education of her family, who owe to her exemplary care the acquirements of their early youth, the happiness of their maturer years, and the principles which support them now, after the grief of witnessing her departure to another and better world.

May the memory of every such mother be consecrated with equally reverential gratitude in the hearts of all she leaves behind, and may every family, as mournfully bereft of such a parent, be enabled to say, with the sorrowful but heartfelt submission which she would herself have enjoined, The Lord gave the best of mothers, the Lord hath taken her away, and for all the happy hours we once passed together, God's holy name be praised!'

JANE BOUVERIE.

CHAPTER I.

'None remember thee,
Save one.'

'BOUVERIE!' exclaimed an officer of Hussars, seizing the arm of a handsome young man, who evidently wished to be incog., and was gliding along the road at a rapid pace near Knightsbridge Barracks, 'you are difficult to overtake!'

'Pierrepoint, my good fellow! the very man, in the whole world, I am always most happy to see.'

'Not very like that now! Why! you were hedging off, as if I had been one of your numerous creditors. Let me say the real truth, Bouverie! you are the greatest humbug in London !'

'So I am, there is no denying it! The fact is, Pierrepoint, my popularity with everybody increases to such an excess, that I find it impossible sufficiently

to divide my civilities. Not a candle is ever lighted in London without my being asked. I have had to refuse five-and-forty invitations to dinner this month!'

'I must not doubt your word of course, but I'll bet fifty to one against that being true. Tell me, Bouverie, what salary do you allow yourself for being your own trumpeter? It ought to be handsome, seeing you do it so well! How does this happen to-day? You are in very deep mourning. I hope nothing of a distressing nature

'No, no! make your mind easy, Pierrepoint! I am only going to the funeral of an old aunt, who used, I believe, in my babyhood, to give me rattles and sugar-plums. I scarcely recollect her, but she is said to have been a good old soul as ever lived or died. There exists a tradition in the family that she once was a blazing beauty, surrounded by crowds of the most romantic lovers, but "all that's bright must fade." Aged people always seem to me like an old card shuffled by mistake into the wrong pack, or a dismantled wreck in the midst of a regatta. This old thing lived once in the world, but has been buried for ages, and died last week. She was the sort of person, I believe, latterly, who wore beaver gloves and cotton pocket handkerchiefs, knitted an interminable succession of stockings, and probably died in a fit of absence.'

'But old aunts are very convenient people sometimes, Bouverie; and it may be not at all amiss for you if a small succession

Nothing of the kind, I assure you, except a few religious tracts and an old family Bible. Her income scarcely amounted to a straw a-day, and she vegetated through a life of seventy years with scarcely excitement enough to keep her from stagnation. If cats have nine lives, old women have nineteen! I wish she had bequeathed me her excellent constitution.'

Well! the only relation I ever acknowledged was that very old country-gentleman uncle of mine, who died last year in Northumberland. I arrived only in time to see his last wink, and, after the funeral, took a final leave of all my northern relatives. I candidly told them that I did not mean to attend any of their funerals, and requested them not to take the trouble of coming to mine. I hate such melancholy festivities, and almost wonder you did not contrive to escape going to-day.'

'I might perhaps, but Dr. Andrews wrote to say that my worthy relative had particularly wished me to attend, and that there would be no relation whatever to do chief mourner, when she is laid in our old family vault at Marylebone, unless I undertook the duty. You know the word "duty" acts as a talisman in my well-disciplined mind: It is all

in the day's work! Meanwhile, tell me where I shall meet you afterwards.'

'At Tattersall's, any time before five o'clock.'

'If you go there, Pierrepoint, allow me to trouble you with a small commission. I wonder if you are capable of executing it?'

'To be sure I am! During my whole natural life I have succeeded in all I ever undertook, except in playing on the violin, and that I never attempted. The fact is, Bouverie, that as owls never can see the sunshine, you have never yet been able fully to appreciate me.'

"No! yet allow me to say you are more wide awake than any man I know! Observe, therefore, Pierrepoint, if you can secure me a good first-rate hunter, worth two hundred guineas, for about fifty pounds, I shall be really obliged to you. My favorite, Sultan, is hopelessly lamed; he was the handsomest creature in the world

except his owner who rode him. I never shall look upon his like again, especially as my banker's book dropped me a strenuous hint lately, not to give such long prices often.'

'Poverty is a bore! No doubt of that, Bouverie! I have serious thoughts of setting up soon as a ballad-singer, that my compassionate friends may relieve my embarrassments by throwing me sixpence out of the window occasionally.'