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was certainly not a small mercy. We had been schoolfellows at Westminster, chums at Cambridge, the best of friends always, though for the last half-dozen years or so parted by many a thousand miles of sea and land.

Even by this half-light something indescribable in the set of my old friend's ordinarily fashionable garments, a something more indescribable still in his whole bearing, a certain

left the dining room; so I drew up my chair beside the open window, elevated my feet into a second, and prepared to extract the greatest amount of comfort, compatible with circum-large ease and freedom, as of a man accustomed stances, from that half-hour of post-prandial to an almost unlimited amount of space to turn bereavement, which is the Englishman's priv- himself in, would have been suggestive of one ilege.

And really circumstances just now were not otherwise than conducive to enjoyment. The soft-scented air of a sweet summer evening rustled very pleasantly through the wide-open window; and the voices of the village children at play, mellowed (I am happy to say) by distance, came up ever and anon upon its gentle

breath.

"Man never is, but always to bebeginning, when the door opened. "Mr. Mortimer, sir."

fact, I think, to the most casual observer"Home from the colonies." And home from the colonies it was.

For the last five years Jack Mortimer had been enjoying life in the bush. Not that in his case there had existed the usual inducement

for viewing life under those delightful primitive aspects, for my friend had occupied from his youth upwards that enviable position of heir to a wealthy maiden aunt; but merely, as it "I was seemed, from a natural and inevitable tendency in his own nature towards that simple and patriarchal state of things. There having been no particular necessity for his prospering in the line of life he had adopted, prosper, of course, he did; but a few months back, in compliance with the wishes of the maiden aunt, who was getting on in years, and craved, as she said, to see her boy (which she would have called Jack if he had been sixty, instead of well up towards thirty, as he was) take up his position in his native land before she died, he had disposed of all his flocks and herds, and come back to

"Let us be thankful for small mercies!" I ejaculated instead; "glad to see you, Jack!" "Am I the mercy?" inquired Jack, depositing himself leisurely in the most comfortable chair at hand. "Not a particularly small one, then, I'm thinking, Frank."

"Not small in any sense of the word," answered I, and really, just now, in the vague half light, Jack Mortimer's six feet three loomed even unusually large and handsome. No, Jack

VOL. XXXIV. -1

Old England to settle down as a country gen- upon this subject. "Is not my old friend emitleman and landed proprietor.

I had not very long previously succeeded to my own modest patrimony of Meadowsleigh, and flatter myself that that fact had some weight in the selection made by Jack of a residence: the same being a queer, rambling old house, with a vaulable, but certainly improvable property attached, in my neighborhood, called The Wild.

Here Jack had been domiciled for some months now, the head of a curious bachelor establishment, organized, I should say, on strictly bush principles.

As near neighbors, as well as old friends, Jack and I were accustomed to exchange unceremonious visits at all hours; so that after we had nodded to each other over our first glass, there was scarcely any need of his accounting, in a half-apologetic way, for his appearance at this particular time, by saying "that The Wild was apt to feel duller than usual on these long, quiet summer evenings!”

“I can imagine a vacuum there, which, being abhorred of nature, it is consequently unnatural of you not to fill." I said, lazily, “Jack, why don't you marry?”

This suggestion my friend received in the silence which I had sometimes noticed it was his habit to receive remarks of a similar nature,

nor was it his usual custom to lead up to such, by any reference to his bachelorhood. As he sat now, leaning back in his chair, looking very large and brown, and handsome, and yet with unwonted gravity on his face too, a suspicion for the first time entered my head, as I glanced at him, that there might be some reason, of a tender and romantic nature, to account for his peculiar reticence on this subject; though, indeed, Jack Mortimer, with his jolly laugh, his genial face, and kindly words and looks for all the world, was not easily to be reconciled with the idea of "blighted hopes" "worms in the bud," and so forth.

My wife, with whom Jack was on terms of mutual amity and good-wi! (as, indeed, this gentleman is a favorite with married ladies in general), was firmly impressed with the conviction, not only that Jack had never been in love, but that he would never marry.

"And why, madam, should you infer this of a man who is in every way calculated to adorn that honorable estate?" I inquired, when the partner of my joys first enunciated her views

nently social in his habits, brimming over with all kindly affections? Why then, should he be incapable of love, and cut off from the joys of matrimony?

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"I did not say he was incapable of love, Frank;—ah, no!" answered Mrs. Marchmont, though I think he will never marry. It will be some woman's loss too, for men like Mr. Mortimer-men more affectionate than passionate, more constant than ardent, make model husbands. Their wives are better loved than even their their sweethearts (yes, Frank, I like the pretty old world name for the old, old relation, and think no other so simply expressive). And hearth and home are more to such men as he, than the rest of the world, I think.”

"Upon my word, ma'am," I remarked in some surprise, for my wife's voice was very soft and gentle as she spoke, "you seem to have brought a great deal of consideration and reflection to bear on the subject of Mr. Mortimer!"

"Reflection!—not at all, dear," Mrs. March

mont said simply; “one feels—at least I think a woman does instinctively-the worth of such a man as John Mortimer. And he is not of that order that is most attractive to the greatest number of women either."

It

"Indeed! Be good enough to explain the Jack Mortimer is possessed of such unusual contradiction in your words, young woman. virtue, and women instinctively perceive the same, why is he not the honored object of female mind prefers an exhilarating sprinkling their regards? Or am I to understand that the of vice in its idol, if only to throw the virtues up into broader light, as it were?"

"No, not that exactly," Mrs. Marchmont answered rather hesitatingly; “but I think, perhaps that women prefer in general a—well— a more showy style of thing than Mr. MortiDon't laugh, Frank.”

mer.

But I did laugh.

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