Marlow. [Musing.]-As for Miss Hardcastle, she's too grave and sentimental for me.

Miss Hardcastle. - Did your honor call? [She still places herself before him, he turning away.]

Marlow. No, child. [Musing.] Besides, from the glimpse I had of her, I think she squints.

Miss Hardcastle. — I'm sure, Sir, I heard the bell ring.

-

Marlow. No, no. [Musing.] I have pleased my father, however, by coming down, and I'll to-morrow please myself by returning. [Taking out his tablets and perusing.]

Miss Hardcastle.-Perhaps the other gentleman called, Sir?

Miss Hardcastle.—I should be glad to know Sir: we have such a parcel of servants.

Marlow. No, no, I tell you. [Looks full in her face.] Yes, child, I think I did call. I wanted-I wanted-I vow, child, you are vastly handsome.

Miss Hardcastle.-O la, Sir, you'll make one ashamed.

Marlow. Never saw a more sprightly malicious eye. Yes, yes, my dear, I did call. Have you got any of your-awhat d'ye call it, in the house?

Miss Hardcastle. —No, Sir, we have been out of that these ten days.

Marlow. One may call in this house, I find, to very little purpose. Suppose I should call for a taste, just by way of trial, of the nectar of your lips, perhaps I might be disappointed in that too.

Miss Hardcastle. - Nectar! nectar! That's a liquor there's no call for in these parts. French, I suppose. We keep no French wines here, Sir.

Marlow. Of true English growth, I assure you.

Miss Hardcastle. Then it's odd I should not know it. We brew all sorts of wines in this house, and I have lived here these eighteen years.

Marlow. Eighteen years! Why, one would think, child, you kept the bar before you were born. How old are you? Miss Hardcastle. — Oh, Sir, I must not tell my age. say women and music should never be dated.

--

They

Marlow. To guess at this distance, you can't be much above. forty. [Approaching.] Yet nearer, I don't think so much. [Approaching.] By coming close to some women, they look

younger still; but when we come very close indeed

ing to kiss her.]

[Attempt

Miss Hardcastle. - Pray, Sir, keep your distance. One would think you wanted to know one's age as they do horses, by mark of mouth.

Marlow.I protest, child, you use me extremely ill. If you keep me at this distance, how is it possible you and I can ever be acquainted?

Miss Hardcastle. And who wants to be acquainted with you? I want no such acquaintance, not I. I'm sure you did not treat Miss Hardcastle, that was here awhile ago, in this obstropalous manner. I'll warrant me, before her you looked dashed, and kept bowing to the ground, and talked, for all the world, as if you were before a justice of peace.

Marlow. [Aside.] — Egad, she has hit it, sure enough! [To her.] In awe of her, child? Ha! ha ha! A mere awkward, squinting thing! No, no. I find you don't know me. I laughed and rallied her a little; but I was unwilling to be too severe. No, I could not be too severe, curse me.

Miss Hardcastle. -Oh, then, Sir, you are a favorite, I find, among the ladies?

Marlow. Yes, my dear, a great favorite. And yet, hang me, I don't see what they find in me to follow. At the Ladies' Club in town I'm called their agreeable Rattle. Rattle, my child, is not my real name, but one I'm known by. My name is Solomons; Mr. Solomons, my dear, at your service. [Offering to salute her.]

-

Miss Hardcastle. Hold, Sir; you are introducing me to your club, not to yourself. And you're so great a favorite there, you say?

Marlow. Yes, my dear. There's Mrs. Mantrap, Lady Betty Blackleg, the Countess of Sligo, Mrs. Langhorns, old Miss Biddy Buckskin, and your humble servant, keep up the spirit of the place.

Miss Hardcastle. Then it's a very merry place, I sup

pose?

Marlow. Yes, as merry as cards, suppers, wine, and old women can make us.

Miss Hardcastle. And their agreeable Rattle, ha! ha! ha!

Marlow. [Aside.]-Egad! I don't quite like this chit. She looks knowing, methinks. You laugh, child!

VOL. X.- 12

Miss Hardcastle.-I can't but laugh to think what time they all have for minding their work, or their family.

Marlow. [Aside.] — All's well; she don't laugh at me. [To her.] Do you ever work, child?

Miss Hardcastle.

Ay, sure. There's not a screen or a quilt

in the whole house but what can bear witness to that.

Marlow. Odso! then you must show me your embroidery. I embroider and draw patterns myself a little. If you want a judge of your work, you must apply to me. [Seizing her hand.

