her other hand slowly along its border, till they reached the opposite extremity-She sobbed aloud: "So kind a lady !" said Beatrice Grey." So excellent a wife!" responded Sir Guy.-" So good!" said the damsel.-" So dear!" said the knight.-"So pious!" said she.-" So humble!" said he.-" So good to the poor !"-"So capital a manager!"-"So punctual at matins !"-"Dinner dished to a moment!"- "So devout!" said Beatrice.-" So fond of me!" said Sir Guy." And of Father Francis !"-"What the devil do you mean by that?" said Sir Guy de Montgomeri.

The knight and the maiden had rung their antiphonic changes on the fine qualities of the departing lady, like the Strophe and Antistrophe of a Greek play. The cardinal virtues once disposed of, her minor excellencies came under review :-She would drown a witch, drink lambswool at Christmas, beg Dominie Dumps's boys a holiday, and dine upon sprats on Good Friday !-A low moan from the subject of these eulogies would intimate that the enumeration of her good deeds was not altogether lost on her, that the parting spirit felt and rejoiced in the testimony.

"She was too good for earth!" continued Sir Guy. "Ye-Ye-Yes!" sobbed Beatrice.

I did not deserve her!" said the Knight.

"No-0-0-0!" cried the damsel.

"Not but that I made her an excellent husband, and a kind; but she is going, and-and-where, or when, or how-shall I get such another ?"

"Not in broad England, not in the whole wide world!" responded Beatrice Grey; "that is, not just such another !"-Her voice still faltered, but her accents on the whole were more articulate; she dropped the corner of her apron, and had recourse to her handkerchief; in fact, her eyes were getting red, and so was the tip of her nose.

Sir Guy was silent; he gazed for a few moments steadfastly on the face of his lady. The single word "Another!" fell from his lips like a distant echo ;-it is not often that the viewless nymph repeats more than is absolutely necessary.

"Bim! bome!" went the bell.-Bandy-legged Hubert had been tolling for half an hour;-he began to grow tired, and St. Peter fidgety.

"Beatrice Grey!" said Sir Guy de Montgomeri, "what's to be done? what's to become of Montgomeri Hall?—and the buttery,and the servants? and what-what's to become of me, Beatrice Grey?"-There was pathos in his tones; and a solemn pause succeeded. "I'll turn Monk myself!" said Sir Guy.

"Monk!" said Beatrice.

"I'll be a Carthusian!" repeated the knight, but in a tone less assured he relapsed into a reverie.-Shave his head!-he did not so much mind that, he was getting rather bald already; but, beans for dinner, and those without butter,-and then a horse-hair shirt! The knight seemed undecided: his eye roamed gloomily round the apartment, paused upon different objects, but as if it saw them not; its sense was shut, and there was no speculation in its glance: it rested at last upon the fair face of the sympathizing damsel at his side, beautiful in her grief.

Her tears had ceased; but her eyes were cast down, and mournfully fixed upon her delicate little foot, which was beating the devil's tattoo.

VOL. III.

H

There is no talking to a female when she does not look at you. Sir Guy turned round,—he seated himself on the edge of the bed, and, placing his hand beneath the chin of the lady, turned up her face in an angle of fifteen degrees.

"I don't think I shall take the vows, Beatrice; but what's to become of me? Poor, miserable, old,—that is, poor, middle-aged man that I am!-No one to comfort, no one to care for me!"-Beatrice's tears flowed afresh, but she opened not her lips. "'Pon my life!" continued he, "I don't believe there is a creature now would care a button if I were hanged to-morrow!"

"Oh! don't say so, Sir Guy!" sighed Beatrice; " you know there's -there's Master Everard, and-and Father Francis-"

"Pish!” cried Sir Guy testily.

"And-and there's your favourite old bitch!"

"I am not thinking of old bitches!" said Sir Guy de Montgomeri. Another pause ensued: the Knight had released her chin, and taken her hand; it was a pretty little hand, with long taper fingers, and filbert-formed nails, and the softness of the palm said little for its owner's industry.

"Sit down, my dear Beatrice," said the Knight thoughtfully; "you must be fatigued with your long watching; take a seat, my child." Sir Guy did not relinquish her hand; but he sidled along the counterpane, and made room for his companion between himself and the bed-post.

Now this is a very awkward position for two people to be placed in, especially when the right hand of the one holds the right hand of the other: in such an attitude, what the deuce can the gentleman do with his left? Sir Guy closed his till it became an absolute fist, and his knuckles rested on the bed a little in the rear of his companion. "Another!" repeated Sir Guy, musing; "if indeed I could find such another!" He was talking to his thought, but Beatrice Grey answered him.

"There's Madam Fitzfoozle!"

"A frump!" said Sir Guy.
"Or the Lady Bumbarton."
"With her hump!" muttered he.
"There's the Dowager-"

"Stop-stop!" said the knight, "stop one moment !"-He paused; he was all on the tremble; something seemed rising in his throat, but he gave a great gulp, and swallowed it. "Beatrice," said he, " what think you of-" his voice sank into a most seductive softness, -" what think you of-Beatrice Grey?"

The murder was out:-the Knight felt infinitely relieved; the knuckles of his left hand unclosed spontaneously, and the arm he had felt such a difficulty in disposing of, found itself, nobody knows how, all at once encircling the jimp waist of the pretty Beatrice.

