THE COLLEGIANS*.

LITERARY SPECTATOR.

Tun Collegians is an inappropriate title to this novel ; any other would have done as well. The two young men, marriageable and in love, who figure upon the scene, were probably at college together—Dublin College, we suppose,—indeed it is said so : but we never see them there ; nothing flows from their collegiate resi- dence ; and it is idle to call men collegians who are only distin- guished by once having been at college. The real interest of the tale turns upon a secret marriage. The young gentleman repents him of his choice ; falls in love with another ; and in order to clear the way for the new connexion, gives an indefinite commission to his devoted follower to in his concealed wife out of the way. We have said that he falls in love with another—the truth is, ano- ther falls in love with him ; and the combination of the lady's charms; his mother's respected authority, and his • own wayward caprices, is too powerful for him : he behaves ill to his hidden treasure, neglects her, and finally; feeling that she is a stone about his neck, he issues that which amounts to her death-warrant. It requires no experienced eye to see that here are the elements of a powerful story—that all depends upon the imagination, the passion, and the taste of the author.

In the qualities of imagination and p'assion—the great powers of the novelist—the author is scarcely excelled by any of his com- petitors : he is deficient only in taste—in experience of effect in his own compositions, and in reflection on the effects of those of others ; two processes which go to make up that which is called taste. It would seem that it requires in these degenerate days two men to make' a book—the one to invent, the other to arrange, to select, and expunge. No indifferent person can read this novel -without alternate fits of weariness and exaltation of spirit: no one of ordinary penetration can fail to see where the author is com- piling or bookmaking, and where he is hurried forward by the in- spiration of his subject—by the busy demand of his conceptions for birth—by a sympathy with his own creations—by the spirit of a noble humanity stirring within him. Much of these volumes is formed of popular anecdotes—of na- tional sayings set off by the national dialect—of provincial super- stitions ; and a character is invented to retail them. Considered in reference to its plan, the work as a whole must be pronounced a failure. Wit the author does not possess,—not even Irish wit ; neither has he Irish humour, as separated from a thorough understanding of the Irish character ; and no one who does tho- roughly understand it can at least be said to be destitute of a taste for humour : but he does not create it ; he observes, and he com- piles it. On the whole, his compilation; when it is compilatiOn; is poore when an Irishman resorts to Joe Miller, we may be assured he is not blest with the happy genius of his country. Joe Miller in all his editions is a mean joke-book compared with the infinite re- pertory of a true Irishma,n's fund of humour : it is,, however, always Irish humour. Let it be set down,. then, that the author is not a humorist : what is he then ?. The true- and profchind eXcellence of %author of the Collegians consists in his sympathy:with human, pain—in his knowledge of the heart, as it is called : that is: to say,. he has the mind, to conceive interesting positions in social life, and he knows, or rather cede, how he should act in them.; and his mode of action is of that kind which is sure to interest the witness of his emotions. A perusal of the aillegians will readily present nume- rous confirmations of this remark to the reader.

