I defy the metaphysicians to explain by what vehicle I travelled to the conclusion that the guard could not read, but I felt as morally sure of it as if I had examined him in his a-b-ab. It was a prejudice not very liberal; but yet it clung to me, and fancy persisted in sticking a dunce's cap on his head. Shakespeare says that "he who runs may read," and I had seen him run a good shilling's worth after an umbrella that dropped from the coach; it was a presumptuous opinion therefore to form, but I formed it notwithstanding — that he was a perfect stranger to all those booking-offices where the clerks are schoolmasters. Morally speaking, I had no earthly right to clap an ideal Saracen's Head on his shoulders; but, for the life of me, I could not persuade myself that he had more to do with literature than the Blue Boar.

Women are naturally communicative: after a little while the female in the dickey brought up, as a military man would say, her reserve, and entered into recitative with the guard during the pauses of the key-bugle. She informed him in the course of conversation, or rather dickey gossip, that she was an invaluable servant, and, as such, had been bequeathed by a deceased master to the care of one of his relatives at Putney, to exert her vigilance as a housekeeper, and to overlook everything for fifty pounds a year. "Such places," she remarked, "is not to be found every day in the year.”

The last sentence was prophetic!

"If it's Putney," said the guard, "it's the very place we 're going through. Hold hard, Tom, the young woman wants to get down. Tom immediately pulled up; the young woman did get down, and her two trunks, three bandboxes, her bundle, and her hand-basket, were ranged round her. "I've had a very pleasant ride," she said, giving the fare with a smirk and a courtesy to the coachman," and am very much obliged," dropping a second courtesy to the guard, "for other civilities. The boxes and things is quite correct, and won't give further trouble, Mr. Guard, except to be as good as pint out the house I'm going to." The guard thus appealed to, for a moment stood all aghast; but at last his wits came to his aid, and he gave the following lesson in geography.

“You're all right ourn a'n't a short stage, and can't go round setting people down at their own doors; but you're

don't be alarmed, my dear

you

safe enough at Putney can't go out of it. It's all Putney, from the bridge we've just come over, to that windmill you almost can't see t' other side of the common."

"But, Mr. Guard, I've never been in Putney before, and it seems a scrambling sort of a place. If the coach can't go round with me to the house, can't you stretch a pint and set me down in sight of it?"

"It's impossible—that's the sum total; this coach is timed to a minute, and can't do more for outsides if they was all Kings of England."

"I see how it is," said the female, bridling up, while the coachman, out of patience, prepared to do quite the reverse; some people are very civil, while some people are setting beside 'em in dickies; but give me the paper again, and I'll find my own ways."

"It's chucked away," said the guard, as the coach got into motion; "but just ask the first man you meet anybody will tell you.

"But I don't know who or where to ask for," screamed the lost woman after the flying Rocket; "I can't read; but it was all down in the paper as is chucked away."

A loud flourish of the bugle, to the tune of "My Lodging is on the Cold Ground," was the only reply; and as long as the road remained straight, I could see 66 the Bewildered Maid" standing in the midst of her baggage, as forlorn as Eve, when, according to Milton,

"The world was all before her, where to choose
Her place

اسدالله

THE OPENING OF MILTON'S PARADISE LOST.

THE DISCOVERY.

"It's a nasty evening," said Mr. Dornton, the stockbroker, as he settled himself in the last inside place of the last Fulham coach, driven by our old friend Mat an especial friend in need, be it remembered, to the fair sex. "I would n't be outside," said Mr. Jones, another stockbroker, "for a trifle.”

"Nor I, as a speculation in options," said Mr. Parsons, another frequenter of the Alley.

"I wonder what Mat is waiting for," said Mr. Tidwell, "for we are full, inside and out.”

Mr. Tidwell's doubt was soon solved, the coach-door opened, and Mat somewhat ostentatiously inquired, what indeed he very well knew "I believe every place is took up inside?"

"We're all here," answered Mr. Jones, on behalf of the usual complement of old stagers.