Miss Hardcastle.-Ay, but the colors don't look well by candlelight. You shall see all in the morning. [Struggling. Marlow. And why not now, my angel? Such beauty fires beyond the power of resistance.-Pshaw! the father here! My old luck: I never nicked seven that I did not throw ames-ace three times following. [Exit Marlow.

PICTURES FROM "THE DESERTED VILLAGE.”
SWEET Auburn! loveliest village of the plain,
Where health and plenty cheered the laboring swain,
Where smiling Spring its earliest visit paid,
And parting Summer's lingering blooms delayed!
Dear lovely bowers of innocence and ease,

Seats of my youth, when every sport could please!
How often have I loitered o'er thy green,

Where humble happiness endeared each scene!
How often have I paused on every charm

The sheltered cot, the cultivated farm,

The never-failing brook, the busy mill,

The decent church that topped the neighboring hill,
The hawthorn bush, with seats beneath the shade,
For talking age and whispering lovers made!
How often have I blessed the coming day,
When toil, remitting, lent its turn to play,

And all the village train, from labor free,

Led up their sports beneath their spreading tree;
While many a pastime circled in the shade,

The young contending, as the old surveyed,
And many a gambol frolicked o'er the ground,

And sleights of art and feats of strength went round;
And still as each repeated pleasure tired,

Succeeding sports the mirthful band inspired.

Sweet smiling village, loveliest of the lawn,

Thy sports are fled, and all thy charms withdrawn;
Amidst thy bowers the tyrant's hand is seen,
And desolation saddens all thy green;
One only master grasps the whole domain,
And half a village stints thy smiling plain.
No more thy glassy brook reflects the day,
But choked with sedges works its weary way;
Along thy glades, a solitary guest,

The hollow-sounding bittern guards its nest;
Amidst thy desert walks the lapwing flies,
And tires their echoes with unvaried cries.
Sunk are thy bowers in shapeless ruin all,
And the long grass o'ertops the moldering wall;
And, trembling, shrinking from the spoiler's hand,
Far, far away thy children leave the land.
Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates and men decay;
Princes and lords may flourish or may fade,
A breath can make them as a breath has made;
But a bold peasantry, their country's pride,
When once destroyed can never be supplied.

Sweet Auburn! parent of the blissful hour,
Thy glades forlorn confess the tyrant's power.
Here, as I take my solitary rounds
Amidst thy tangling walks and ruined grounds,
And, many a year elapsed, return to view
Where once the cottage stood, the hawthorn grew,
Remembrance wakes, with all her busy train,
Swells at my breast, and turns the past to pain.
In all my wanderings round this world of care,
In all my griefs, — and God has given my share,—
I still had hopes, my latest hours to crown,
Amidst these humble bowers to lay me down;
To husband out life's taper at the close,

And keep the flame from wasting by repose.

I still had hopes for pride attends us still —
Amidst the swains to show my book-learned skill;
Around my fire an evening group to draw,
And tell of all I felt, and all I saw;

And as a hare whom hounds and horns pursue
Pants to the place from whence at first she flew,

I still had hopes, my long vexations past,
Here to return and die at home at last

Oh blest retirement! friend to life's decline,
Retreat from care, that never must be mine,
How blest is he who crowns in shades like these
A youth of labor with an age of ease;
Who quits a world where strong temptations try,
And since 'tis hard to combat, learns to fly!
For him no wretches, born to work and weep,
Explore the mine, or tempt the dangerous deep;
No surly porter stands in guilty state,
To spurn imploring famine from the gate :
But on he moves to meet his latter end,
Angels around befriending virtue's friend;
Bends to the grave with unperceived decay,
While resignation gently slopes the way;
And, all his prospects brightening to the last,
His heaven commences ere the world be past.

Sweet was the sound, when oft at evening's close
Up yonder hill the village murmur rose.
There, as I passed with careless steps and slow,
The mingling notes came softened from below;
The swain responsive as the milkmaid sung,
The sober herd that lowed to meet their young;
The noisy geese that gabbled o'er the pool;
The playful children just let loose from school;
The watch-dog's voice that bayed the whispering wind,
And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind;
These all in sweet confusion sought the shade,
And filled each pause the nightingale had made.
But now the sounds of population fail;
No cheerful murmurs fluctuate in the gale;
No busy steps the grass-grown footway tread
But all the bloomy flush of life is fled.
All but yon widowed, solitary thing,

That feebly bends beside the plashy spring;
She, wretched matron, - forced in age, for bread,
To strip the brook with mantling cresses spread,
To pick her wintry fagot from the thorn,
To seek her nightly shed, and weep till morn,-
She only left of all the harmless train,
The sad historian of the pensive plain.

Near yonder copse, where once the garden smiled,
And still where many a garden flower grows wild,