and plundered the country, and that the traveller, one of those who had fallen by Miguel's rifle, had been their captain. When I stooped my head, the bullet had passed over me to his heart! The bodies were removed from our house, and an anxious search made in the neighbourhood for the other three. They were all ultimately taken, and punished.

'The fastenings of the window,' continued the hostess, 'by which the robbers had entered, must have been secretly loosened by their captain on the day when he was our guest, with a view to future plunder. For his courageous conduct in destroying this band, Miguel received the thanks of the whole country. But, alas! sir, my poor father never recovered from the shock which he got on this occasion. He lived, however, to see Miguel and myself united, and then he died happy. Although none of the band concerned in that attack are any longer to be feared, yet can you wonder, sir, after this relation, that I should sometimes tremble when the recollection of these things comes across me, and when Miguel is abroad at night on these lonely hills?'

I paid the comely Inez many compliments on the bravery of her husband, which the affectionate wife blushed with pleasure to hear. Such was the story, gentle reader, which I heard in my wanderings among the lofty Pyrenees.

THE BRAGGE FAMILY.

THE accession in 1820 of the Hon. Augustus Theophilus Bragge to the property of a maternal uncle in a central English county, caused a prodigious sensation. Mr Bragge was the younger brother of an Irish peer, and having been previously limited to a very small income for the support of a large family, had been one of the first persons to repair to the continent after the restoration of the

Bourbons, in order to educate his daughters with less expense than would have been incurred at home. This circumstance, however, did not transpire, and he entered upon his estate with all the éclat of his connection with an old baronial family, unalloyed by the stigma of previous poverty. The eldest of Mr Bragge's growingup daughters had reached her twenty-second year; the youngest was about fifteen; there was a baby besides, and three or four sons. All the girls were remarkably handsome; their beauty was of that striking and attractive kind which is recognised at once, and cannot be disputed. The three elder girls were out, the fourth coming out, and the two others ready to come out whenever a marriage in the family should afford a vacant seat in Mrs Bragge's carriage.

Thirty-two years ago, the quiet society of the English counties was comparatively little acquainted with foreign manners. The admiration, therefore, excited by the Misses Bragge, was not unmingled with surprise. Their natural vivacity, aided by a French education, rendered them very different from the pattern young ladies of their circle. Fortunately, they were very good-tempered and obliging; and though they waltzed to excess, and wore shorter petticoats than ever had been seen before, it was only the very rigid and censorious who ventured any disparaging remark. Mr Bragge commenced his career in England by keeping open house. He made no invidious distinctions respecting his visitors, receiving all comers with a hearty hospitality worthy of old times. family took possession of the estate in the month of August, and immediately a scene of festivity commenced, which lasted without intermission until the return of the season called them to London. Such riding, and driving, and picnicking to every place in the neighbourhood where there was anything to be seen! It was thought nothing to go fifteen or twenty miles to a ball; and the intention of the Bragges to be present was sure to congregate all the beauty, fashion, and bachelorhood of the vicinity.

The

The place in which public assemblies were held at Singleton, at the period of which we write, was a building erected over the market, and rather oddly constructed— no unusual circumstance in a country town. It had at first been approached by an outside-stair; but this being found very inconvenient, another entrance had been opened under cover, and the company now walked through the butcher's shambles into a small dark vestibule, which led, in the first instance, to a large kitchen, in which, on market-days, the farmers usually dined from the smoking joints roasted at immense fireplaces at either end. On ball-nights, this apartment was dedicated to the tea-kettles which supplied boiling-water for that beverage which cheers but not inebriates, together with negus and lemonade, forming the liquid refreshments provided on such occasions. A gloomy, ill-lighted staircase led to a suit of four apartments, one being a small ante-chamber, in which stood the persons who received the tickets of the subscribers; the largest of the remaining three formed the ball-room, the two others being dedicated to tea and cards. All were dismal enough, being panelled with dark wood, or hung with dingy paper, and badly illuminated by a few very old-fashioned chandeliers, and girandoles, made of an uncouth mixture of glass and brass, and calculated to hold a very small number of candles.

