she might venture to claim a week of me at Christmas. She was truly sorry that she had no inducement to hold out beyond the satisfaction of communicating happiness, which she knew was always a paramount feeling with me. She was all alone, and wretched in the long evenings when mamma went to sleep; and reverted plaintively and prettily to the little study and the ghost stories. As for the lilac pocketbook, she had cast up her follies and misdemeanors, and found the total, even before the end of the year, so brimfull of shame and repentance, that she had indignantly thrown it into the fire, trusting to my kindness to give her another with fresh advice.

Dear Lady Betty! my resentment was long gone by-I had long felt a conviction that her little follies were blameless, and not at all uncommon; and I vow that had her happiness depended upon me, I would have done anything to ensure it. I was obliged, however, to send an excuse for the present, for I had only been married a week.

INSURANCE AND ASSURANCE.

Bernardine. I have been drinking hard all night, and will have more time to prepare me, or they shall beat out my brains with billets. I will not consent to die this day, that's certain.

Duke.-Oh, Sir, you must; and therefore I beseech you look forward on the journey you shall go.

Bernardine.-I swear I will not die to-day for any man's persuasion.

Measure for Measure.

"IT is inconceivable to the virtuous and praiseworthy part of the world, who have been born and bred to respectable idleness, what terrible straits are the lot of those scandalous rogues whom Fortune has left to shift for themselves!"

Such was my feeling ejaculation when, full of penitence for the sin of urgent necessity, I wended my way to the attorney who had swept

VOL. I.

M

together, and, for the most part, pecked up, the crumbs which fell from my father's table. He was a little, grizzled, sardonic animal, with features which were as hard as his heart, and fitted their leather-jacket so tightly that one would have thought it had shrunk from washing, or that they had bought it second-hand and were pretty nearly out at the elbows. They were completely emblematic of their possessor, whose religion it was to make the most of every thing, and, amongst the rest, of the distresses of his particular friends, amongst whom I had the happiness of standing very forward. My business required but little explanation, for I was oppressed by neither rentrolls nor title-deeds; and we sat down to consider the readiest means of turning an excellent income for one year into something decent for a few more.

My adviser, whose small, experienced eye had twinkled through all the speculations of the age, and, at the same time, had taken a very exact admeasurement of my capabilities of turning them to advantage, seemed to be of opinion that I was fit for nothing on earth.

For one undertaking I wanted application; for another I wanted capital. "Now," said he, 66 as the first of these deficiencies is irremediable, we must do what we can to supply the latter. Take my advice-Insure your life for a few thousands; you will have but little premium to pay, for you look as if you would live for ever; and from my knowledge of your rattle-pated habits and the various chances against you, I will give you a handsome sum for the insurance."

Necessity obliged me to acquiesce in the proposal, and I assured the old cormorant that there was every likelihood of my requiting his liberality by the most unremitting perseverance in all the evil habits which had procured me his countenance. We shook hands in mutual ill-opinion, and he obligingly volunteered to accompany me to an Insurance Office, where they were supposed to estimate the duration of a man's life to a quarter of an hour and odd seconds.

We arrived a little before the business hour, and were shown into a large room, where we found several more speculators waiting ruefully

for the oracle to pronounce sentence. In the centre was a large table, round which, at equal distances, were placed certain little lumps of money, which my friend told me were to reward the labours of the Inquisition, amongst whom the surplus arising from absentees would likewise be divided. From the keenness with which each individual darted upon his share and ogled that of his absent neighbour, I surmised that some of my fellow-sufferers would find the day against them. They would be examined by eyes capable of penetrating every crevice of their constitutions, by noses which could smell a rat a mile off, and hunt a guinea breast high. How indeed could plague or pestilence, gout or gluttony, expect to lurk in its hole undisturbed when surrounded by a pack of terriers which seemed hungry enough to devour one another? Whenever the door slammed, and they looked for an addition to their cry, they seemed for all the world as though they were going to bark; and if a straggler really entered and seized upon his portion the intelligent look of vexation was precisely like that of a dog who has lost a bone. When ten or a