balsam, cured all wounds. In years gone by, Lothario must have done much mischief as a lady.killer, and many must have been the "scenes" in which he had taken a part. The garden-wall scaled, reckless of spring-guns and man-traps. The stolen meeting in the green-house, and the alarmed flight amid the crash of glass and geraniums; "Men of Ross," "Fair Ellens," and "Commanders-in-Chief," sharing in the general ruin. The solemn interview in the father's li brary; "You must be aware, sir, that your attentions to my daughter are disagreeable to me! I must request, sir, that you will not repeat them! You will favor me, sir, by discontinuing your visits to my house! John, show the gentleman down stairs!"

Such might have been among the agrémens of his earlier days; but good looks cannot last forever. Continental travellers are now more in number than hedge-sparrows. Even a man's voice, strange to say, after a while ceases to be in his own favor; and who, nowa-days, can keep four hundred a-year unencumbered? Mr. Lacklove, before he was fifty, had long found that it was rather difficult to excite reciprocal unfortunate attachments; but the habit he had so long indulged continued strong in him, and it was not to be put down by change of circumstances. The higher a young lady's rank in society, so he had but bare access to the circle in which his innamorala moved, the more likely was Lothario incontinently to become devoted to her; while every new crack his heart received seemed now, by some strange process, transferred to his head. Even royalty did not escape him: he lived six weeks in Lisbon, a few years back, trying to sigh and ogle, each in her turn, the three princesses of the house of Braganza into unfortunate attachments; and came home in a frantic rage when, after having particularly dis. tinguished the youngest of the royal sisters, that lady had the bad taste to marry a Portuguese marquis.

He had become desperate. He gazed on the long list of his rejections with dismay. Like an angler, when his fish at one bite makes off with the bait, nor affords him even play for his loss, so re. fusal came upon refusal, not only from mamma and papa,—such he was always used to, but the young ladies too, who now invariably preferred consulting their parents' wishes. Not a single love-scene could he get up.

He had even formed a romantic attachment for the pig-faced lady; but she declined favoring him with an interview. Since his adventures in Portugal, some ten years had flown over Mr. Lothario Lacklove; but they had not brought him wisdom,—their flight had only made him more flighty.

That very morning had he been standing, as had been his wont for days before, contemplating the many windows which enlighten the royal palace at Pimlico.

"Perhaps she is even now gazing at me!" cried Mr. Lacklove. "Oh, that I could tell from which casement those blue and melting eyes, in pitying softness, regard the devotion of my unwearied lovewatch! But yesterday she smiled, and bowed to me, when I raised my hat from off my maddening temples! Not a soul was near me as the carriage passed, save some poor shouting wretches!-idiots! boors! Perhaps they took that look of beaming beauty to themselves! No! it is treasured here! 'Twas mine alone!"

Thus murmured Lothario as he walked before the Queen's palace;

now pressing his hand to his heart; now pausing, and waving a white handkerckief in the direction of the royal dwelling. Suddenly, to his inexpressible delight, a gentleman, who had a short time before left a side-door of the palace, approached him.

"Good Heavens! there's a message for me!" exclaimed Lothario, in the greatest perturbation of spirit, as he thrust his handkerchief into his breast, and hastened to meet the fancied messenger of love.

The court emissary had a blue cloak on, which, thrown back on the shoulders, discovered a coat-collar much ornamented with silver lace.

"You may safely trust me," said Mr. Lacklove, coloring up to his eyes, which sparkled with delight; "I am the gentleman!"

"I know you are!" rejoined the cloaked stranger, producing a silver baton, and beckoning to three of his followers. Alas! for Lacklove, they were new policemen ! "We have been on the lookout for you. You would have thrown a nosegay into the Queen's carriage yesterday, only it fell in the mud. I've got the flowers; and now I've got you, my gentleman!"

The astonished Lacklove was for a while speechless; when he did make utterance, it was first to demand if the dignitary of police really had authority for what he was doing, and then to beseech that he might not be exposed in a certain public-office at Queen-square; but to this awful tribunal he was conveyed, and only discharged by the intervention of a friend at St. John's Wood, who became answerable for his good behaviour. Lacklove had dined with this obliging person, and, quite cured of his excessive loyalty to our sovereign lady Queen Victoria, was now evidently trying if chance and an omnibus had not happily thrown him in contact with a fair damsel who might supply the recently-formed hiatus in his affections.