Hardress: Crepen is the principal person of the story : he is-the son of a fox-hunting hard-drinking squire : the youth is wild and headstrong, lavish and fearless, high-mettled, frank, and of a fervid imagination : he has been indulged from his childhood by his mother,—a woman, however, who by her superior taste and ac- quirements has given a somewhat less degraded course to his pase sions and pursuits than those of his father, the true Irish gentleman of the eighteenth century. This young man is smitten by a lovely girl of inferior birth, Eily O'Connor, a ropemaker's daughter in the outskirts of Limerick : he contracts a secret marriage, and carries her by stealth from her father's dwelling to the cottage of some dependants in the mountains-near Killarney. On his return home, he finds in a visitor to his mother, his cousin, a young lady of for- tune; high character; and beauty, to whom he had an infantine attachment. The contrast between the elegant manners of the heiress of Chute Castle, and the simple rusticity of this poor girl he has made• his wife, gives him secret pain : he returns to the cottage with less relish for her society. A painful dilemma awaits him : he is frequently thrown. into the society of his high-minded cousin ; and his mother has resolved upon the suitableness of the-match. Her influence and her authority were alone powerful, and: she was soon armed with a still more cogent argument : deceived by Har- dress's attentions, his cousin confides to her aunt the secret that she had preserved from her childhood her love for her' cousin— that for him she rejected every suitor, and in short, looked forward to a return of affection from him as the sole happiness of her beingg. This is communicated to the young man by his sanguine mother. Flattered by an attachment beyond his hopes from a woman' who was the admiration of the whole country—eoaded into apparent marks' of rove by his mother—becoming daily lesssatisfied with the mere simplicity and amiability of his bride—he grows gloomy, in- temperate, and fitful, It is in this contest of feelings,. which are * Forming a Second Series'of Tales of the Munster Festivals. 3 vols. Lon. ion. 1839 Saundeis and ()trey. _ admirably worked in every direction, that the author has shown his power. We gradually feel the man getting ashamed of his choice : he becomes daily less capable of declaring his act of im- prudence ; his mother's pride and hopes weigh upon him ; and the happiness of a lovely and loving woman is thrown into the scale. He frequents his hermitage—the unhappy girl his wife does not bestow reproaches upon him, but her presence is a sufficient re- proach : he becomes captious with her ; he begins to consider her as the only obstacle between him and fortune, honour, happiness : her kindness he takes ill, and, driven about between home and his place of concealment—harassed between his hopes in one direc- tion, and his love and compassion in another—by his sanguine mother's admonitionsa-by the confiding yet proud attachment of his cousin—and above all, by the silent suffering of his unhappy runaway from home, parent, and reputation—he quarrels with his mere shadow, and at the first, word of anxiety from his wife, breaks out against her into open brutal violenca All this process is finely wound up by this burst and its almost fatal effects upon the affrighted Hardress has a foster-brother, who acts in the capacity of his boatman; and as the young man is much given to sailing on the Shannon, he is his constant companion. Danny Mann, nicknamed the Lord, is humpbacked. The impetuous Hardrese in his boy- hood had thrown Danny Mann down a flight of stairs, and injured his spine. In many natures this would have fostered a store of evil passions ; but the grief of the perpetrator was so great and so natural, his kindness to the injured child so constant and tender, that the creature's heart was totally won ; and having lost all other hope, he threw himself and his fortunes wholly into those of his foster-brother and master. To all else Danny was cold or cynical ; Hardress's least look or motion was to him a warrant : this strange but not unnatural transfer of self, taught him that to lay down his life for the satisfaction of his master's will was a pleasure. Danny, the Lord; was the chief eider in the elopement, in the concealment, and finally, in the destruction of the poor simple girl Eily O'Connor. Seeing that his master's duty and inclinations pointed in contrary directions, Danny in roundabout terms gave his master to under- stand that he was ready to do his bidding.. The allusion was at first received with overflowing wrath ; and yet after a while Her- dress came to repeat the proposition himself. He contented him- self with supposing that the unfortunate girl miele be transported to some distant country : but Danny heeded not his master's word —he read the sentence of her death in his eves—the hotheaded young man "looked murder." The deed was done, and a lament- able one it was.

The playful simplicity of Eily O'Connor is delightful : her letters remind one of Mrs. One's letters in some of her tales, or of Mrs. INCHBALD'S• heart-rending letter in the story of Art and Nature. Then, again, her mock confession to her gloomy husband—how arch and yet how confiding—how innocent and yet .how shrewd ! Can anything be more beautiful than her interview with her uncle the priest, to whom she steals forth, that he may send the news to her poor father, that she is not dead, but married? Can anything be more touching than when, on her return from this visit, she en- counters the rough but noble pony-dealer, Myles Miu-phy of the mountains of Kerry, her early suitor, and indeed whose earnest so- licitations. had helped to drive her from her home ?. Poor Eily O'Connor ! we cannot help saving, as of a thing that has been. After the death. of Eily, the interest grows fearful. Hardress becomes a conscience-streeken madman, and pursuee his addresses to his cousin in the way that a thunder-cloud would do—by now dropping rain,. and now bursting forth in flashes of stormy passion, now in the melting mood, now rushing and breaking through every eonnenctnce of society, like the furious Io goaded and stung from land to land by the fated gad-fly. His mother, in a moment of alarm and remorse, is made the confidant of his crime. How would such a woman feel and act in a situation so dreadful—so mortify- ing to her pride, so wounding to her conscience, so heartbreaking to her affections, so ignominious if known, and so horrible if secret ? We challenge the reader to study the conduct and ex- pressions of Hardress's mother: he wilt not fail to be deeply im- pressed with the, enius of the author, such is its natural vigour, its perfect keeping, and its striking beauty. The great object of the author has, however, been to show the effects of secret clime on a strong -nature in Hardress himself : the picture of the change in him—a-God-stricken, trembling, criminal, consumed by luis burning conscience-fever, and yet every now and then- attempting to regain his former position by a great ettint of a strong passion—is- awful. The body of poor Eily O'Connor is found by the hounds on a great buntineadny : Hardness is one of the party ! Suspicions fall upon Denny Mann, the boatman : he is examined and. remanded. Ifardress contrives to liberate him, and he gives a promise that he will leave the country. The sensa- tion produced by the event partly cues away ; when Hardress, on the eve of his marriage with his fair cousin, recognizes him among a troop of mummers. In a mingled fit of anger and affright, he seizes the hunchback, and with all his force hurls him. ageinst.

