which she felt for Moranbert. I related to him what had taken place at the house of the latter; and amongst the signs of anger, grief, and in lignation which escaped him, it was not difficult to discover something like satisfaction at no reconciliation having taken place. Such is mankind, even the best of the species. In consequence of the scene here described, Mademoiselle Gellimert was affected with a long and dangerous malady, during which the generous and devoted Doctor watched over her more assiduously than he would have watched over the first woman in France. While the danger was imminent, he slept in her chamber upon a mattress. During her convalescence we formed plans for the employment of her time. As she understood English, and wrote her own language with great purity and grace, I made an arrangement for her with a bookseller for some translations from English poetry, which were executed in such a manner as left me little to correct. I showed her a little opera which I had written some years before. She remodelled it, particularly the denouement, and added a female character full of piquant originality. It was put into the hands of a composer, who unfortunately turned out to have no genius, but a world of science and a tolerable stock of hatred for Rossini. After a long course of the inevitable intriguing, manoeuvring, &c. the piece was brought out at the Opera Comique. The plot and dialogue were generally admired and praised; but thanks to the scientific and stupid music, our little opera had but twelve representations. Mademoiselle Gellimert had for her share of the profits a thousand francs. The excitation of this, for her, novel situation, restored somewhat of her former gaiety. Since the desertion of Moranbert, the passion of Doctor C. L. for Mademoiselle Gellimert had made wonderful progress. One day after dinner, as he was expressing the sentiments he felt towards her with the purity, tenderness, and naïveté of a child, and yet the finesse of a man of talent, she interrupted him, and said, with a frankness that did her infinite honour, "Doctor, it is impossible that the esteem I have for you can admit of any increase. I am indebted to you for a thousand good offices, nay for my life; and I should be as great a monster as he whom I shall not name, if I did not feel towards you the deepest gratitude. I entertain not only respect but admiration for your mind and talents. You speak to me of your love with so much grace and delicacy, that I should, I believe, regret your ceasing to speak on that subject. The idea alone of being deprived of your society, or losing your friendship, would render me miserable. You are a man of unalloyed worth, if any such there be; and I do not think that the heart of a woman could fall into better hands. I preach to mine from morning to night in your favour, but preaching is thrown away where there is not a true vocation. I am aware of your sufferings, and it pains me deeply that I cannot put an end to them. And yet there is nothing that I should not risk to render you happy-every thing that is possible for me to do, without exception. Nay, Doctor, if you will marry me, you have but to say so. This is doing all I can do; but you wish to be beloved, and that I cannot promise." The Doctor, who listened to her with his soul in his eyes, made no answer, but seizing her hand, kissed it and covered it with his tears. As for me, I knew not whether to laugh or weep. Mademoiselle knew the Doctor well; for the next morning, when I said to her, " But, Mademoi selle, if the Doctor had taken you at your word?" She replied, "I should have done as I said; but that could not have happened, for my offer was of a nature not to be accepted by a man of the Doctor's character."—" Why not? If I had been in the place of the Doctor I should have married you, and trusted to time for the rest.” "Yes," she replied, "but had you been in the place of the Doctor, Mademoiselle Gellimert would not have made you the same proposition." About this time Mademoiselle Gellimert seemed to have attained a state of apparent resignation, which led us to hope that before long she would recover altogether her health and spirits. Through the interest of Doctor C. L. she obtained a situation in a great cotion-manufactory, near the charming valley of Montmorency. The proprietor, a wealthy man and fond of his leisure, finding that the zeal and assiduity of Mademoiselle Gellimert rendered his presence less constantly necessary, confided the management of the concern in a great measure to her care, and allowed her such a salary as would, with her frugal habits, have enabled her to lay up a handsome provision for her future years. About this time the Duke de Richelieu went out of office; and Moranbert, as