however, I almost forgot when I received the honorarium (three guineas) for my little paper. It seemed to me that fame and fortune had both opened wide their gates to me at once. A lady novelist has written rapturously of the feelings that were aroused within her by the first kiss from her beloved object, though he was but a Detrimental; I felt like her, with the additional satisfaction of believing myself to have made an excellent match. : The first question that occurred to me was, What should I do with the money? It was a sum too small to invest, and too sacred to be frittered away in the end I bought a pig with it. This requires a note of explanation. In Devonshire there are no pigs worthy of the name, only a kind of dog with a pigskin on ita circumstance which much distressed my tutor, who was a judge of pigs, and admired them exceedingly. Accordingly, when I returned after my next vacation, I bought him a genuine specimen of the animal from Berkshire. Though country born and country bred, I was always extremely ignorant of country matters: a fine landscape delighted me, yet I scarcely knew an ash from an elm; and though I liked animals, I did so as a child likes them, without knowledge of their habits. To this day one of my objections to visiting at country houses is that so many of their owners compel one to feel an interest in their horses and cattle. Perhaps you would like to see the stables,' &c. All that I have always hated, and of course I knew nothing about pigs. The animal in question was chosen for me by an expert, and he (the animal) accompanied me, in a large hamper, by train to Devonshire. It was a very hot day in August, and it struck me, as I got out at Bristol for some liquid refreshment, that the poor pig must be thirsty too. I am now aware that it was an error in judgment, but it arose from a natural tenderness of heart. We had ten minutes to wait, but it was with some difficulty that I obtained the services of a porter for this (probably unique) performance. The station was in a state of great confusion; two excursion trains had come in, and there was a cattle market below stairs, he told me. However, we got my hamper and took it down in the lift to an unoccupied apartment; my four-footed friend never uttered a sound during this process—he was either dazed with unwonted travel, or preparing himself for some coming struggle; but I regarded him with the tenderest sympathy, believing him to be half dead with heat and drought. The porter procured a pan of water, and then proceeded to open the hamper. What took place next I cannot describe, for it happened in a mere flash of time: there was a cry of panic, rage, and fear-a squeal is no word for it—a broken pan, a prostrate porter, and a mad pig gone! If the door had been closed, he would without doubt have bitten us both, but fortunately the man had left it open. The next moment the creature was in the market-the 'open market,' as it is called but altogether out of my reach. He had joined a great band of pigs, though the owner denied it, and identification was out of the question. Such was the fate of the pecuniary proceeds of my first article. In other respects, however, it was more fortunate; it made some little stir in the periodical world, and even in one region which may be fairly said to be remote from it. It came under the notice of the governor of the Woolwich Academy, who wrote to Dickens upon the subject, with some acerbity. When the faults of any educational establishment are indicated, I have always noticed that he who points them out is the subject of one of two kinds of attack. 1. If he has been there in person he ought to be ashamed of himself for suggesting that it falls short of perfection; he is a bird that fouls its own nest. 2. If by some slight inaccuracy of detail he betrays that he has received his information at second hand, then he knows nothing about it. 'If your correspondent had been a cadet himself,' wrote the general, I should not have addressed you, but it is clear to me that he is an outsider.' A courteous reply informed him that the writer of the article had been a cadet, on which the governorevidently still in doubt--demanded his name. This was a course which, unless he had reason to believe he had been wilfully deceived, Charles Dickens was the last man to adopt, with respect to any contributor, without permission, and he wrote to me to ask it. It was the first of many letters that I have received from that kind and gracious hand, but none have given me so exquisite a pleasure. I was fortunately able to reply to his communication in a manner that not only satisfied himself, but the irascible general; and thus began an acquaintance which presently ripened into friendship, none the less sincere though the obligations in connection with it were, from first to last, all on one side. VISITS OF CEREMONY. M R. LANGTON, on being informed that Mark Ashburn proposed to become his sonin-law, took a painfully prosaic view of the matter: 'I can quite understand the fascination of a literary career to a young man,' he had observed to Mark in the course of a trying interview; indeed, when I was younger I was frequently suspected myself of contributing to "Punch;" but I always saw where that would lead me, and, as a matter of fact, I never did indulge my inclinations in that direction,' he added, with the complacency of a St. Anthony. 