at first sight have any truth in nature, sure we are that Henry, the Eighth, did not marry Anne Bullen without jumping over the head of the "King Cardinal." Did not Socrates, having for the first time beheld Xantippe, close his eyes until he took her for wife; when-and such phenomena have, we believe, occurred more than once, they became straightway open? When the venerable Greek judges acquitted, by the power of love at first sight, the incomparable Phyrne, did they not, in the most forcible manner, display the unanimity of their opinions by vehemently smacking their lips? However, we shall defer for the task of our ripe old age "The effects of love at first sight; with instances drawn from the earliest times, and improving on Fox's Book of Martyrs,' with portraits of the victims."

For the present we must attend to Henry Snow and Patty Larkspur, just alighted at the inn at Hastings.

It was half-past nine o'clock when our travellers entered their hotel. Patty Larkspur, with a low curtsey and one of her slaying smiles, wished Snow good eveLing, with the additional comfort of a night's sound rest after his journey, and was shown to her room. Snow took possession of his apartment, and ate his supper in all the solitude of celibacy. However, his loneliness seemed to sit as easily upon him as his dressing-gown; and at eleven o'clock, being nearly a whole foul, a pint of wine, and a glass of brandy-and-water the better man he had serious thoughts of going to bed. To be brief, it wanted twenty minutes of twelve when Henry Snow stretched himself between the sheets and rendered himself up to sleep. Morpheus was slowly descending upon him, when he was startled hence by a sharp knocking at the door. Snow sat up in the bed, and did precisely what nineteen out of twenty men would have done in his situation; he asked, "Who's there?" Could he have divined the consequences of that question, we doubt not he would have rolled his cars up in the

blankets, and have exhibited no signs of waking

"with that knocking." Poor short-sighted man! blind to fate, Henry Snow sat up in his bed, and with a loud voice repeated,—

"Who's there?"

"The lady-the lady, who came down with you," answered a voice outside.

"I'm-I'm in bed," said Henry Snow, expecting the intelligence to frighten the visitor, like a partridge from his door. The knock was repeated. "I'm in bed," again said Henry Snow, in a tone that should have successfully appealed to the compassion of the disturber. Another knock. A slight blush overspread the face of Henry Snow at the pertinacity of his visitor, and then his rising fears were somewhat soothed by the recollection that the door had a bolt and a lock, of the protec

ting influence of which he had happily availed himself. Snow pulled off his nightcap, and, in the perplexity of the moment, scratched his head. Another knock, applied with new emphasis, brought Snow out of bed upon the carpet. He approached the door, and putting his

"Was there a rattle

"I will not detain you a minute, Sir," said the voice outside.

"But"-and Snow felt the blood under his very nails tingle as he put the question-" but what do you want?"

"I am sent by the lady"

"Sent!" exclaimed Snow, relieved from a mountain of dread-" sent! and who are you?"

"The waiter, Sir;" and almost as the man spoke the words the lock flew back and the bolt was drawn. Thomas, with a lighted candle in one hand and Patty dle of the room, Henry Snow shaking in his shirt with Larkspur's watch in the other, advanced into the midcold and apprehension.

"What do you want?" asked Snow, we confess a little pettishly.

The waiter smirked, and, careless of the condition of the disturbed man lengthening with the communication Snow, slowly delivered himself as follows, the face of

of Thomas

"The lady, Sir-she's in forty-one"

"At least," said Henry Snow; for he could not repress the malice of the insinuation.

"The lady, Sir-she's in forty-one-was about to go to bed, when she rang her bell, and desired the chambermaid to ask me to request you, as she wished to be very particular in the time to-morrow morning, to request you, Sir, to have the politeness to regulate her watch by yours."

Saying which, the man held out the chronometer of who now, with glazed eyes looked at the face of the Patty Larkspur to the stony fingers of Henry Snow; watch, and now at the face of the waiter.

"Oh!" at last sighed Henry Snow, and he took the watch as he would have taken a serpent by the tail, and moved towards the bed for his own repeater, followed by Thomas with the lighted candle. The door had remained open, and, unfortunately, a gust of air rushing up the staircase, extinguished the light at the very moment Snow had laid his hand upon his own watchpocket.

"Get another light, directly, Sir," said the placid waiter, doubtless inured to such accidents; for he remarked that the house was an old house, the staircases very wide, and the wind would blow. After which he quitted the room to re-light the taper.

The wind cut across the legs of Snow as he stood, with Patty Larkspur's watch in his hand, ticking away with perfect indifference. Oh, Henry Snow! had thy better genius been at thine ear, it would thus have whispered thee-" Thou hast thy mortal enemy in thy hand living demon shut up in gilt metal; dash it to the

"Too fast!" cried Henry Snow, and fell back upon his bed, incapable of another word.

the carth, or feel thy way to the window, and fling it into the street!" But Snow's good genius, being particularly wanted, was, of course, absent; and the undone man Thomas quitted the door, and left Snow to sleep. still stood, growing colder and colder-the watch, as he The mercy, however, came too late. The poor bachelor thought, ticking louder and louder. At length Thomas lay listening to the ticking of his own watch, and thinkreturned with a light, and Snow compared Patty Lark- ing it ticked very like the watch of Miss Larkspur, spur's watch-and we must own that it was a most ca-, until the grey dawn glimmered through his window pricious question of the time—with his own; corrected, curtains. He then fell into a sleep only to be haunted it, and, tamed by the cold, returned it to the waiter by terrible visions. He dreamt, among other things, without a syllable. Thomas bowed, and left the room; that he was married to a witch with all the hours markSnow locked and bolted the door, and, shuddering, re-ed in her visage, who insisted that they should spend turned to bed. His feet were quite gone, and his legs were clay. However, he was once more becoming human flesh, was again falling into the sweetest slumber; yes, another minute, and he would have been fast in the lap of sleep, when anothor knock at his chamberdoor struck him wide awake.

