culate their known tempers, and tell others or ourselves, not without a chuckle, They will scratch and bite some day. Novel readers are put into this position by stealing the contents of the last chapter. It is fit that the writer should protest against it now and then, as it will make them contemn, or, if generous, pity his poor little people, at a time when neither pity nor contempt is the right kind of feeling towards them. Meanwhile, I do not despair of seeing the photographic preventive realized. We are going to give up metaphysics, morals, theology, and all such lumber, and inaugurate the era of positive science. It is merely to analyse the chemistry of an earnest look, and the thing is done. If any one is experimenting in this line I shall be happy to communicate with him. Everybody can see that it is a much more hopeful and effective method than that ridiculous and exploded notion of the metaphysicians and moralists, self-restraint. I shall shortly be able to prove, by incontrovertible tables of statistics, that it is the nature of man in general, and woman too, to look at the last chapter of a book before they have read the first. It was nearly two months before the young maiden could be tempted into the undertaking of a third trial, although, with the whole company of unattached Pythagoreans, she religiously believed that a sacred, mysterious, and determining property belonged to the number Three. During the interval betwixt the 1st of May and the 24th of June, midsummer day, she saw Mr. Obadiah very many times. And she was compelled, in spite of his plain face, in spite of her resolute vow, in spite of her daily assertions in open places that he was an ugly disagreeable oaf, to confess in secret that he had something mighty pleasant about him, and that when he was telling a story he even looked a little handsome. He had walked from church and from market with her two or three evenings during this period. On each of these occasions she set her whole mind to push back any encroachments he might take upon himself to offer, to crush any delusions his pride might feed him withal, by being as stern and silent VOL. XXVII. as she could without open rudeness. Mr. Obadiah talked about serious things; she was cold and stiff. He made a little play of jokes, stories, puns; Dorothea would not see any point or wit in one of them. But the unconquerable Obadiah kept up his vivacity and resolution, and by the time he had discharged a few more of his pleasant weapons, Dorothea was laughing at each successive volley with all her might and main. Her merry nature broke up through the crust she was forcing it down with, and when once it found itself free, in its reconsciousness of liberty she forgot all restraints. I do not undertake to declare whether, after they had said good-night' on such occasions, Obadiah concluded he had made any decided progress. This is certain, that on each fresh opportunity of private talk, he found every inch of that virgin's heart unconquered land, and he had to battle again, even for so much sympathy as permits a community in merriment. On the feast of Saint John the Baptist, Midsummer morning, came her young friend Mary, who shared in her last endeavour, with a suggestion that they should put in trial that ancient and effectual way of discovering future wives and husbands, whereof any of us may avail ourselves when the full moon and the feast of the Baptist bless the year together. It so chanced that in the evening Obadiah came to chat and sup with Mr. Coolboy. Now Dorothea had really felt certain gentle meltings towards him as she had pressed her pillow the last few nights. She happened to overhear him in conversation with one of the old men at the almshouses as she was passing by; and his voice being loud and trumpet-like, and she having dropped to a snail-like walk in order to hear, and he being unconscious she was near the place, she gained a picture of one of Obadiah's doings which made her say to herself, as it rose before her again and again in the course of the day, 'He is very good.' The old pensioner had two grandchildren, but no child; and it seems that when Mr. Obadiah came into his money he not only began to wear a wig, but he also apprenticed the elder of these orphans to a good S master, and kept the younger at school. This information about Obadiah, so stealthily won, began to act stealthily. A little traitor and spy in the soft heart which had received it, incessantly whispered treasons and hints of capitulation to its mistress. Dorothea listened to it, but laughed at it. But to laugh in such matters is to begin to lose. She must turn round, trample on it, forbid it, drive it away if she wishes to be free. Instead of which the imprudent maiden permitted Mary to taunt her playfully as Mrs. Obadiah; and only, out of twenty times, resented and forbid it ten. On ordinary nights, the house of Coolboy went to bed at nine. But eleven o'clock had chimed from the village church, and Mr. Coolboy, Obadiah, and the two sons of Widow Maynard were still smoking vigorously, and toasting the memory of King Charles, King James the Third, and His Royal Highness the Prince Charles Edward, to their hearts' content, free from the terror of King's messengers and Tyburn Hill; and determining, without the inconvenience of contradiction, that when the King came to his own again, the farmers of Nottinghamshire would reap golden guineas with the golden corn. Mrs. Coolboy was fast asleep. The merry maids were much more concerned about their own special kings than the kings of their country. They quietly stole out whilst the absorption and excitement of politics was blinding the eyes of the four agriculturists to everything that was going on around them. For not only did the maidens escape undetected, but Mr. Obadiah's great dog was not detected polishing off a huge portion of mutton, until his angry efforts to get the shreds from the bone he had utterly stripped made a music on the bricks which awoke the nodding house-mother. The young ladies observed as they set out that they considered politics one of the most unpractical and senseless things that persons could trouble themselves about. For if one gets a good husband, who is handsome, and loving, and rich, one would not be teasing one's-self whether George or James is king,' said Dorothea. "I should think not,' added