he had surmised, lost his situation. In the conversations we had upon this event, Mademoiselle Gellimert spoke with respect of his talents, but with contempt of his selfishness. This was a further reason for our believing that she was thoroughly cured of her passion. Moranbert on being dismissed, returned to his native province, where there are several extensive iron-works. The proprietor of one of the principal establishments of this kind, who was a distant relation of Moranbert, took him into his employment, and in a short time, from his activity, business-like habits, and useful knowledge (for he was a good chemist) he secured his entire confidence and good will, and was sent over to England to inspect the iron-works in that country, with a view to the adoption of any improvements they might suggest to him. On passing through Paris on his way to Calais, he made not the slightest inquiry relative to Mademoiselle Gellimert, though he met both the Doctor and me more than once. This circumstance seemed deeply to affect this unfortunate girl; for it appears that notwithstanding her apparent indifference and expressed contempt for his character, she had always looked forward with anxiety to the fall of the Duke de Richelieu's ministry,-hoping that, on a check being put to the ambitious projects of Moranbert, his heart might have reverted to her, and brought him a penitent to her feet. But when she learned that he was actively employed in his native province, and that his ambition, though it had changed its object, did not the less absorb all his thoughts, she appeared completely heart-struck, and sunk into a state of melancholy stupor that lasted several days From this state, however, she aroused herself, but evidently by a great effort, and gradually assumed, at least outwardly, a philosophic resignation, which in an ordinary character might have passed for good-humour. The last time I saw her was at her lodgings in the Rue Montblanc, on a fourth story, which she made use of on her occasional visits to Paris. Doctor C. L. and two other friends were with her. She was speaking of her present fate and past happiness with apparent gaiety, when all of a sudden she exclaimed as if speaking to herself, "This has lasted too long ;" and before we could be aware of her intention, she sprang to a window at the other extremity of the room, got on the balustrade, pronounced the words, " Adieu, docteur !" and precipitated ber-self upon the pavement. Wild with horror we rushed down stairs, but on reaching the street found her lifeless. A crowd surrounded the body, from more than one of whom were heard the expressions, " Mon Dieu! Qu'elle est belle ! C'est un désespoir d'amour.” In a will which was found in her desk, she left her furniture, books, and a few thousand francs, the all she possessed, to M. Moranbert, director of the iron-works at I have heard, but I hope for the honour of manhood that it is not true, that M. Moranbert showed not the slightest sign of emotion on learning the death of this devoted and interesting girl," who loved not wisely but too well." LONDON LYRICS. The Gunpowder Plot. As, on the fifth day of November, I often have heard-who has not? To cope with our Gunpowder Plot! "By us the Welsh Railway's impeded, "British Silk we have put out of favour, Our wives scorn to wear it in cloaks, When singed by our Gunpowder Plot. 26 Gwennappe, with its tin and its copper, Runs off in our Gunpowder Plot. "Pearl-divers lie strangled below sea, And Myers gives up 'London fish.' "Then haste, boys, your faggots burn brighter; Some fragment of charcoal and nitre And cry, Mr. Guy, your 're a hero! MERRY ENGLAND. "St. George for Merry England!" THIS old-fashioned epithet might be supposed to have been bestowed ironically, or on the old principle-Ut lucus a non lucendo. Yet there is something in the sound that hits the fancy, and a sort of truth beyond appearances. To be sure, it is from a dull, homely ground that the gleams of mirth and jollity break out; but the streaks of light that tinge the evening sky are not the less striking on that account. The beams of the morning-sun shining on the lonely glades, or through the idle branches of the tangled forest, the leisure, the freedom, "the pleasure of going and coming without knowing where," the troops of wild deer, the sports of the chase, and other rustic gambols, were sufficient to justify the well-known appellation of "Merry Sherwood,"-and in like manner we may apply the phrase to Merry England. The smile is not the less sincere because it does not always play upon the cheek; and the jest is not the less welcome, nor the laugh less hearty, because they happen to be a relief from care or leaden-eyed melancholy. The instances are the more precious as