another weed, Van, they're real Manillas; my brother Jack brought 'em over. By Jove! I wonder if he's spending to-night in the trenches." "I say, Dunbar," said Charlie

66

What, am I looed? By George!"

writeCharlie

"I say, didn't you write Charlie Cheroots; or, the Fusiliers,' that's coming out in the Pot-Pourri ?”

Dunbar nodded.

"And that thing, too, on 'Popular Preachers?'

"Yes. Didn't you see 'em signed Latakia ?'"

"Well, Beatrice said the other day, after reading 'em, that they were the best things she'd ever seen, and if she were to know the author she was quite certain she should fall in love with him."

"She's quite welcome; I don't mind," said Dunbar, with an amiably submissive air. "I'll have 'Miss' again, it's the only fun there is in loo. Don't tell her I wrote 'em, Charlie. Let her find it out."

"But if she don't love you?"

"It's

"Ca m'est bien égal," said Dunbar, caressing his moustaches. rather a bore to be loved, you know; for, if you don't love in return, it's no fun; and if you do, you're in an everlasting fever and work. I've been in love ever since I can remember. My first attachment was a little girl with blue eyes and peony cheeks; not an exalted object, for she was our lodge-keeper's daughter, but I know I took her hardbake devoutly, and adored her, until my cousin Valencia came. But she was twenty, and I worshipped her at a distance-I was eleven, I believe; but I know, when Jack Montresor married her, I could have slain him without shrive. Nous avons changé tout cela: now I neither slay myself nor my rivals-even your sister, Charlie, wouldn't be worth the exertion."

"I'll tell her what you say. By Jove, won't she cut up rough! Pussy's great ideas of what's due to her sex!"

"Do; it will keep her from falling in love with the author of 'Charlie Cheroots,' who, you may add, would see himself hanged before he married a girl who knew Latin."

"Or before he married at all, eh ?"

"I don't know," said Dunbar, meditatively. "Perhaps I may, some fine day, as a dernier ressort. I've used up everything else. I may, before I go to glory, try matrimony as a change; not that I think it would agree with me, but just as they give boys sulphur and treacle, as a wholesome disagreeable.'

We played till it struck three, and then refreshed ourselves with "natives," lobster-salad, maccaroni, gelatine de dindon, and all the provocations to gourmandise the Toffy talent could offer us. And over the Burton aie and cognac and hollands, the fun grew fast, and Charlie's laughter uproarious. Dunbar told us bal d'Opera and Chaumière stories, and jests of the Rag and the coulisses. Stickleback, under the gentle influences of whisky, told long tales of steeple-chases, and the Ring and the Yard, to which nobody listened. Eagle waxed confidential, and related an undying passion for a fair countess he had met at a race-ball, which was very amusing to me, as I knew the lady in question, and knew, too, that she'd as soon have accepted attentions from a groom as from the son of a gin-merchant. And Popleton-poor Popleton !

-with tears in his eyes, spoke pathetically of his devotion to Adela Breloques; showed us a note of hers beginning "Beloved Augustus," and signed "Ever thine;" and finally commenced singing "Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean," till Dunbar stopped him at the outset by telling him it was shockingly stupid of him if he didn't; tears were made of water, albumen, and salts, and always meant, with women, that they'd come to their last round of ammunition, and that you'd better kiss 'em away as fast as possible.

Then we went home to our different billets as the milk-carts began to go about the streets, and the servant-girls to clean their steps; and I thought, as Master Charlie left the door of "notre magasin" chanting "He's a jolly good fellow," that though Sir Cadwallader, in his innocence, wished him to join "for example," the "example" was a dubious benefit to the Donkeyshire.

"But I like that young fellow," said Dunbar that night, or rather morning. "He's good-hearted and plucky, and never forgets he's a gentleman. He's getting very soft about Miss Fanny; I'll take care he don't do what a pretty milliner of Petty Cury once trapped me into when I was at Trinity-that greatest of bêtises, a promise of marriage. Fanny's wide awake, and very handsome.”

The next day we went over to Springley, Sir Cadwallader's place. We all belonged to the Donkeyshire Archery Club, and as the last meeting was held at Springley, we received an invitation from the colonel to stay and dine there. Dunbar and I had been there several times, but MM. Eagle, Stickleback, Pop, and Co. had not attained to the great dignity. Looking a cross between an English belle and a Spanish huntress, I saw Beatrice De Vaux for the first time in my life. She was, I may as well say is, exquisitely pretty; and her long eyes, soft and dark like Charlie's, shot destruction into the Donkeyshire that day from under the coquettish grey hat of the archery dress.