In 1820, the balls at Singleton had fallen off considerably. They had been for the most part limited to the genteeler sort among the town'speople who were eligible to be subscribers; and in consequence of the lame manner in which quadrilles were executed, contra-dances had maintained their ascendancy upon the floors long after they had been exploded from every other town. Six or eight lugubrious-looking couples would take their places in the centre of the dismal ball-room, and go through the evolutions in that spiritless manner, which a paucity of numbers upon any occasion of hilarity generally produces. The arrival of the Bragge family in the county changed the aspect of affairs. Mr Bragge, senior, to oblige his

daughters, consented to take the office of steward upon himself; and in consequence, a vast concourse of people were collected together-crowds which brought to mind the good old times in the remembrance of the oldest inhabitants of the place. Previously to this era, the Misses Tollemache had led the fashion in the neighbourhood of Singleton. They were very fine girls; very correct in their deportment, and had the character of being proud and difficult. Hitherto an attendance at the balls at Singleton had been considered too great a condescension by these young ladies; and their absence kept many others away, few liking to go to a place which the Tollemaches despised. A spirit of rivalry now operated as a stimulant, and determined them to take the field against the Bragges. The latter family were at first wholly unconscious of the jealous feelings which they excited; they entered the ball-room solely in pursuit of pleasure, and gave themselves up to the unrestrained indulgence of the gaiety of their hearts. They were constantly surrounded by all the beaux, while the Tollemaches were comparatively neglected, being only asked to dance by those who had failed in securing a hand of the Misses Bragge. Three of the four sisters-for the one who was coming out in London had come out in the country-were nearly equally the objects of admiration; but Miss Bragge, the eldest, was universally pronounced to bear away the palm, and to her standard the élite of the male portion of the assembly flocked. Amongst many others, she attracted the great man of the neighbourhood, Sir Charles Dorrington, a young baronet of large fortune, who was supposed to be looking out for a wife. This gentleman had paid some attention to the elder Miss Tollemache, and had been universally set down as her admirer; but before matters had gone too far, the appearance of Miss Bragge changed the spirit of his dream, and he now exhibited himself as the devoted slave of the new beauty.

The card-players of the balls at Singleton had been, time out of mind, subjected to two distinct species of

annoyance the one being the smoke, which, when the wind set in a particular direction, poured down the chimney, whether there was any fire in the apartment or not; the other, the irruptions of young ladies with their partners, who would sit down and talk, sometimes in a loud key, about nonsense, which distracted the attention of all the whist-players, and sometimes in a low tone, which would occasion some very inquisitive old lady or gentleman, anxious to catch the purport of the conversation, to revoke. Upon the present evening, Miss Bragge and Sir Charles Dorrington proved the greatest delinquents. After almost every dance, they bolted in, seated themselves behind the door, and talked incessantly. Some people averred that an offer was certainly made and accepted; but as the parties had never met before, this seemed premature. Miss Tollemache looked on with suppressed rage. The tide of popularity ran so strongly in favour of the Bragges, that prudence dictated a pacific appearance, since any show of hostility would have been attributed to jealousy; and, therefore, the Misses Tollemache admitted at once, that the Bragges were very fine girls, with exceedingly enviable spirits. It was certainly merely a matter of taste,' they continued, but, for their part, they liked less display; these foreign manners did not quite suit them.' The Misses Tollemache had a brother, with whom they waltzed in turn: thus shewing off their figures without incurring the odium which attached itself to those who were less scrupulous in the choice of a partner. Young Tollemache, who would rather have danced with one of the Bragges, thought the duty a bore, and wished that his mother would take the girls to France, to get rid of their starch; but Lady Jane Tollemache, who had been a great favourite of old Queen Charlotte in her day, loudly expressed her determination that her daughters should never make such an exhibition of themselves. She drew a small circle around her, who fully concurred in her views of propriety, and who felt assured, that the example of a few persons like herself would check the