This drew my attention towards two other passengers, who had taken possession of seats by my side, and were consequently the vis-à-vis of Mr. Lacklove. An elderly matron, of large proportions, clad in the many folds of a plum-colored silk dress, beshawled with scarlet English cachemire, her brown curly wig entrusted to the care of a black satin bonnet, there slept, unconscious of the rumbling conveyance. Deep as were her slumbers, the old lady imagined herself watchful for the especial guardianship of her daughter, a very pretty and expensively-dressed brunette, who, as if confiding in mama's protecting eye, had seemingly resigned herself to the influence of Somnus; but, in reality, was as wide awake as his cousin Mercury.

"I could a tale unfold" of Mrs. Browne! No! let the old woman sleep; I will not tell tales of her. But how has Mr. Lacklove made his insidious advances to the acquaintance of Miss Arabella Browne ? Even through the medium of his pliant foot; which, with gentle pressure, caressed the satin slipper of that young lady, whose full hazel orbs now opened to acknowledge the soft assault. One glance was enough. Miss Arabella looked so excessively marriagable that Lothario was alarmed at his imprudence.

"I beg you a thousand pardons, ma'am !" exclaimed he.

Luckless Mr. Lacklove! in his hurry to retreat from the advances so incautiously made, he at that moment drew the sharp sole of his shoe across the shin of the slumbering mama!

"Evens have mercy on me? What's cut my leg? screamed Mrs.

Browne as she bounced from her sleep. "Is it you, sir?" and she fixed her angry gaze on Lothario.

"I beg a thousand pardons !" reiterated that gentleman, quite appalled.

"What's the use of begging pardon? will that mend my leg ?"

"Very true ma'am," interrupted Mr. Burley Buskin; "in St. Domingo it is made capital to rap a native over his shins. Punished with death, ma'am! The negro can't stand it, ma'am !”

"Put me down! put me down!" said Mr. Wasteless Saverley; and the omnibus stopped.

There was a dispute about a bad sixpence.

"What am I to do with it, then?" remonstrated Mr. Saverley. "Do with it!" shouted the cad.

don't smash it upon me!"

66

Why, chuck it in the mud, but

The disappointed experimentalist produced the required legal coin of the realm. It was very annoying to his feelings; he had gone a mile out of his way home, on discovering that he had a bad sixpence, to pass it on the omnibus cad, that it might not be wasted!

"Why do you not drive on?" cried I to the conductor, who was impudently staring in at the door.

"Drive on! that's a pretty go, ain't it?" sneered the fellow. "Where shall I drive to?"

"You are an impertinent scoundrel!" said I in a rage; “and I appeal to these ladies and gentlemen!" I looked for my late companions, but they had flown; and mine own position was sufficiently curious. I was regularly embedded in the straw under the lamp at the extreme end of the omnibus!

"Come, come, old gen'lman! don't be calling names ! Come out of that, or I'll fetch you! You desarve three months on it for this, you do! It's a reg'lar act o' parliament that nobody's to sleep in the hopen hair; so don't be 'busive! I'm not to be gammoned !"

The cad seemed preparing to draw me, as a terrier draws a badger; so, in spite of my wonderment, I gathered myself up, and walked forth into open daylight.

"Wasen't this the last omnibus ?" said I.

"It's the last you comed out on!" grinned the cad most maliciously; "and one that I'm a going to clean for Jemmy Green to drive to the Elephant at eight o'clock. Why, bless your heart! it's been standing here all night. I see your honor's come to yourself now. Half-acrown won't be much for a night's lodgings!"

I gave the fellow his demand, and made the best of my way down the street. Happy was I when the laughter and jeers poured after me by the morning loungers, at the door of the Nightingale were lost in the distance? It was very odd! What strange visions my head had teemed with, when I was "in the straw," unconsciously making my bed in a "Conveyance Company's" omnibus !

THE NARRATIVE OF JOHN WARD GIBSON.

CHAPTER III.

(Continued from page 253, vol. ii. and unavoidably postponed in consequence of the Author's indisposition.)

WHEN I recall to memory the circumstances of that terrible night, I wonder that I did not, either by word or action, betray myself. I do not know-for I am no adept at the solution of moral questions-whether men are equally provided by nature with what is termed conscience; but I am certain that there are some who can not only conceal, but suppress it. It was not until many years afterwards, that I was made fully conscious of the enormity of my crime; and then conscience came too late, as it always does.