wall—to the astonishment of every one, who cannot understand the cause of offence. A thirst for revenge springs up in the bosom of the wretched foster-brother for the first time in his life : this is a repetition of the violence which had made Danny Mann a cripple —the violence which had so Yong been forgiven in spite of the misery and mockery it had caused : this is the return he received for staining his hands in blood; and putting his life in forfeit: this is his payment for ar wholelifO of devotion' to his will. The thought

inflames him, and he hurries to the magistrate to confess his crime and denounce his master. Hardress is apprehended the night be-

t-ore his marriage, amid a house full of guests assembled to attend

him to the ceremony next morning ; and the winding-up of the story, in these scenes of confusion and alarm, is a worthy conclu-

sion of a novel which, in its serious parts, has certainly not been surpassed by any Irish tale at least. The tone and the character of the interest more nearly resemble the author's own Duke Dor- ...an than any thing else we recollect. Among the more humble persons of the piece, we must not 'omit to point out the faithful and affecting description of Mihil O'Connor—his gossipping grief, his melancholy breaking-down under his daughter's loss, and again the accident of his making llardress the confident of his sorrows at Mrs. Daly's wake. And here, by the way, is a grand and touching picture of Irish manners, i n the description of the death a;d wake of a respected lady in the upper classes : the stern imbecility of the heart-broken gentleman, When they wish to remove him from being a witness of the carrying out of the coffin, as well as some of the paroxysms of grief, may be compared in effect and in touching beauty to that most beautiful and impassioned scene of grief in the Antiquary, the fisherman's lamentation over his son. . Can praise go higher ? Though we have condemned the efforts of the author to enliven his story with the fooleries of Lowry Looby, and, generally speaking, are not amused by his attempts at humour, we would not by any means condemn his humorous characters. Lowry Looby himself, as he is sketched, is very clever ; and Myles Murphy, as he is pleading before the quollity for his impounded ponies, is delightful. Danny Mann, too, has :I quiet drollery, which comports well with his simple fidelity, his unthinking devotion to his master.

If we were to enumerate the scenes that made the greatest im- pression on us during the perusal, whether for their talent or for their effect, we should begin, we think, with the insulated passage of the death of the Huntsman Dalton. (Vol. II. p. 26-36.) A little further on, occurs a page highly descriptive of Irish manners at that lime. The gentlemen are drinking in the parlour, a pistol is fired in a tipsy duel ; and the servants take scarcely any notice of it, but reason after the fashion of the country. (P. 60.) From page 38 to page 150, will be found a scene of great talent : it is the first breaking out of Hardress's wrathful feelings. A very pretty dialogue, full of Irish beauty, occurs between Eily O'Connor, when she resolves to set off to her uncle the priest, and her female guide. (P. 19710 the end of the chapter.) In this volume also occurs the scene between Eily and her former lover, Myles Murphy, as he meets her on her return from her uncle's, the priest O'Connor. (P. 282-291.) But, for all purposes of giving by one extract an ample and sufficient idea of the kind of merit which more particu- larly distinguishes this work above others, we should quote the long but most interesting scene in which Hardress communicates his real position to his mother. No one can read it without first ac- knowledging the justice of our praise, and next without immedi- ately patronizing the efforts of a rising genius; for we do not dis- guise that there are many indications which point out the youth of the author.

" After the song was ended, Hardress heard the drawing-room door open and shut, and the stately and measured pace of his mother along the little lobby, and on the short flight of stairs which led to the apart- ment in which he sat. She appeared at the narrow stone doorway, and used a gesture of surprise when she beheld him.

" What, Hardress ! ' she exclaimed, already returned ! Have ye had good sport to-day ? ' " Sport?' echoed Hardress, with a burst of low, involuntary laughter, and without unclasping his wreathed hands, or raising his eyes from the earth, yes, mother, yes—very good sport. Sport, I think, that may bring my neck in danger, one day.' Ilave you been hurt, then, child ?' said Mrs. Cregan, compassion- ately bending over her son.

