"That is a pretty lady! And there is another nice lady! What a grand gentleman! And see, yonder is a fine gentleman too!"

Such were little Victor's exclamations, as Adelgunda went slowly with him past all these well-known portraits of uncles and aunts, grandmothers, great-grandmothers, and other members of the family, all long since asleep in their graves.

"But, oh, mother, look!" cried Victor, as he first caught sight of the largest; "see how horrible that one up yonder looks! See, mother, how that tall woman there on the wall frowns down at us !" And Victor knit his little brows, and drew in his small mouth, to make his face look very terrible in return.

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Oh, do not speak so-do not speak so!" exclaimed his mother, trying in vain to hush the child. "On the contrary," she added, in a faltering voice, "she is an excellent lady, and very kind to all good, well-behaved children. We will go up yonder, and beg her pardon and her blessing."

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No, no!" screamed Victor, kicking his little legs with all his might, "I won't have anything to do with her; she looks as cross as if she would bite me."

Again his mother entreated Victor to be a reasonable, good boy, and by that time they stood under the great lady's picture. A tremor crept over Adelgunda as she encountered that austere, repulsive look, and involuntarily she dropped her eyes beneath it. But reason soon triumphed; she approached closer to the portrait, and said to her little son, whom she still held on her arms, "Now we shall say good morning to that lady;" and she curtsied herself, and bent with her hand the obstinate little head; "and we shall beg her to look kindly and gently down upon us, for your dear, good papa's sake, and we will kiss her hand." And Adelgunda kissed the hand in the picture that was hanging down; but when she attempted to raise the child's face up towards the hand, the little fellow, in whose infantine breast was aroused a portion of his father's bold spirit, and perhaps impetuous temper, and who, though somewhat frightened, felt his courage rising, and was, withal, extremely angry, struggled furiously, clenched his little fist, and instead of kissing the great lady's drooping hand, thumped it with all his might-and at that moment he was strong enough.

II.

ADELGUNDA's brother and sister-in-law waited in vain for her appearance at the breakfast-table. She came not! But at length the startling intelligence was brought to them that a strange, frightful noise had been heard in the picture-gallery. No one knew what was the cause of it, for no one had dared to venture in to see what had happened. But now every one rushed in. A cloud of dust, a heap of mortar and wood was before them; and a sight so dreadful, so shocking, so appalling, met their eyes, that every heart was like to break.

But only one heart did break, for notwithstanding his strength of mind-his unconquerable spirit-his undeniable fortitude, the bereaved husband and father almost sank beneath the frightful calamity that had Sept.-VOL. XCVI. NO. CCCLXXXI.

F

suddenly deprived him of the wife he adored, and the child on whom all his hopes were centred. Yet he was the first-the only one who had sufficient energy and presence of mind to drag the lifeless remains of his wife and son from under the destroying weight of the heavy portrait.

It was a frightful event, and made a great sensation. A rotten rope, and the mouldering state of the wall which should have upheld the enormously heavy wooden frame, had done all the evil.

The naval officer passed over distant seas to many a foreign land-the world was all before him, but he never forgot what he had lost.

The picture of the awful ancestress met with little injury in its fall; but several years elapsed before it was hung up again in its former place. It was, however, at length restored to its old position, but fastened with new rope, and everything necessary to make it more secure. The dreadful occurrence was beginning to be forgotten, and the brotherly affection, which had somewhat cooled, seemed to have displayed itself sufficiently in having banished the lofty dame for some years to a lumber-room. She could not always be left there! So at length she hung in her old place again, as stern, as frowning as formerly. And the count, who had now become an old man, generally when he alluded to the terrible event, reasonably ascribed it to natural causes. But, once upon a time, when he observed his youngest daughter, a girl not much more than sixteen years of age, casting furtive and rather friendly glances at a young man, the son of a country parson, who, on account of his handsome person and pleasant manners, was often received at the baronial castle,when he saw this, by means of some sidelong looks with the corner of his eye, which were not perceived by the young couple, then he took his daughter by the hand, led her silently and solemnly into the picture-gallery, walked with her up to the replaced portrait of their great ancestress, and said, with the gravity of an anxious father, and the dignity of an aristocratic nobleman,

"Beware, my daughter! Remember the fate of your aunt!" These words were all he uttered.

"And this happened in the nineteenth century, and here in our fatherland ?" Such an inquiry will assuredly be made by one or other of our readers. But we will not answer it ourselves; we shall only advise the inquirer to address himself to the descendants of one of the most ancient families in Scania, and ask them whether it be true or not.