The child and myself were rescued from the burning ruins without having sustained any very serious injury; but Mrs. Steiner was so frightfully disfigured as to leave small hope of her recovery, and none of her ever regaining her former appearance. She was conveyed, in a state of insensibility, to the house of a neighbor, who had offered Bromley and his family a temporary asylum; and, when the fire was at length got under, I returned to my own lodging with the gratifying conviction that the chief portion of the most valuable property was destroyed.

It is indeed true, that far from feeling any compunction for the sin I had committed, I gloried in its consummation. They who had so often sneered at my dependent condition, who had made their superiority of circumstances a ground for the assumption of superiority in all other points, to have brought them at last to my own level, it was something. Whilst I confess this, I must, in justice to myself, mention that I was not at the time aware of the dangerous condition of Mrs. Steiner, but concluded that in a few days she would be restored. I was, at least, willing to believe so.

But when the sense of satisfied vengeance began to abate, a feeling of considerable anxiety with regard to myself, and the conduct I ought to pursue, occupied its place. Was it likely-was it possible that they would suspect me? there was no evidence or rather, was there any? -that could convict me. It now occurred to me that I had not taken all such precautions against detection as, the act once committed, my fears pointed out as necessary. And yet, hitherto, I had shown myself a proficient in the duplicity which they had taught me to practise. But now, a comfortable reflection presented itself; I was even man enough to imagine that I saw the immediate agency of Providence in the accident which had prevented Mrs. Steiner and the child from leaving London on that evening. The exertions I had made to save them must furnish, at once, eonclusive testimony of my innocence: I had nothing to fear from calumny or malicious conjecture. In that certainty I hugged myself, and towards day-break fell into a sound and refreshing sleep, from which I did not awake until noon.

And yet, notwithstanding the state of composure to which I had succeeded in bringing myself, I felt that it would be necessary to attach myself to Bromley as closely as possible; lest, during my absence, his own thoughts, or the whispered surmises of others, should breed suspi

cion against me. I arose, therefore, and proceeded to his temporary lodging.

I found him, as I expected, surrounded by his neighbors and friends, the majority of whom very liberally offered the old man such assistance as is to be extracted from advice. Far from seizing the opportunity, when we were alone, of indulging a vulgar triumph at his expense, I endeavored to soothe and to console him, to cheer him and to raise his spirits; reminding him (I could not forbear that one luxury) that there was no situation in life that honest industry could not render respectable; that, although this calamity had befallen him, he might yet, late as it was, recover himself, and eventually raise up for himself kind and attached friends-as I had done.

I uttered these last words in a sufficiently marked and emphatic manner; and yet Bromley felt them not, or did not appear to heed them. Indeed, he seemed, as yet, hardly conscious of the extent of his misfortune; merely expressing great anxiety for Steiner's return, as though that event were the only matter to be thought about. His manner to me was as cold, distant, and supercilious as before. I knew, however, that this apathy could not last long,—that the truth must soon find its level; and I was perfectly content to wait till it did do so.

If I had not, long ago, acquired an ingenuity in forging palliations and excuses upon my own heart, I should have been overwhelmed with remorse and horror when the dreadful situation of Mrs. Steiner was made known to me. As it was, I felt deeply shocked; but not more so, I endeavored to make myself believe, than I should have been, had she suffered in other circumstances: I was innocent of this-I strove to think so; because I had not contemplated it. I argued the case too much with my own mind to have been right.

However this might be, I was much relieved to hear, about a month afterwards, that she was out of danger; but it was added, she was so shockingly altered that I should not recognise her. I was not much concerned at this: I had no wish to perpetuate the memory of a face that had so often looked upon me with undeserved contempt and scorn; and I had ceased to feel the slightest interest in the fate of a person who, owing probably her own life and that of the child to my exertions, had not even repaid me by the common gratitude of acknowledgment. But to return.

During three days that succeeded the fire, I was almost constantly employed in Bromley's business; by which time, a tolerable estimate was completed of the extent of his misfortune. The intervals of my leisure were occupied with the old man; and many occasions were afforded me of watching the gradual operation of the truth, as it silently and surely made its way to his heart. At first the melancholy state of his daughter was his chief, if not sole affliction; next, the absence of Steiner was deplored; until, at length, the one cala. mity, the irreparable loss, extending over the future, lay clearly be fore him. I, too, could see as clearly that my vengeance had been amply fulfilled; and I was satisfied.

Oh! it was a humiliating spectacle to witness the abject creature lamenting the downfal of the base image he had set up, and craving pity on a plea whose validity he had so often denied. He was once more to become one of those who "prey upon the middle classes,”it was his favorite expression,-for he had no longer "a capital;"