Mary; and I know if my lord and master was to beat me, or forsake me, or be cold to me, it would heal no bones and bring no peace to remember that the right king was in the right place.' And many other pertinent observations of this nature passed between them, and helped to shorten the way to the old stile of Widow Maynard's nutwood. And now they are arrived there they must be very silent. For if they speak anything besides the invocation, or to any one besides the moon, from the time they touch the stile until they fall asleep, they will be given no revelation in the visions of this night. A Dorothea, being the quicker and more firm-footed of the two, was standing on the topmost rail in an instant, and gave her hand to help Mary up. The unfortunate girl slipped, and slipping dragged down her friend. noise arose in each throat. Though no grammarians or philologists, each of them began speculating whether this noise were an interjection or no; and if an interjection, a word; and to whom the interjection was spoken, and whether that which is spoken to no one breaks the rule of silence. Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos, be kind! O Moiræ, just once be kind! Let not this gurgle develop into a word.' So they inwardly prayed to whatsoever being or thing represented for themselves the three severe sisters. the Fates having either gone to sleep, or got the earache, or a touch of deafness from exceeding great age, did not develop their stifled articulations into words. '0 And The maidens carefully remounted. They kept up, by the way, a very eloquent and comprehensible kind of speech, with their eyebrows, their forefingers, and with sly nods. Mary seized a hazel twig to stay herself, and Dorothea began in a clear ringing voice to chant the invocation following : All hail to thee, Moon! All hail to thee! Note, if you please, that this incantation is an ethnic one. Mayday had given the Christian charm its opportunity; and, in turn, the Christian charm had given Dorothea, Obadiah or nobody.' It was now fair to allow the heathen its turn, and to see if it I would promise anything better. politely insulting, the clergy. Compare priests to women, and expose as many weaknesses in the clerical folk as we conceal in the lay folk, and we shall be considered as profound and analytic, perchance, as Mr. Thackeray. The young ladies had to repeat their incantation the orthodox thrice. They both firmly looked the moon in the face as they chanted, and the man in the moon looked them in the face with that cool imperturbable gaze of his-he was too polite, or too immoveable, to wink at their absurdity. But they had also two sublunary spectators. Obadiah was at the further end of the field, and perceiving two black spokes, as it were, rising above the stile, he took them for young trees, which the woodman had cut down in the daytime, placed there, and forgotten to remove. The curate was coming along through the nutwood, alternately whistling and humming snatches of one song. Gentle sounds caught his ears; he stopped still; he saw the dark figures, and heard the third repetition of the chant. 'All hail to thee, Moon! All hail to thee! I pray thee, good Moon, reveal to me This night who shall my lover be.' What sensitive and unattached young man could have listened to this significant duet unmoved! The curate hurried towards the stile to discover which of his flock were so anxious for early insight into their coming bane or blessing. But he, poor fellow, was as ignorant of the remaining necessities of this ritual, as these two young ladies were as to which side of the altar the epistler should stand, and which side the gospeller, and whether the celebrant should read the first or second lesson, or both, or neither, when there were two priests to say matins, litany, the communionoffice, and to preach. When he arrived at the stile, he found no one there. For when their single.speech I have no doubt that this appears was over, the maidens had sprung very uncalled for. But as an eccle- down, and began running speedily siastical personage is not very far from across the field. Dorothea was first, us just now, perhaps it will be for- and Mary some way behind, being given. We can tell him that we are stouter, shorter legged, and less agile. weekday preachers,' and so on, and But Mary suddenly found herself side covertly insinuate our evident supe- by side with her friend again; the riority to the poor Sunday ones. One latter (heedless and eager damsel!) had feels brave after patronizing, or come to unexpected anchorage in Mr. Obadiah's open arms. Mary did not stay; she suppressed her laughter, a few short, sharp, guttural catches only escaping and she left Dorothea to solve and explain herself as best she could under the conditions of selfimposed dumbness. Mr. Obadiah never found himself in a situation so delightful and so difficult in his whole life. He felt a violent increase of the love he had long nourished and put aside, given up and taken again, keeping sometimes, as it were, merely on a shelf near his heart, and sometimes reaching it down, and receiving it in the inmost corner of his heart itself; wherein it was very surely lodged, as he felt her breath upon his face, and as she struggled and writhed to get away. He told her, therefore, how delighted he was to have her all alone, and how long he had desired to find her so. She went on struggling to escape. He held her a little tighter, but put as much reverence as determination in his grasp, for he felt the action had a little show of outrage on her maiden liberty; though, in case of her asserting this, he had the pleasant justification upon his lips, that he had not seized her, but that she had run right into his arms. He inquired very tenderly, and with the due proportion of upbraiding in his tone, why she had run away from him who only came to the house to see her who was the summer and sunshine of his soul. She remained dumb. He asked her if he was quite an indifferent object to her; if she would give him just a little hope to feed upon. She gave no answer. He put his lips down to her hands, and kissed them very tenderly. She writhed round and round. He would have kissed her cheek; he had just prepared her for it, by saying that silence implies consent,' when he heard a decided footfall upon the path, and looking up, saw a black