" Hardress raised himself in his seat, and fixed his eye upon her's, for a few moments, in gloomy silence. " I have,' he said, the hurt that I feared so long, I have got at length. I am glad you have come. 1 wished to speak with you.' " ' Stay a moment, Hardress. Let me close those doors. Servants are so inquisitive, and apt to pry.' " Aye, now,' said Hardress, now and from this time forth, we must avoid those watchful eyes and ears. What shall I do, mother ? Advise me, comfort me ! Oh, I am utterly abandoned now, I have no friend, no comforter but you ! That terrible hope, that looked more like a fear, that kept my senses on the rack from morn to morn, is fled, at last, for ever ! I am all forsaken now.'

" • My dear Hardress,' said his mother, much distressed, `when will you cease to afflict yourself and me with those fancies ? Forsaken, do you say ? Do your friends deserve this from you ? You ask me to advise you, and my advice is this. Lay aside those thoughts, and value, as you ought to do, the happiness of your condition. Who, with a love like Anne; with a friend like your amiable college companion, Daly; and with a mother at least devoted in intention, would deliver himself up as you do, to fantastic dreams of desolation and despair ? If, as you seem to hint, you have a cause for suffering in your memory, remember Hardress, that you are not left on earth for nothing. All men have something to be pardoned, and all time here is capable of being improved in the pursuit of mercy.' Go on,' said Hardress, setting his teeth, and fixing a wild stare upon his parent, you but remind me of my curses. With a love like Anne ? One whisper in your ear. I love her not. While I was mad, I did ; and in my senses now, I am dearly suffering for that frantic treason. She was the cause of all my sin and sorrow, my first and heaviest curse. With such a friend?—Why, how you laugh at me ! You know how black and weak a part I have played to him, and yet you will remind me that he was my friend ! That's kindly done, mother. Listen ! ' he continued, laying a firm _rasp on his mother's arm—' Before my eyes, wherever I turn me, and wiicther it be dark or light, I see One, painting the hideous portrait of a fiend. Day after day he comes, and adds a deeper and a blacker tint to the resemblance. Mean fear, and selfish pride, the coarser half of love, worthless inconstancy, black falsehood, and red-handed murder, those are the colours that he blends and stamps upon my soul. 1 am stained in every part. The proud coward that loved and was silent,

when already committed by his conduct, and master of the conquest that he feared to claim. The hypocrite that volunteered a friendship, to which he proved false, almost without a trial. The night-brawler, the drunkard, the faithless lover, and the perjured husband! Where, who has ever run a course so swift and full of sin as mine ? You speak of heaven and mercy ! Do you think I could so long have endured my agonies without remembering that ? No ; but a cry was at its gates before me, and I never felt that my prayer was heard. What that cry was, I have this morning learned. Mother,' he added, turning quickly round with great rapidity of voice and action, I am a murderer.' Mrs. Cregan never heard the words. The look and gesture, coupled with the foregoing speech had pre-informed her, and she fell back, in a death-like faint, into the chair. " When she had recovered, she found Hardress kneeling near her side, pale, anxious, and terrified, no longer supported by that hurried energy which he had shown before the revealment of his secret, but help- less, motionless, and desolate as an exploded mine. For the first time the mother looked upon her child with a shudder, but it was a shudder in which remorse was mingled deeply with abhorrence. She waved her hand two or three times, as if to signify that he should retire from her sight. It was so that Hardress understood, and obeyed the gesture. He took his place behind the chair of his parent, awaiting with gaping lip and absent eye, the renewal of her speech. The unhappy mother, mean- while, leaned forward in her seat, covering her face with her hands, and maintained for several minutes that silent communion with herself, which was usual with her, when she had received any sudden shock. A long pause succeeded. " Are you still in the room ? ' she said, at length, as a slight move- ment of the guilty youth struck upon her hearing. " Hardress started, as a schoolboy might at the voice of his preceptor, and was about to come forward; but the extended arm of his parent ar- rested his steps. " Remain where you are,' she said, it will be a long time now before I shall desire to look upon my son. " Hardress fell back, stepping noiselessly on tiptoe, and letting his head hang dejectedly upon his breast. " If those things are not dreams,' Mrs. Cregan again said; in that calm, restrained tone, which she always used when her mind was under- going the severest struggles ; if you have not been feeding a delirious fancy, and can restrain yourself to plain terms for one quarter of an hour, let me hear you repeat this unhappy accident. Nay, come not for- ward, stay where you are, and say your story there. Unfortunate boy ! We are a miserable pair! '

" She again leaned forward with her face buried in her expanded hands, while Hardress, with a low, chidden, and timid voice, and attitude, gave her, in a few words, the mournful history which she desired. So utterly abandoned was he, by that hectoring energy, which he displayed during his former conversations with his parent, that more than half the tale was drawn from him by questions, as from a culprit, fearful of adding to the measure of his punishment. " When he had concluded, Mrs Cregan raised her head with a look of great and evident relief.