'And the fact is, I wish my son-in-law to have a more assured position: you see, at present you have only written one bookoh, I am quite aware that "Illusion " was well received-remarkably so, indeed; but then it remains to be proved whether you can follow up your success, and-and, in short, while that is uncertain I can't consent to any engagement; you really must not ask me to do so.' And in this determination he was firm for some time, even though secretly impressed on hearing of the sum for which Mark had already disposed of his forth coming novel, and which represented, indeed, a very fair year's income. It was Uncle Solomon, after all, that proved the heavy piece of ordnance which turned the position at the crisis; he was flattered when his nephew took him into his confidence, and pleased that he should have looked so high,' which motives combined to induce him to offer his influence. It was a somewhat desperate remedy, and Mark had his doubts of the impression likely to be produced by such a relative, but it worked unexpectedly well. Mr. Lightowler was too cautious to commit himself to any definite promise, but he made it abundantly clear that he was a 'warm' man, and that Mark was his favourite nephew, for whom he was doing something as it was, and might do more if he continued to behave himself. After the interview in which this was ascertained, Mr. Langton began to think that his daughter might do worse than marry this young Ashburn after all. Mrs. Langton had liked Mark from the first in her languid way, and the fact that he had 'expectations' decided her to support his cause; he was not a brilliant parti, of course, but at least he was more eligible than the young men who had been exciting her maternal alarm of late. And under her grandfather's will Mabel would be entitled on her marriage or coming of age to a sum which would keep her in comfort whatever happened. All these considerations had their effect, and Mr. Langton, seeing how deeply his daughter's heart was concerned, withdrew his opposition, and even allowed himself to be persuaded that there was no reason for a long engagement, and that the marriage might be fixed to take place early in the following spring. He only made two stipulations: one, that Mark should insure his life in the usual manner; and the other, that he should abandon his nom de plume at once, and in the next edition of Illusion,' and in all future writings, use the name which was his by birth. 'I don't like aliases,' he said; if you win a reputation, it seems to me your wife and family should have the benefit of it;' and Mark agreed to both conditions with equal cheerfulness. Mr. Humpage, as may be imagined, was not best pleased to hear of the engagement; he wrote a letter of solemn warning to Mabel and her father, and this being disregarded, he nursed his resentment in offended silence. If Harold Caffyn was polite enough when in his uncle's company to affect to share his indignation to the full, elsewhere he accepted Mark's good fortune with cheerful indifference; he could meet Mabel with perfect equanimity, and listen to her mother's somewhat discursive eulogies of her future son-in-law with patience, if not entire assent. Since his autumn visit to the Featherstones, there had been changes in his position which may have been enough to account for his philosophy; he had gained the merchant's good opinion to such an extent that the latter, in defiance of his wife's cautions, had taken the unusual step of proposing that the young actor should give up the stage and occupy a recently vacated desk in Mr. Featherstone's own palatial City offices. Even if his stage ambition had not cooled long since, Caffyn was not the man to neglect such a chance as this; he accepted gratefully, and already the merchant saw his selection, unlikely as it had seemed at first, beginning to be justified by his protégé's clear head and command of languages, while Gilda's satisfaction at the change was at least equal to her father's. And so, whether Harold was softened by his own prosperity, and whether other hopes or distractions came between him and his former passion for revenge, he remained impassive throughout all the preparations for a marriage which he could have prevented had he chosen. At Triberg the thought that Mark (who had, as he considered, been the chief means of ruining his hopes of Mabel) was to be his successful rival had for an instant revived the old spirit; but now he could face the fact with positive contentment, and his feeling towards Mark was rather one of contemptuous amusement than of any actual hostility. Mark's introduction of Mabel to his family had not been altogether a success; he regretted that he had carelessly forgotten to prepare them for his visit as soon as he pulled the bell-handle by the gate, and caught a glimpse of scared faces at one or two of the windows, followed by sounds from within of wild scurry and confusion-like a lot of confounded rabbits!' he thought to himself in disgust. Then they had been kept waiting in a chilly little drawing-room, containing an assortment of atrocities in glass, china, worsted, and wax, until Mark moved restlessly about in his nervous irritation, and Mabel felt her heart sink in spite of her love; she had not expected to find Mark's people in luxurious surroundings, but she was unprepared for anything quite so hideous as that room. When Mrs. Ashburn, who had felt that this was an occasion for some attention to toilette, made her appearance, it was hardly a reassuring one: she was not exactly vulgar perhaps, but she was hard, Mabel thought, narrow and ungenial; but the fact was that the consciousness of having been |