She has a good dash of her old governor's pride, but mixed with so much grace, softness, and girlish vivacity, that it's very bewitching. She bowed a little carelessly to the rest of the gallant Donkeyshire, who were not, certainly, attractive in appearance to a young lady fresh from her first season, but smiled as she recognised Dunbar, who looked, it is true, among the males of Donkeyshire, something as Apollo might look among the Yahoos. He won the claret-jug, she the negligé, the two first prizes, and that threw them together the rest of the day. Dunbar seemed to relish his fate extremely, and never to remember Beatrice De Vaux knew-Latin!

Brilliant and witty as he was, he had to put out all his paces with her; she was so clever that it roused him into exerting his intellectual strength, and making her feel that there was still more in him than he allowed to appear. He did not take her in to dinner, but he sat on her left hand, and the ringing fire of their repartees made even Sir Cadwallader relax into a laugh.

"By Jove!" whispered Charlie to me, "Dunbar and Pussy seem to get on, don't they? If she knew how he talked about her last night, wouldn't she give him a licking!"

When we went into the drawing-room she was sitting in a low chair near the piano, looking divine, as Pop would have phrased it, her dress

for all the world like a pile of white cloud; Hunt and Roskell's newest bracelets on her white arms, Paris flowers in her wavy chesnut hair, and her whole style and toilette unmistakably thorough-bred. Dunbar lounged up to her, leant his arm on the piano, and resumed their dinner conversation.

She had in her hand the Pot-Pourri, the monthly in which "Charlie Cheroots" was coming out, with sundry other slashing articles by Latakia, political or satirical.

"Isn't he clever, this Latakia, Captain Dunbar?" began Beatrice. "I think all he writes is delightful. I wish I knew his real name. Can't you tell it me?"

"I grieve to refuse you, but I mustn't, indeed, for he wishes to keep his incognito," answered the hypocritical Latakia.

"Do you know him, then ?"

"Yes. I know as much of him as most people do." "Oh! how tiresome you are. Can't you tell me his name?" cried the young lady. "I should so love to know him; he is so amusing. Isn't he very nice ?"

Dunbar stroked his moustaches, and looked dissent. "N-no. I don't think so. He has a great many faults, and has done many naughty things in his life. He is very fond of satirising other people, and might look at home with advantage. Like Pendennis, he's his own greatest enemy and best friend. He has talents, perhaps; but he fritters them away."

"Fritters them away, when he writes such things as the May article on the Crimean question!" cried Beatrice, looking charmingly indignant. "Well! you are not very complimentary to your friend; one would think you were jealous of him. Poor Latakia! it is well he cannot hear you."

"You are severe, Miss De Vaux," said Dunbar, with an injured expression. "I was only saying the truth. I like Latakia; nobody better. But he has a good many faults, and I can't be blind to them."

"Well! I am sorry," said Beatrice, arching her pretty pencilled eyebrows. "I like his writing; he is witty, without straining at wit; racy, without ever being coarse; he draws society like a man of the world, and depicts character as only one can who has a deep insight into human nature; and bitterly as he lashes social follies or frauds, you can see under all his satire a true warm sympathy with what is noble in life, and an under vein of sadness which tells you that though he laughs, scoffs, and jests, he has not lived without tasting sorrow.'

I don't doubt it was very pleasant to Dunbar to hear himself so energetically defended by such a champion as Beatrice, with her dark eyes beaming, her haughty little head raised, and her delicate cheeks flushed; but he didn't let himself seem so. He merely bowed his head. "Latakia will be very flattered when I tell him how happy he is in your good opinion."

Beatrice looked a little annoyed at his quizzical smile. "Oh!" she said, carelessly, "I admire talent wherever I meet with it. I like to see any man boldly stemming the current of public opinion, and stating frankly his own thoughts, even where they are most at issue with the

renewed prejudices of society; and you, even, must admit, that your friend does this."

"Yes; certainly," said Dunbar. "I only don't fancy him as clever as he'd make himself out. But are you not terribly anxious, Miss De Vaux, to know whether Charlie Cheroots marries Lucille or Lady Adeliza? Shall I write and ask Latakia?”

Beatrice gave him a pretty half-annoyed, half-amused glance, put her head up and looked disdainful, and, turning to the piano, sang the "Fleur de l'Ame" with a thrilling, passionnée, pathetic voice, that went near to making poor Popleton weep. Dunbar asked her to play "Amour et Fanatisme" for him; and addressed the "Chrétienne aux longs yeux bleus" with such artistic style that Beatrice began to forgive him, and they sang Italian bravuras till the rest of the Donkeyshire grew mad with envy.

When he and I, with Eagle and Popleton, drove back to Snobleton in the dog-cart, Dunbar refreshed himself with a good laugh.

