ment.

you.

chains.

The dark gentleman's wife and daughter were the other two ladies invited by our host. The elder was splendidly dressed. Poor Mrs. Mackenzie's simple gimcracks, though she displayed them to the most advantage, and could make an ormolu bracelet go as far as another woman's emerald clasps, were as nothing compared to the other lady's gorgeous jewelry. Her fingers glittered with rings innumerable. The head of her smelling-bottle was as big as her husband's gold snuff-box, and of the same splendid material. Our ladies, it must be confessed, came in a modest cab from Fitzroy Square; these arrived in a splendid little open carriage with white ponies, and harness all over brass, which the lady of the rings drove with a whip that was a parasol. Mrs. Mackenzie, standing at Honeyman's window, with her arm round Rosey's waist, viewed this arrival perhaps with envy, "My dear Mr. Honeyman, whose are those beautiful horses?" cries Rosey, with enthusiasm.

in the afternoon. Percy Sibwright sang admira- | so far we flattered ourselves that our feast altobly, and with the greatest spirit, ditties in many gether excelled the parson's. The Champagne languages. I am sure Miss Rosey thought him especially was such stuff, that Warrington re(as indeed he is) one of the most fascinating marked on it to his neighbor, a dark gentleman, young fellows about town. To her mother's ex-with a tuft to his chin, and splendid rings and cellent accompaniment Rosey sang her favorite songs (by the way, her stock was very smallfive, I think, was the number). Then the table was moved into a corner, where the quivering moulds of jelly seemed to keep time to the music; and while Percy played, two couple of waltzers actually whirled round the little room. No wonder that the court below was thronged with admirers, that Paley, the reading man, was in a rage, and Mrs. Flanagan in a state of exciteAh! pleasant days, happy old dingy chambers illuminated by youthful sunshine! merry songs and kind faces-it is pleasant to recall Some of those bright eyes shine no more: some of those smiling lips do not speak. Some are not less kind, but sadder than in those days; of which the memories revisit us for a moment, and sink back into the gray past. The dear old Colonel beat time with great delight to the songs; the widow lit his cigar with her own fair fingers. That was the only smoke permitted during the entertainment-George Warrington himself not being allowed to use his cutty-pipe-though the gay little widow said that she had been used to smoking in the West Indies, and I dare say spoke the truth. Our entertainment lasted actually until after dark and a particularly neat cab being called from St. Clement's by Mr. Binnie's boy, you may be sure we all conducted the ladies to their vehicle and many a fellow returning from his lonely club that evening into chambers must have envied us the pleasure of having received two such beauties.

The divine says with a faint blush—“It is ah-it is Mrs. Sherrick and Miss Sherrick, who have done me the favor to come to luncheon."

"Wine merchant. Oh!" thinks Mrs. Maokenzie, who has seen Sherrick's brass-plate on the cellar-door of Lady Whittlesea's chapel; and hence, perhaps, she was a trifle more magniloquent than usual, and entertained us with stories of colonial governors and their ladies, mentioning no persons but those who "had handles to their names," as the phrase is.

The clerical bachelor was not to be outdone by Although Sherrick had actually supplied the the gentlemen of the bar; and the entertainment Champagne which Warrington abused to him in at the Temple was followed by one at Honey-confidence, the wine-merchant was not woundman's lodgings, which, I must own, greatly ex- ed; on the contrary, he roared with laughter at ceeded ours in splendor, for Honeyman had his the remark, and some of us smiled who underluncheon from Gunter's; and if he had been Miss stood the humor of the joke. As for George Rosey's mother, giving a breakfast to the dear Warrington, he scarce knew more about the town girl on her marriage, the affair could not have than the ladies opposite to him, who, yet more been more elegant and handsome. We had but innocent than George, thought the Champagne two bouquets at our entertainment; at Honey- very good. Mrs. Sherrick was silent during the man's there were four upon the breakfast-table, meal, looking constantly up at her husband, as besides a great pine-apple, which must have cost if alarmed and always in the habit of appealing the rogue three or four guineas, and which Percy to that gentleman, who gave her, as I thought, Sibwright delicately cut up. Rosey thought the knowing glances and savage winks, which made pine-apple delicious. "The dear thing does not me augur that he bullied her at home. Miss remember the pine-apples in the West Indies!" Sherrick was exceedingly handsome: she kept cries Mrs. Mackenzie; and she gave us many the fringed curtains of her eyes constantly down; exciting narratives of entertainments at which but when she lifted them up toward Clive, who she had been present at various colonial govern- was very attentive to her (the rogue never sees ors' tables. After luncheon, our host hoped we a handsome woman, but to this day he continues should have a little music. Dancing, of course, the same practice)—when she looked up and could not be allowed. "That," said Honeyman, smiled, she was indeed a beautiful young creawith his " soft-bleating sigh," "were scarcely ture to behold-with her pale forehead, her thick clerical. You know, besides, you are in a her- arched eyebrows, her rounded cheeks, and her mitage; and (with a glance round the table) full lips slightly shaded-how shall I mention must put up with Cenobite's fare." The fare the word?-slightly penciled, after the manner was, as I have said, excellent. The wine was of the lips of the French governess, Mademoiselle bad, as George, and I, and Sib agreed; and in Lenoir.