HOW JEREMIAH TUBBS BECAME ENGAGED IN THE IRISH ELECTIONS OF 1852.

EXT OF KIN.-If the Next of Kin or relations of William Farraday,

will apply to Messrs. Swanquill and Broomsgrove, Solicitors, Red Lion-square, London, they will hear of something to their advantage; or any person giving such information respecting the Next of Kin or relations of the said William Farraday as shall lead to their discovery, will be handsomely rewarded.-Times, August -th, 1850.

I.

JEREMIAH HODGSON TUBBS, general provision-dealer and grocer, kept a tidy little shop at the corner of High-street, Islington; his receipts were not very large, certainly, but they were comfortable; nor yet was his acquaintance so very extended either, but still it was very respectable. And as he sat in the commercial room of the Peacock tavern on a Saturday evening, smoking his pipe, and sipping between whiffs his cold brandy-andwater, he was as respected and as exemplary an elderly gentleman as any in London. He was yet a bachelor, though many a fair dame had thrown out her lures and meshes to birdlime obdurate Tubbs into matrimony. For instance, Miss Mary Straker, the fashionable milliner and modiste de Paris in the neighbouring street, had decked out her windows-not unmindful, however, of her sweet self-in the most glorious array and blending of varied hues. She had worked him slippers and nightcaps, sent him Valentines on that saint's day, and made herself remarkable towards him when they met at the tea-drinkings in the neighbourhood; nay, finally, as a last resource, deluged him with anonymous letters, containing threats, like a Miss Bailey of yore, to appear against him in a very spiritual and, to say the least of it, dégagé attire while he slumbered at night, or sent others with taunts of his breaking hearts and filching affections only as he would a rosebud, to pluck them in pieces and fling them to the winds; but it was all of no effect, for poor Miss Straker had to betake herself to a tom-cat and spectacles, while the object of her hopes was a bachelor still. Bessy Chaplin, the chemist's daughter, too, tried her little endeavours against Tubbs' stony heart; she sent him nosegays and sweet lozenges, pictured to him the delights and comfort of a nurse in sickness who had a little knowledge of medicine, and planted herself daily in her father's upper window, and gazed fondly on the butter-firkins and carmine face of their owner, the general provision-dealer. She copied out all the poetry she could get hold of from the magazines and newspapers, and sent it as her own to the unromantic Jeremiah, and was perpetually inquiring after his health, and felt sure he must be ill, which, to a gentleman in particularly robust health, were very unpleasant insinuations. So, to put a stop to all such persecutions, Tubbs hailed a hackney-coach one fine morning, handed into it Nancy Farraday, his housekeeper, and driving off to All Saints' church, they became man and wife, much to the scandal and jealousy of the neighbourhood, the hysterics of Miss Straker, and the anger of Miss Chaplin, who calmed her ruffled breast, however, by following the example, and eloping with a veterinary surgeon who was about to emigrate to Australia, where, from their combined knowledge of pharmacy, they practised as doctors in ordinary to that island.

II.

YEARS have rolled onwards, and the fruits of the union of Jeremiah Tubbs with Nancy Farraday were one son and one daughter. Julia Ann was a tall, thin, angular young lady of some twenty summers, plain in face, but very susceptible in heart, highly romantic, and much given to circulating libraries and affaires de cœur, hardly out of one (referring to either libraries or love affairs) but she was into another. In the latter she had experienced many disappointments. She clandestinely met and loved one whom she believed was a gallant captain of hussars, with immense estates in Norfolk, and who had promised to make her his wife; but he turned out, upon due inquiry, to be simply a full private of the Horse Guards Blue, of very disreputable character. She then fell desperately in love with a Signor Nicolo, a professor of music, who faithfully vowed they should be married, and then they were to fly to the sunny clime of Italy, and revel in everlasting bliss on the banks of the Lake of Como; but, unfortunately, Signor Nicolo proved to be Duncan Nichol of Glasgow, a married man, with a sickly wife and a large family in that famous burgh. Miss Julia's brother, John Hodgson Tubbs, was a great overgrown, awkward hobbledehoy, about seventeen to eighteen years of age, whose only aim in life seemed to be "to be thought fast." He was a member of the Divine Apollo Club, and though he did not sing himself, he joined loudly in the chorus to his friend Jobkins' song. He was "great" (as he expressed it) with the Bloomer who kept the bar where their club was held, and whom he styled "a spiffy girl," and who had been graciously pleased to accept of a pair of very Brummagem-looking earrings, set with paste diamonds, with which he had presented her. He consumed many cabbages, under the belief they were prime Havannah cigars; frequented Rosherville and Vauxhall, and the pit of the Adelphi Theatre; and had even gone so far as to treat the Bloomer to a private box at the Surrey, when his theatrical madness was at its full. He had not knocked down a policeman, nor committed a little amateur pickpocketing as yet, but his inclination was willing, though, alas! the consequences calmed the desire. He had been on an omnibus to Epsom races, where he had lost all his money upon backing the pea to be under a particular thimble, and had had his pocket eased of his gold watch while an uncommon pretty gipsy was assuring him, from the crosses on his left palm, he was destined to marry the blue-eyed daughter of an earl.