"By Jove, Van, that critique was beautiful! I shouldn't be half so flattered if the Quarterly, the Westminster, or the Times were to tell me I beat every romancist hollow, from Le Sage to Bulwer. Didn't Beatrice come out. I give you my word, when she asked me so seriously if I didn't think myself clever, I could have burst with laughter."

"You'll be more likely to get puffed up with vanity," murmured Pop, who was rather cross, for the Breloques had not been at the meeting, as we know it would kill "the county" to mix for a second with "the town."

"No, most wise Ginger," answered Dunbar, seriously, whipping up the mare, "I shall never be fat, thank Heaven. I'm too muscular; and if I ever require my waistcoats extended one tenth of an inch, I shall turn vegetarian, and drink vinegar, as Adela Breloques has done for the last ten years (if one may judge from the sharpness of her nose), with many other stout quasi juveniles."

Poor Pop shrank into himself. He learnt what it was to try satire with the author of Charlie Cheroots.

"Pon my life, it's odd how well Beatrice read my character in describing Latakia's," said Dunbar, as we sat smoking that night. "I don't mean in the flattery about my talents, &c., but in the 'underlying sadness,' as the young lady styled it, and in the enjoyment I take in pitching into that double-distilled Donkey Society. She's right enough, Van, that I've had my share of sorrow, though nobody would think it; and she has read my nature truer in my writings than anybody ever did yet."

I smiled. "You've forgiven her the Latin, then?"

"Latin? Oh yes; she's nothing of the bas bleu about her, so it don't matter. I suppose she picked up a smattering of Horace from Charlie's tutor; she's a clever little thing-very intelligent, and has something to say for herself. What a treat that is now-a-days, when the girls one meets are all well-dressed puppets-nothing better, and can only lisp their inane nonsense about Lady A.'s last ball, or Lady B.'s new bonnet; or how pleasant a valseur young D. is, or what a lovely pug Captain E. has given 'em. There are plenty of pretty heads on pretty shoulders, but precious few with anything inside them. They have

unexceptionable coiffeurs, and hair 'done' to a nicety; but they're like whipped cream, all outside show, and in the little geese's heads you look in vain for stuffing."

"How eloquent we are! Put that down for Part XII. of Charlie Cheroots, and add that it was inspired by Dunbar's Beatrice, second only to Dante's."

"Who is a charming exception to the general run of young ladies, for which Latakia will amuse himself with her company as often as possible. By George! that reminds me I've got to finish all my October things for the Pot-Pourri, the Liberalist, and the Equality Review. I'll sit up and write to-night. You're off to bed, Van. Push me those Cubas before you go. Thank you. Pleasant dreams, old fellow."

III.

THE REVIEW, AND THE PRESENTATION OF THE COLOURS BY BEATRICE.

TIME slipped away, and the Donkeyshire's best drilled company seemed to me only an awkward squad. We seemed to try with all our might to realise Punch's '48 Militia pictures, and if we didn't parade when it was wet with our umbrellas up, it was merely because half the Donkeyshire didn't possess such articles. The most martial man among us was our Podilirious M'Dougall, who had grown the fiercest moustache in the regiment, and, as I have said, never parted with his sword, but went clanking about with it at all hours of the day up the High-street and down the market-place, the ting-ting it played on the pavé making, I suppose, sweet music to his medical ears.

The most notable event that occurred was the arrest of Spoon, an ensign, son of a Snobleton brewer. When stealing at dusk into the garden of Miss Backboard's Academy, to visit the lovely object of his passion, he was ignominiously taken up by a policeman for trespassing, and had to pay the cost of the virtuous Backboard's prosecution. The Covey continued very great guns, Fanny making desperate love to Charlie and Sophy to Dunbar, old Toffy shutting both eyes tight, like a sensible parent as he was.

The Breloques gave carpet-dances twice a week, and waltzed the ensigns into rapturous adoration, and poor Pop nearly into a proposal. Pop would have compromised himself entirely if a Snobleton solicitor hadn't shown him some notes (facsimile of the dainty billets-doux the ensign daily received) which Adela had written him only six months. before, which unlucky discovery a little damped the militiaman's ardour, and made him sing, "Hopeless, I've watched thee," and "I know a maiden fair to see," so drearily and dreadfully, that Eagle, who lived next him, was driven to change his lodgings. Dunbar, meanwhile, was constantly riding over to Springley, taking books, floss silk, beads, potichomanie and diaphanie, new crayons, gold for illuminating, or any other little commissions Beatrice chose to give him. There was no duenna at Springley. Lady de Vaux was dead, and Sir Cadwallader's sister, a mild old lady, devoted to lapdogs and knitting, was as good as nobody. There were plenty of guests, to be sure, but none of them thought it their business to spy on their young hostess. Sir Cadwallader was shut up in his library, or out at the sessions, or attending some other magisterial duties; so