at this juncture, of which Mrs. Sherrick partakes, with lots of sugar, as she has partaken of numberless things before. Chickens, plover's eggs, prawns, aspics, jellies, creams, grapes, and what not. Mr. Honeyman advances, and with deep respect asks if Mrs. Sherrick and Miss Sherrick will not be persuaded to sing. She rises and bows, and again takes off the French gloves, and shows the large white hands glittering with rings, and, summoning Emily her daughter, they go to the piano.

Percy Sibwright engaged Miss Mackenzie with his usual grace and affability. Mrs. Mackenzie did her very utmost to be gracious; but it was evident the party was not altogether to her liking. Poor Percy, about whose means and expectations she had in the most natural way in the world asked information from me, was not perhaps a very eligible admirer for darling Rosey. She knew not that Percy can no more help gallantry than the sun can help shining. As soon as Rosey had done eating up her pine-apple, artlessly confessing (to Percy Sibwright's inquiries) "Can she sing?" whispers Mrs. Mackenzie, that she preferred it to the rasps and hinnyblobs "can she sing after eating so much?" Can she in her grandmamma's garden, "Now, dearest sing, indeed! O, you poor ignorant Mrs. MacRosey," cries Mrs. Mack, "now, a little song. kenzie! Why, when you were in the West InYou promised Mr. Pendennis a little song.' dies, if you ever read the English newspapers, Honeyman whisks open the piano in a moment. you must have read of the fame of Miss Folthorpe. The widow takes off her cleaned gloves (Mrs. Mrs. Sherrick is no other than the famous artist, Sherrick's were new, and of the best Paris make), who, after three years of brilliant triumphs at the and little Rosey sings, No. 1 followed by No. 2, Scala, the Pergola, the San Carlo, the opera in with very great applause. Mother and daughter England, forsook her profession, rejected a hundentwine as they quit the piano. "Brava! bra-red suitors, and married Sherrick, who was Mr. va!" says Percy Sibwright. Does Mr. Clive Newcome say nothing? His back is turned to the piano, and he is looking with all his might into the eyes of Miss Sherrick.

Percy sings a Spanish seguidella, or a German lied, or a French romance, or a Neapolitan canzonet, which, I am bound to say, excites very little attention. Mrs. Ridley is sending in coffee

Cox's lawyer, who failed, as every body knows, as manager of Drury Lane. Sherrick, like a man of spirit, would not allow his wife to sing in public after his marriage; but in private society, of course, she is welcome to perform: and now, with her daughter, who possesses a noble contralto voice, she takes her place royally at the piano, and the two sing so magnificently that every

Clive Newcome named a day, and told his father of the circumstance in the evening. The Colonel looked grave. "There was something which I did not quite like about Mr. Sherrick," said that acute observer of human nature. "It was easy to see that the man is not quite a gentleman. Ia breeze will linger in the hottest noon. Down don't care what a man's trade is, Clive. Indeed, who are we, to give ourselves airs upon that subject? But when I am gone, my boy, and there is nobody near you who knows the world as I do, you may fall into designing hands, and rogues may lead you into mischief: keep a sharp look out, Clive. Mr. Pendennis, here, knows that there are designing fellows abroad" (and the dear

scythe-stone itself, and wondrous bones of ex- | this scythe-stone trade. The few agricultural

tinct animals are often brought to light.

laborers there to be met with may be distinguished at a glance from their brethren of the pits; the bronzed checks from the hectic, the muscular frames from the bodies which disease has weakened, and which dissipation helps to a more swift decay. The cottages are not ill-built, and generally stand detached in a small garden; their little porches may be seen of an evening thronged with dirty pretty children, helping father outside his cavern by carrying the stone away in little baskets, as he brings it out to them.