The quartette was seated around the fire after supper. Tubbs, senior, with slippers on his feet and spectacles on his nose, was spelling over the Times newspaper; Julia was deep into the sympathies of Blanche de Courcy, pining for her absent lover on the plains of war; Tubbs, junior, was eyeing the burning coal, and wondering if Candlewick would win the Dinner Stakes, which he had backed him for at a betting-office from the information of "Newminster," in Bell's Life, "whose mouth was not for falsehood framed ;" and Mrs. Tubbs was chewing the cud of supper and sweet fancies, and then occasionally dozing off for forty winks.

"Halloa, my dear !" exclaimed Tubbs. "Next of kin-William Farraday-Aldgate-street-went to sea.' Why, is not that your brother

Bill ?"

"Eh? what?" said Mrs. Tubbs, shaking her head to arouse her faculties. "Read it all out, my dear, will you ?"

Accordingly, Tubbs read forth the paragraph we have quoted above. "It is him, my dear. What can they want with us?" said Mrs. Tubbs.

"Humph! no saying," replied Jeremiah. "Perhaps to pay for his coffin. He was always a ne'er-do-well."

"Delightfully mysterious," chimed in Miss Julia.

"A plant," observed Tubbs, junior, oracularly.

"I'll talk the matter over with neighbour Pumpkin," said Tubbs. "He is a long-headed, shrewd fellow, that Pumpkin. So come, my dear, light our bedroom candle, put out the lamp, and let us to bed. Good night, young people."

III.

"INVEST your money?" said Mr. Broomsgrove, as he sat nursing his left leg and meditating in his office, Red Lion-square, before the obese figure of Tubbs.

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'Yes, invest it," said Tubbs; "railways are down, funds up, and thirty thousand pounds is a fairish lump. Mortgage, eh?"

"N-no," said Broomsgrove. "Plenty of money in the market; you won't get more than three-and-a-quarter on a safe mortgage. Had it

offered last week."

"Humph! ecod!"

"There are the encumbered estates in Ireland. Good investments to be made there. Look out sharp and you will buy at seventeen years' purchase."

"And get shot like a woodcock for my trouble," hastily observed Tubbs.

"And what need for you ever

to go over to Ireland, pray? Employ an agent."

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Ah! I did not think of that, sir. Good idea, that."

"Now, I have the plan of the estate of Ballymactarbarry in my officea valuable freehold estate in Munster, near the great sea-port of Limerick, with an excellent stone-built mansion, in a fine domain of about eighty acres, with pleasure-grounds, rookery, garden, &c.," said Broomsgrove; and holloaing down a long tube, screamed, "Bring up the plan of the Ballymactarbarry estate, G 15."

Now, while the pair are poring over the plan of the Ballymactarbarry estate, let us inquire how Tubbs, the general provision-dealer, became possessed of so large an amount of ready money as thirty thousand pounds.

When William Farraday ran away from Aldgate-street to sea, he worked his way out before the mast to the mouth of the Ganges, and landing at Calcutta, came to the conclusion that he preferred living on dry land than rolling about on the stormy waves; and accordingly set to work to obtain some other employment. In this he fortunately succeeded, namely, as errand-boy in a wealthy merchant's office. From errand-boy he rose to be clerk, and from a clerk to be a merchant; and having realised seventy to eighty thousand pounds sterling, he wished to leave it to some one. His only relation was his sister Nancy, who, when he left England, was kitchen-wench in some gentleman's family in Lincolnshire; the chances, were, therefore, she had either changed her name through marriage, or else, perhaps, had changed the scene altogether by the common