they are rare; and we look forward to them with the greater good will, or back upon them with the greater gratitude, as we drain the last drop in the cup with particular relish. If not always gay or in good spirits, we are glad when any occasion draws us out of our natural gloom, and disposed to make the most of it. We may say with Silence in the play, "I have been merry ere now,”—and this once was to serve him all his life; for he was a person of wonderful silence and gravity, though "he chirped over his cups," and announced his characteristic glee that "there were pippins and cheese to come." Silence was in this sense a merry man, that is, he would be merry if he could, and a very great economy of wit, like very slender fare, was a banquet to him, from the simplicity of his taste and habits. "Continents," says Hobbes, "have most of what they contain"—and in this view it may be contended that the English are the merriest people in the world, since they only show it on high-days and holidays. They are then like a school-boy let loose from school, or like a dog that has slipped his collar. They are not gay like the French, who are one eternal smile of self-complacency, tortured into affectation, or spun out into languid indifference, nor are they voluptuous and immersed in sensual indolence like the Italians; but they have that sort of intermittent, fitful, irregular gaiety, which is neither worn out by habit, nor deadened by passion, but is sought with avidity as it takes the mind by surprise, is startled by a sense of oddity and incongruity, indulges its wayward humours or lively impulses, with perfect freedom and lightness of heart, and seizes occasion by the forelock, that it may return to serious business with more cheerfulness, and have something to beguile the hours of thought or sadness. I do not see how there can be high spirits without low ones; and every thing has its price, according to circumstances. Perhaps, we have to pay a heavier tax on pleasure, than some others: what skills it, so long as our good spirits and good hearts enable us to bear it? "They" (the English) says Froissart, "amused themselves sadly after the fashion of their country"-ils se rejouissoient tristement selon la coutume de leur pays. They have indeed a way of their own. Their mirth is a relaxation from gravity, a challenge to dull care to begone; and one is not always clear at first, whether the appeal is successful. The cloud may still hang on the brow; the ice may not thaw at once. To help them out in their new character, is an act of charity. Any thing short of hanging or drowning is something to begin with. They do not enter into their amusements the less doggedly, because they may plague others. They like a thing the better for hitting them a rap on the knuckles, for making their blood tingle. They do not dance or sing, but they make good cheer—“ eat, drink, and are merry." No people are fonder of field-sports, Christmas gambols, or practical jests. Blindman's-buff, hunt-the-slipper, hot-cockles, and snap-dragon, are all approved English games, full of laughable surprises and "hair-breath 'scapes," and serve to amuse the winter fire-side after the roast-beef and plum-pudding, the spiced ale and roasted crab, thrown (hissing-hot) into the foaming tankard. Punch (not the liquor, but the puppet) is not, I fear, of English origin; but there is no place, I take it, where he finds himself more at home or meets a more joyous welcome, where he collects greater crowds at the corners of streets, where he opens the eyes or distends the cheeks wider, or where the bangs and blows, the uncouth gestures, ridiculous anger and screaming voice of the chief performer excite more boundless merriment or louder bursts of laughter among all ranks and sorts of people. An English theatre is the very throne of pantomine; nor do I believe that the gallery and boxes of Drury-lane or Covent-garden filled on the proper occasions with holiday folks (big or little) yield the palm for undisguised, tumultuous, inextinguishable laughter to any spot in Europe. I do not speak of the refinement of the mirth (this is no fastidious speculation) but of its cordiality, on the return of these long-looked for and licensed periods; and I may add here, by way of illustration, that the English common people are a sort of grown children, spoiled and sulky perhaps, but full of glee and merriment, when their attention is drawn off by some sudden and striking object. The May-pole is almost gone out of fashion among us: but May-day, besides its flowering hawthorns and its pearly dews, has still its beasted exhibition of painted chimney-sweepers and their Jack o' th' Green, whose tawdry finery, bedizened faces, unwonted gestures, and short-lived pleasures |