All day long, summer and winter, in the sombre fir-groves may be heard the stroke of the spade and the click of the hammer; a hundred men are at work like bees upon the cliff, each in his own cell of the great honeycomb, his private passage. The right to dig in his own burrow each of these men has purchased for a trifling sum, and he toils in it daily. Though it is a narrow space, in which he is not able to stand upright, and can scarcely turn-though the air in it that he breathes is damp and deadly-though Beside the Luta rivulet, which has pleasanter the color in his cheek is commonly the hectic of nooks, more flowery banks, and falls more musical consumption, and he has a cough that never than any stream in Devon; beside this brook, leaves him night or day-though he will himself and parted by a little wood of beeches and wild remark that he does not know among his neigh-laurel from the village, is a very pearl of cottages. bors one old man-and though, all marrying Honeysuckle, red-rose, and sweet-briar hold it early, few ever see a father with his grown-up son, yet, for all this, the scythe-stone cutter works in his accustomed way, and lives his short life merrily, that is to say, he drinks down any sense or care that he might have. These poor men are almost without exception sickly drunkards. The women of this community are not much healthier. It is their task to cut and shape the rough-hewn stone into those pieces wherewith "the mower whets his scythe." The thin particles of dust that escape during this process are very pernicious to the lungs; but, as usual, it is found impossible to help the ignorant sufferers by any thing in the form of an idea from without; a number of masks and respirators have been more than once provided for them by the charity of the neighboring gentry, but scarcely one woman has given them her countenance.

The short life of the scythe-stone cutter is also always liable to be abruptly ended. Safety requires that fir-poles from the neighboring wood should be driven in one by one on either side of him, and a third flat stake be laid across to make the walls and roof safe, as the digger pushes his long burrow forward. Cheap as these fir-poles are, they are too often dispensed with. There is scarcely one of the hundred mined entrances of disused caverns here to be seen, through which some crushed or suffocated workman has not been brought out dead. The case is common. A man can not pay the trifle that is necessary to buy fir-poles for the support of his cell walls; the consequence is, that sooner or later, it must almost inevitably happen that one stroke of the pickax shall produce a fall of sand behind him, and set an impassable barrier between him and the world without. It will then be to little purpose that another may be working near him, prompt to give the alarm and get assistance; tons upon tons of heavy sand divide the victim from the rescuers, and they must prop and roof their way at every step, lest they too perish. Such accidents are therefore mostly fatal; if the man was not at once crushed by a fall of sand upon him, he has been cut off from the outer air, and suffocated in his narrow worm-hole. Whiteknights is a small village at the foot of this cliff, inhabited almost entirely by persons following

entangled in a fragrant net-work; they fall over the little windows, making twilight at midnoon, yet nobody has ever thought of cutting them away or tying up a single tendril. Grandfather Markham and his daughter Alice, with John Drewit, her husband and master of the house, used to live there, and they had three little children, Jane, Henry, and Joe.

A little room over the porch was especially neat. It was the best room in the cottage, and therein was lodged old Markham, who had, so far as the means of his children went, the best of board as well. He was not a very old man, but looked ten years older than he was, and his hand shook through an infirmity more grievous than age. He was a gin-drinker. John Drewit had to work very hard to keep not only his own household in food and clothing, but also his poor old father-in-law in drink.

John was a hale young man when first I knew him, but he soon began to alter. As soon as it was light he was away to the sand-cliff by a pleasant winding path through the beechwood and up the steps which his own spade had cut. One or two of them he had made broader than the rest, at intervals, where one might willingly sit down to survey the glory spread beneath; the low, white, straw-thatched farms gleaming like light among the pasture-lands, the little towns each with its shining river, and the great old city in the hazy distance; the high beacon hills, the woods, and far as eye could see, the mist that hung over the immense Atlantic. This resting on the upward path, at first a pleasure, became soon a matter of necessity, and that, too, long before the cough had settled down upon him; few men in Whiteknights have their lungs so whole that they can climb up to their pits without a halt or two.

The old man helped his son-in-law sometimes; he was a good sort of old man by nature, and not a bit more selfish than a drunkard always must be. He ground the rough stones into shape at home, minded the children in his daughter's absence, and even used the pick himself when he was sober. John, too, was for his wife's sake tolerant of the old man's infirmity, though half his little earnings went to gratify the old man's