" ' Why, Hardress,' she said, I have been misled in this. I over- leaped the mark in my surmise. You are not then the actual actor of this horrid work !'

" I was not the executioner,' said Hardress. ' I had a deputy,' he added with a ghastly smile. " Nor did you, by word or act, give warrant for the atrocity of which you speak ? '

" Oh, mother, if you esteem it worth your while to waste any kind- ness on me, forbear to torture my conscience with that wretched subter- fuge. atila the murderer of Eily ! It matters not that my finger has not

griped throat, nor my hand been reddened with her blood. My heart, has murdered her. My soul was even before-hand with the butcher who has sealed our common ruin by his bloody disobedience. I am.the murderer of Eily. No, not in act, as you have said, nor even in word ! I breathed my bloody thoughts into no living ear. The dark and hell born flame was smouldered where it rose, within my own lonely breast. Not through a single chink or cleft in all my conduct, could that unnatural rage be evident. When he tempted me aloud, aloud I an- swered, scorned, and defied him ' - and, when at our last fatal interview, I gave him that charge which he has stretched to bloodshed, my speech was urgent for her safety.'

" Aye ! '

" Aye, mother, it is truth ! I answer you as I shall answer at that dreadful bar, before that Throne the old man told me of, when he and she shall stand to blast me there !'

" He stood erect, and held up his hand, as if already pleading to the charge. Mrs. Cregan at the same moment rose, and was about to address him with equal energy and decision of manner.

" But still,' he added, preventing her still I am Eily's murderer. If I had an enemy, who wished to find me a theme for lastine° misery, he could not choose a way more certain than that of starting a doubt upon that subtle and worthless.distinction. I am Eily's murderer. That thought will ring upon my brain, awake or asleep, for evermore. Are these things dreams, said you ? Oh, I would give all the whole world of realities to find that I had dreamed a horrid dream, and wake, and die !'

" You overrate the measure of your guilt,' said Mrs. Cregan, and was about to proceed, when Hardress interrupted her.

" Fool that I was !' he exclaimed, with a burst of grief and self-re- proach, fool, mad fool, and idiot that I was ! How blind to my own happiness I For ever longine° for that which was beyond my reach, and never able to appreciate that which I possessed. In years gone by, the present seemed always stale and flat, and dreary ; the future and the past alone looked beautiful. Now, I must see them all with altered eyes. The present is my refuge, for the past is red with blood, and the future burning hot with shame and fire!'

" Sit down, and hear me, Hardress, for one moment'

" Oh, Eily !' the wretched youth continued, stretching out his arms to their full extent, and seeming to apostrophize some listening spirit. Oh, Eily, my lost, deceived, and murdered love ! Oh, let it not be thus without recall Tell me not that the things done in those hideous months are wholly without remedy ! Come back ! Come back ! my own abused and gentle love ! If tears, and groans, and years of self-inflicted penitence, can wash away that one accursed thought, you shall be satisfied. Look there !' he suddenly exclaimed, grasping his mother's arm with one hand, and pointing with the other to a distant corner of the room. ' That vision comes to answer me He followed a certain line with his finger through the air, as if tracing the course of some hallucination. 'As

and as ghastly real, as when I saw it lying, an hour hence, on the wet.,

cold bank, the yellow hair uncurled, the feet exposed (the feet that I first taught to stray from duty !) the dank, blue mantle, covering and clinging round the horrid form of death that lay beneath. Four times have I seen it since I left the spot, and every time it grows more deadly vivid. From this time forth, my fancies shall be changed; for gloomy visions, gloomier realities ; for ghastly fears, a ghastlier certainty.'

" Here he sunk down into the chair which his mother had drawn near her own, and remained for some moments buried in deep silence. Mrs. Cregan took this opportunity of gently bringing him into a more temperate vein of feeling ; but her feelings carried her beyond the limit which she contemplated.