"I told you so, ma'am," said Mat, to a female who stood beside him, but still leaving the door open to an invitation from within. However, nobody spoke-on the contrary, I felt Mr. Hindmarsh, my next neighbor, dilating himself like the frog in the fable.

"I don't know what I shall do," exclaimed the woman; "I've nowhere to go to, and it's raining cats and dogs!" "You'd better not hang about, anyhow," said Mat, "for you may ketch your death, and I'm the last coach, an't I,

Mr. Jones?"

"To be sure you are," said Mr. Jones, rather impatiently; "shut the door."

"I told the lady the gentlemen could n't make room for her," answered Mat, in a tone of apology, "I'm very sorry, my dear" (turning towards the female), "you should have

my seat, if you could hold the ribbons

but such a pretty one

as you ought to have a coach of her own."

He began slowly closing the door.

"Stop, Mat, stop!" cried Mr. Dornton, and the door quickly unclosed again; "I can't give up my place, for I'm expected home to dinner; but if the lady would n't object to sit on my knees

"Not the least in the world," answered Mat, eagerly; "you won't object, will you, ma'am, for once in a way, with a married gentleman, and a wet night, and the last coach on the road ? "

"If I thought I should n't uncommode," said the lady, precipitately furling her wet umbrella, which she handed in to one gentleman, whilst she favored another with her muddy pattens. She then followed herself, Mat shutting the door behind her, in such a manner as to help her in. "I'm sure I'm obliged for the favor," she said, looking round; "but which gentleman was so kind?”

"It was I who had the pleasure of proposing, madam," said Mr. Dornton; and before he pronounced the last word she was in his lap, with an assurance that she would sit as lightsome as she could. Both parties seemed very well pleased with the arrangement; but to judge according to the rules of Lavater, the rest of the company were but ill at ease. For my own part, I candidly confess I was equally out of humor with myself and the person who had set me such an example of gallantry. I, who had read the lays of the Troubadours the awards of the old "Courts of Love," -the lives

of the " preux Chevaliers the history of Sir Charles

Grandison to be outdone in courtesy to the sex by a married stockbroker! How I grudged him the honor she conferred upon him, how I envied his feelings!

I did not stand alone, I suspect, in this unjustifiable jealousy; Messrs. Jones, Hindmarsh, Tidwell, and Parsons seemed equally disinclined to forgive the chivalrous act which had, as true knights, lowered all our crests and blotted our scutcheons, and cut off our spurs. Many an unfair jibe was launched at the champion of the fair, and when he attempted to enter into conversation with the lady, he was interrupted by incessant questions of "What is stirring in the Alley?" “What is doing in Dutch ?" "How are the Rentes?"

To all these questions Mr. Dornton incontinently returned business-like answers, according to the last Stock Exchange quotations; and he was in the middle of an elaborate enumeration, that so and so was very firm, and so and so very low, and this rather brisk, and that getting up, and operations, and fluctuations, and so forth, when somebody inquired about Spanish Bonds.

"They are looking up, my dear," answered Mr. Dornton, somewhat abstractedly; and before the other stockbrokers had done tittering the stage stopped. A bell was rung, and whilst Mat stood beside the open coach-door, a staid female in a calash and clogs, with a lantern in her hand, came clattering pompously down a front garden.

"Is Susan Pegge come?" inquired a shrill voice.

"Yes, I be," replied the lady who had been dry-nursed from town; “ are you, ma'am, number ten, Grove Place?" "This is Mr. Dornton's," said the dignified woman in the hood, advancing her lantern," and mercy on us! you're in master's lap ! ”

A shout of laughter from five of the inside passengers corroborated the assertion, and like a literal cat out of the bag, the ci-devant lady, forgetting her umbrella and her pattens, bolted out of the coach, and with feline celerity rushed up the garden, and down the area, of number ten.

"Renounce the woman!" said Mr. Dornton, as he scuttled out of the stage, "why the devil did n't she tell me she was the new cook ?”

AN UNEXPECTED MEETING.