figure in a long dress moving towards them it was evidently the young priest in his cassock. He loosed Miss Dorothy in an instant, bidding her good-night in a very affectionate and loverlike tone. She answered him not a word, nor even a nod, but tore off with the rapidity and delight of newly experi enced freedom. Arrived at home, she put up a finger of silence at her guardians, kissed them very warmly, laughed, and rushed up to bed, leaving the kind couple in no little amazement. Her earliest thought when she felt the sunshine upon her bed the next morning, was that it must be full time to arise; her second thought was the remembrance of the serious and eventful purpose in which she had laid down overnight. So she began to collect her dreams, to look for her husband. She found she had had no good, honest, clear, decisive dream. She had seen all her lovers, and many also who cared not a pin for her, standing on each other's shoulders, running races together, rolling in and out amongst a crowd, like maggots in a cheese. But she did not possess one single definite indication by which she could select the happy man from the general tangle; and so she began complaining to herself that the elect gentleman did not wear a bow or ribbon, or have a broad yellow nimbus around his head, like Saint Catherine in the chancel window. And here I will let the reader into one of those little secrets which are whispered to pillows. Her thoughts were running upon Obadiah's raid, in that trancelike isthmus between awake and asleep. She thought his lips were soft. She thought his voice was very fine and manly. She thought his determined control very pleasant, for if he could control her, he could defend. She thought he handled her with an awful respect and delicacy, as if she was something very rare and precious. But the curate was better-looking. Now, whomsoever she dreamt of this night, was certain to be her future husband; for she had fulfilled to every iota the time-tried conditions of the divination. But whomsoever we think of last just before dropping to sleep, we are sure to dream about, she said. So she made a quiet pact with her thoughts, to keep them steadily fixed upon the wearer of the cassock. This was so presumptuous an attempt on the part of a young maiden, that, I confess, it staggers me to record it. It was no less than the taking wool, spindle, shears, and everything, out of the hands of the immoveable ancient maidens who kept the very gods themselves in order, with their stinging ferulas and severe decrees, and whom no being above, below, or on, the old ethnic world, could ever bribe. Our Dorothy merely wanted to outwit them; to catch them napping just to play fate a trick; to be beforehand with destiny. She meant, not only to take that tide in the affairs of women, which, taken at the flood, leads on to a husband; she intended to make that tide. And this is the explanation of the appearance of the curate in her dream; as for the mob of other possible husbands, they were pushed in by the fates to confound her impiety, and make a mock of her prescience. ESSAY THE FOURTH. Dorothea attempted no other divination in that year. Pardon me, I should say, according to the new style. For those fast months, January and February, had not yet jumped from the rear of one year to the van of the next; in our heroine's days people were divided as to their due position, and they had the honour of being included in both the departing and the coming year. On the 14th of February, dedicated to Bishop Valentine, she performed her fourth and final piece of sorcery. Now, Cicero says, in his second book of Divination, that divinatio is the faculty by which man reads and sees into such signs as the gods cast in his way. There may be, therefore, so sober folks incline to think, a kind of natural divination from everyday signs, by the studying whereof we are quite as likely to arrive at the intentions of the immortals towards us, as by any specific charms, omens, tricks, and rituals; indeed, M. de Positif says, more likely. The only phenomena we can depend on lie about us; the path of true progress is by positive colligation of facts, by the questioning and examination of nature; with many other wise saws, which I will not utter, as they mean mainly, that what is in your hand is in your hand, and what is not in it, is not. All this I most heartily believe; and, consequently, I rather wonder, that after all the stirring of bosom she underwent during the eight months elapsing between Midsummer and Saint Valentine, she should find it necessary to resort again to the diviners. For just listen to a few of the prodigia witnessed during those months, and I am sure, gentle or rough reader, you are Haruspex or augur enough to interpret them without the help of a supernatural revelation. Four moonlight evenings in July Dorothea was met in the lanes with no companion but Obadiah. In the beginning of August he was caught reading a volume of miscellany poems to her beside the brook, two miles from the Coolboys', and the reporter said his arm was round her waist; but that may not be true. In September, they were perceived leaning their heads together much closer than was needful for the turning over of loose wheat, the idle presumption for their proximity. In October they came home together from the goose fair, and neighbours who returned with them brought significant gossip concerning their beha viour when away from teasers and merrymakers. In November, Mrs. Coolboy, coming in very gently, saw Mr. Obadiah kiss Miss Dorothea as they were sitting together before the blazing wood fire, and did not see her box his ears, or resent it in any other proper manner. These touchings of the lips were more frequent and less hidden in December and January. Really the most dependible kind of omen was that supplied by the acts, looks, and sayings of the young lady herself. Nevertheless, as every one else put their fate matrimonial into the rack and thumbscrew on the night of the Bishop of Hearts, Dorothy consented to place hers. A large company assembled at the Coolboys'. All the people whose names have been introduced into this little history, were there, and many more besides. All the sweet and strong drinks (Obadiah had even gone to Nottingham for some tea), all the pleasant meats which the county and Mr. Coolboy's farm could |