" ` Mistake me not,' she said, ` unhappy boy ! I would not have you slight your guilt. It is black and deadly, and such as heaven will cer- tainly avenge. But neither must you fly to the other and worse extreme, where you can only cure presumption by despair. You are not so guilty as von deem. That you willed her death was a dark and deadly sin ; but 'tooting so hideous as the atrocious act itself. One thing, indeed, is cer- tain, that however this affair may terminate, we are an accursed and miserable pair for this world. I in you, and you in met Most weak and wicked boy ! It was the study of my life to win your love and confidence, and my reward has been distrust, concealment, and—' " ' Do you reproach me then ?' cried Hardress, springing madly to his feet, clenching hiathand, and darting an audacious scowl upon his parent, Beware, I warn you! I am a fiend, I grant you, but it was by your temp- tation that I changed my nature. You, my mother ! You have been my fellest foe ! I drank in pride with your milk, and passion under your in- dulgence. You sport with one possessed earl desperate. This whole love scheme that has begun in trick and cunning, and ended in blood, was all your work ! And do you gow—' " ` Hold !' cried his mother, observing the fury of his eye, and his hand raised and trembling, though not with the impious purpose she affected to think, ` Monster, would you dare to strike your parent ?' " ` As if he had received a sudden blow, Hardress sunk down at her feet, which he pressed between his hands, while he lowered his forehead to the very dust. ` Mother he said in a changed and humbled voice, ` my first, my constant, and forbearing friend, you are right. I am not quite a demon yet. My brain may fashion wild and impious words, but it is your son's heart that still beats within my bosom. I did not dream of such a horrid purpose' " After a silence of some minutes, the wretched young man arose, with tears in his eyes, and took his seat in the chair. Here he remained fixed in the same absent posture, and listening, but with a barren attention, to the many soothing speeches which were addressed to him by his mother. At length, rising hastily from his seat, with a look of greater calmness than he had hitherto shown, he said : " ` Mother, there is one way left for reparation. I will give myself up' "` Hold, madman ! '

" ` Nay, hold mother. I will do it. I will not bear this fire upon my brain. I will not still add crime to crime for ever. If I have outraged justice, it is enough. I will not cheat her. Why do you hang upon me ? I am weak and exhausted ; a child could stay me now,—a flaxen thread could fetter me. Release me, mother ! There is peace and hope and comfort in this thought. Elsewhere I can find nought but fire and Scourges, Oh, let me make this offering of a wretched life to buy some chance of quiet. You are tying me down to misery. I never shall close' an eye in sleep again, until I lie upon a dungeon floor. I never more shall smile, until I stand upon the scaffold. Well, well, you will prevail, you will prevail,' he added, as his mother forced him back into the chair which he had left, ` but I may find time. My life, I know, is forfeited' " It is not forfeited !'

" ` Not forfeited ! Hear you, just Heaven, and judge !—The ragged wretch; that pilfers for his food, must die ;—the starving father, who coonterfeits a wealthy name to save his children from a horrid death, must die ;—the goaded slave, who, driven from the holding of his fathers, avenges his wrong upon the usurper's property, must die ; and I, who have pilfered for my passion, I, the hypocrite, the false friend, the fickle husband,—the coward, traitor, and murderer, (I am disgusted while I speak !) my life has not been forfeited ! I, alone, stand harmless beneath these bloody laws ! I said I should not smile again, but this will force a laugh in spite of me.'

"Mrs. Cregan prudently refrained from urging the subject further for the present, and contented herself with appealing to his affectionate con- sideration of her own feelings, rather than reminding him of his interest

in the transaction. This seemed more effectually to work upon his mind. He listened calmly and with less reluctance, and was about to express his acquiescence, when a loud and sudden knocking at the outer door of the chamber made him start from his chair, turn pale, and shake in every limb like one convulsed. Mrs. Cregan, who had herself been startled, was advancing towards the door, when the knocking was heard again,

though not so loud, against that which led to the draw-ma-tom. Imagin- ing that her ear, in the first instance, had deceived:lk: She turned on

her steps, and was proceeding toward the latter entrance, when the sound was heard at both doors together, and with increased loudness. Slight as this accident appeared, it produced so violent an effect upon the nerves of Hardress, that it was with difficulty he was able to reach the chair which he had left, without falling to the ground. " The doors were opened—the one to Anne Chute, and the other to Mr. Cregan.

I am come to tell you, aunt, that dinner is on the table,' said the former.

" And I am come on the very point of time, to claim a neighbour's share of it,hsaid Mr. Cregan.