The young lady's reply was expressed in three syllables. They were, "Oh, Sir Guy!"-The words might be somewhat indefinite, but there was no mistaking the look. Their eyes met; Sir Guy's left arm contracted itself spasmodically: when the eyes meet,-at least, as theirs met, the lips are very apt to follow the example. The knight had taken one long, loving kiss-nectar and ambrosia ! He thought on Doctor Butts and his Repetatur haustus,-a prescription Father Francis had taken infinite pains to translate for him :he was about to repeat it, but the dose was interrupted in transitu.

Doubtless the adage

"There is many a slip

"Twixt the cup and the lip,"

hath reference to medicine. Sir Guy's lip was again all but in conjunction with that of his bride elect.

It has been hinted already that there was a little round polished patch on the summit of the knight's pericranium, from which his locks had gradually receded; a sort of oasis,—or rather a Mont Blanc in miniature, rising above the highest point of vegetation. It was on this little spot, undefended alike by Art and Nature, that at this interesting moment a blow descended, such as we must borrow a term from the Sister Island adequately to describe, it was a "Whack !"

Sir Guy started upon his feet; Beatrice Grey started upon hers; but a single glance to the rear reversed her position,-she fell upon her knees and screamed.

The Knight, too, wheeled about, and beheld a sight which might have turned a bolder man to stone. It was She!-the all but defunct Rohesia, there she sat, bolt upright! Her eyes no longer glazed with the film of impending dissolution, but scintillating like flint and steel; while in her hand she grasped the bed-staff, -a weapon of mickle might, as her husband's bloody coxcomb could now well testify. Words were yet wanting, for the quinsey, which her rage had broken, still impeded her utterance; but the strength and rapidity of her guttural intonations augured well for her future eloquence.

Sir Guy de Montgomeri stood for a while like a man distraught; this resurrection-for such it seemed-had quite overpowered him. "A husband ofttimes makes the best physician," says the proverb; he was a living personification of its truth. Still it was whispered he had been content with Doctor Butts, but his lady was restored to bless him for many years.-Heavens, what a life he led!

The Lady Rohesia mended apace; her quinsey was cured; the bell was stopped, and little Hubert, the Sacristan, kicked out of the chapelry; St. Peter opened his wicket, and looked out. There was nobody there; so he flung-to the gate in a passion, and went back to his lodge, grumbling at being hoaxed by a runaway ring.

Years rolled on. The improvement of Lady Rohesia's temper did not keep pace with that of her health; and, one fine morning, Sir Guy de Montgomeri was seen to enter the porte cochère of Durham House, at that time the town residence of Sir Walter Raleigh. Nothing more was ever heard of him; but a boat full of adventurers was known to have dropped down with the tide that evening to Deptford Hope, where lay the good ship, the Darling, commanded by Captain Keymis, who sailed next morning on the Virginia voyage.

A brass plate, some eighteen inches long, may yet be seen in Denton chancel, let into a broad slab of Bethersden marble; it represents a lady kneeling, in her wimple and hood; her hands are clasped in prayer, and beneath is an inscription in the characters of the age, “Praie for yo sowle of ye Ladye Ropse, And for alle Christen sowles !"

The date is illegible; but it appears that she lived at least till Elizabeth's time, and that the dissolution of monasteries had lost St. Mary Rouncival her thousand marks.-As for Beatrice Grey, it is well known that she was living in 1588, and then had virginity enough left to be a Maid of Honour to "good Queen Bess."

100

THE TEMPTATIONS OF ST. ANTHONY.

ILLUSTRATED BY GEORGE CRUIKSHANK.

"He would have passed a pleasant life of it, in despite of the devil and all his works, if his path had not been crossed by a being that causes more perplexity to mortal man than ghosts, goblins, and the whole race of witches put together, and that was a woman."-Sketch-Book.

ST. ANTHONY sat on a lowly stool,

And a book was in his hand;
Never his eye from its page he took,
Either to right or left to look,

But with steadfast soul, as was his rule,

The holy page he scauned.

"We will woo," said the imp, "St. Anthony's eyes

Off from his holy book:

We will go to him all in strange disguise,

And tease him with laughter, whoops, and cries,

That he upon us may look.”

The Devil was in the best humour that day
That ever his highness was in:

And that's why he sent out his imps to play,
And he furnished them torches to light their way,
Nor stinted them incense to burn as they may,-
Sulphur, and pitch, and rosin.

So they came to the Saint in a motley crew,
A heterogeneous rout:

There were imps of every shape and hue,

And some looked black, and some looked blue,
And they passed and varied before the view,
And twisted themselves about:

And had they exhibited thus to you,

I think you'd have felt in a bit of a stew,-
Or so should myself, I doubt.

There were some with feathers, and some with scales,

And some with warty skins;

Some had not heads, and some had tails,

And some had claws like iron nails;

And some had combs and beaks like birds,
And yet, like jays, could utter words;
And some had gills and fins.

Some rode on skeleton beasts, arrayed
In gold and velvet stuff,
With rich tiaras on the head,

Like kings and queens among the dead;
While face and bridle-hand, display'd,
In hue and substance seemed to cope
With maggots in a microscope,
And their thin lips, as white as soap,
Were colder than enough.

And spiders big from the ceiling hung,

From every creek and nook:

They had a crafty, ugly guise,

And looked at the Saint with their eight eyes;

And all that malice could devise

Of evil to the good and wise

Seemed welling from their look.