"If you please, Sir, Miss Larkspur has desired me to ask if her watch wanted regulating, or if it was quite right?"

Now, Snow, as we have before remarked, was one of the most polite men on earth to the fair; but there did seem to him a want of consideration on the part of Miss Larkspur, in the untimeliness of her message, a little piqued, he resolved to give no answer. For one minute Henry Snow was silent, when Thomas, with renewed vigor, knocked at the door.

"Was it right, Sir?" bawled the invincible waiter. "No!" exclaimed Snow, and he flung himself round in the bed, determined not to hear another syllable, and resolved that very moment to plunge into the profoundest sleep.

their honey-moon in an eight-day clock. To this arrangement he offered so vigorous a remonstrance, that he awoke, and saw "the light of common day." He offered a short thanksgiving that there was no witch for his wife, with all the hours in her face. Had Henry Snow so soon forgotten Patty Larkspur?

It was nearly ten o'clock, when Snow sat down to breakfast.

"Does that lady stay here?" asked Snow of Thomas, with a slight tremor.

"I don't know, Sir; she is now at breakfast in the next room." And the waiter departed.

Snow took refuge from the thoughts of the past night in tea and toast, and was proceeding slowly yet surely in a most ample meal, when Thomas entered, and in his hand was the inconstant watch of Miss Larkspur. Snow looked at the instrument with a sullen eye, silently awaiting the consequences.

"The lady, Sir," said Thomas, "cannot think what has happened to her watch; she bids me say that she is in the highest degree ashamed to trouble you, but fearing that

"The lady, Sir, is much obliged to you; is she too fast still, Sir?"

It was unnecessary for the man to say more; Snow took the watch, set it by his own and returned it without a word to the waiter. He then proceeded with his Thomas retired, and Snow buried his head in the pil- breakfast. "Never again will I boast of my chronomelow, doggedly fixed upon oblivion. He had advanced ter," thought Henry Snow; and, having finished his so far in his purpose as to close his eyes, and had near-meal, he rose to go out. He met Thomas at the door. ly begun to hope for slumber, when-another knock at the door! Henry started up on his right elbow, and gasped-then he again flung himself desperately upon the bed, swathed himself like a mummy in the clothes, and resolved to lie as a man deprived of hearing. Another knock, and Snow felt stronger in his purpose-very much too fast." And, with the air of a man who another, and a louder knock, and Snow tried to persuade himself that he was fast asleep-another knock, and he leapt up in bed, and brayed forth-" Who's there?" "Thomas, Sir," said the waiter, as before. "Well?" groaned Henry Snow, "what can you want blame of it!--but Henry Snow wandered to the beach,

now ?"

"Miss Larkspur, Sir, has sent me about her watch. You said, Sir, it wasn't right; now, Sir, she sends her compliments, and wishes to be informed if she's too fast or too slow?"

The waiter delivered his message glibly enough, but Henry Snow, astonished by the pertinacity of the spinster, sat upright in bed, deprived of speech. Who could answer such a woman? Thomas, however, was true to his trust, and having, as he thought, given Snow full time to satisfy the query, knocked again, and again

asked

Sir, is Miss Larkspur too fast or too slow ?"

"Much too fast," said Henry Snow, with more bitterness in his expression than in all his life he had manifested. "Tell her, Thomas, that I say she is very,

feels that he has, by extraordinary firmness, put an end to an annoying connexion, Henry Snow took his hat, and, whistling airily, walked from the house.

We know not how it happened-let fate take the

and there he stood, thinking unutterable thoughts about the sea. Whether his thoughts were of mermaids, or muscles, or of both, we know not; but sure we are that he was five fathom deep in meditation, when a fellowtraveller in the Hastings coach leapt upon him with the familiarity of an old acquaintance.

"Fie, Bounce, fie!" said a lady; and it was no other than Miss Patty Larkspur, who, in the blandest accents, reproved her brown pointer, that, dripping from the sea, had jumped upon Henry Snow, who on that day wore linen trowsers, the whiteness of which successfully rivalled the name of the wearer. "I'm afraid he's rather wet," said Miss Larkspur, with a conquering smile.

Snow was glowing with the first bottle of wine, when a servant entered, and whispered our bachelor.

"A man wants me!" said Snow-" what man?"
"That is, Sir, not a man, but-"

"But what?" asked Snow, with a perplexed look.
I was told to whisper to you," said the servant, " but

"I have seen a Cupid sailing in one," observed Miss since__" Larkspur.

"I had rather see him than go passenger with him," said the bachelor, with a passing sternness of counte

“Well, you really must forgive poor Bounce," said the lady; and then, as if pardon had been instantly awarded, she pointed to some far-off vessels, and asked with new vivacity and another smile, "What are those "The lady, Sir, won't come in; she's in a hired beautiful little ships, no bigger than swans, in the dis- chase, Sir, taken by the hour, Sir-but as the man distance? They look lovely."

putes the time, and as, she says, she knows she can depend upon your watch, will you tell her if she's too slow or too fast?" Saying which, John put Patty Larkspur's "La, Sir!” cried Miss Larkspur, in momentary asto-well-known time-piece in the palsied hand of our astonishment; and then her eyes fell upon the region of Snow's third coat-button, and her mouth broke into a new smile, and she sighed, rather than said-"La, Sir?"