his colleague in clamour, Mr M'Ginger, "I'm much afraid we shall be too late for our ride today. Pray, Madrake, what is it by you?"

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Why, I declare-and I declare I feel very much astonished-it is actually half-past three o'clock. But, pray, where is our expected lunch, good people?"

This last remark, as it struck more to the heart than to the passions of this pair of combustible fire-ships, caused both parties to fly to the bell at once, and to bustle through the hospitalities of a lunch-tray with all the cordiality and good-humour of long sworn friends.

At the third glass of wine, however, the squibs again blew up, and in such a manner as to throw the once more astonished Madrake out of the house. The force of the explosion was even so powerful as to carry him, as the crow flies, back to the still-life moorings of Mr Monotony.

"Ah, Mr Monotony! Mr Monotony! how wisely have I been punished for the crime of despising content-despising vegetation in the shape of a waking sleep."

Mr Monotony in reply looked up, or rather

looked on; for however tempestuous had been Madrake's sea of troubles, it was at present ebbtide with him.

"What! not even give me welcome?"

Mr Monotony scarcely pointed to a seat. "Well, what a world is this! to be baited to death by two fools, I presume under age; and to find in a wise man, instead of help and consolation, only a living automaton."

"I never made any thing by speaking," grumphed Mr Monotony; and he placed himself in that position which is not again to be disturbed.

"Fire after ice, and ice after fire. Certainly, as Bentivoglio says, Here, visits are continual, attendances frequent; eating and sleeping got by stealth; wines luscious; the air intemperate; conversations endless; and slaveries without any seasoning of liberty.' And yet in this particular quarter there is a dead pause; even worse than all these evils put together.-Mr Monotony, pray are you asleep?"

Mr Monotony opened his eyes a little wider, and then let them fall again with a dead glare,

which sufficed to intimate that the owner wished for nothing better than extinction.

"Well, Mr Monotony, my nerves, like the springs of a fine carriage on a rough road, are not yet seasoned, I suspect, for such harsh changes. Pray give me something to fright away my distractions with."

"The best way to escape trouble," answered Mr Monotony," as your man Bentivoglio says of envy, is to despise it. Never did any arrow hit the heavens; and you may multiply this point ad infinitum. But, as our friend Guevara says, setting aside all further railing, I earnestly entreat you to grieve no more on such an account, but at length begin to be wise; for, otherwise, I shall think you rather fit to be reclaimed by hellebore than by a jest."

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Enough, my dear Mr Monotony." And dropping himself, in imitation of his eccentric partner, into the opposite seat, Madrake sunk, like another Somno, into a sort of dwam or reverie, which lasted out the rest of the night.

CHAPTER IX.

"The desire of knowledge, though often animated by intrinsic and adventitious motives, seems on many occasions to operate without subordination to any other principle.........We are equally allured by novelty of every kind-by a desert or a palace, a cataract or a cavern, by every thing rude and every thing polished, every thing great and every thing little.” RAMBLER.

NOTWITHSTANDING, however, the slight given by the Lumsdaines to their old acquaintances the Edmonstones in the affair of the ball, it was not Mrs Lumsdaine's design to separate herself entirely, as might have been supposed, from their society. Her husband could not forget, though he might neglect, the friends of former years; she, herself, had once belonged to a family remarkable for their hospitality, goodness, and simplicity; and, in particular, for the undeviating constancy they had always manifested and displayed towards their very oldest friends.

Something of this kindly feeling remained, therefore, to influence her conduct upon this occasion; and, though more than ever devotedly ambitious of the future consequence of her son and daughter, she felt still inclined to retain about her husband and herself some portion of those old associates, with whom she had once been so intimately and agreeably connected. Impelled by these motives, Mrs Lumsdaine, about a fortnight after her grand party, set out (on foot however) for the residence of the Edmonstones.

Mrs Edmonstone had been informed by some agreeable gossip or other, that Mrs Lumsdaine now went nowhere but in her coach; and it was therefore with some surprise she beheld the latter lady make her appearance, minus her usual props of parade. She had just been engaged, too, in an argument with her son, in which she had nearly succeeded in convincing him of the folly of resenting the conduct of the Lumsdaines, when Mrs Lumsdaine herself arrived to finish the debate.

Mrs Lumsdaine was come with cards of invitation to dinner in her hand, for that day