and trusty, and Frederick ought to be ashamed of himself. The young reprobate !"

"That is not it at all, sir. It's worse. There's a suspicion that he means to marry the girl."

Mr. Lyvett's face flushed red. "What are you saying, Rowley ?" "If I say it, sir, it is in the hope that it may be guarded against. I overheard Jones chaffing Mr. Fred about it a week or two back: they did not know I was there. It seems Jones had had a mind to try after her himself, in some way, and the reprimand Mr. Fred then gave him was couched in terms that startled me. Since then I have kept my eyes and ears open; have waited after hours and been here on Sundays, and I am sure Mr. Fred means mischief, mischief for himself, not for her. Last night, Tuesday, I just dined hard by, and took a stroll down this street afterwards, to see if I could see anything going on; and I did. She came out, dressed up in white, with chains and bracelets and things, and he handed her into a cab, hat off, as respectfully as could be, and got in afterwards. Old May fetched it from the stand at the top of the street. "Opera, Haymarket,' Mr. Fred called out, and off they went."

"But with all this going on, Rowley-operas and cabs, and such like -you cannot pretend to think it is an innocent, platonic sort of affair,” said Mr. Lyvett, his mouth curling with scorn.

"Innocent, sir, in one sense. I believe Mr. Fred's intentions to that girl are as honourable as ever yours were to Mrs. Lyvett. If I thought

it was less serious, I don't know that I should have troubled you.'

Mr. Lyvett sat and played with his watch seals—which he wore in the old-fashioned manner, hanging down from a heavy, straight chain. "Fred was always the fool of the family," he angrily uttered: but at another time he would not have said it. "Well, we must see what can be done. Harsh measures, in these cases, seldom answer. I am much obliged to you, Rowley."

Harsh measures seldom do answer, and Mr. Lyvett was a better diplomatist. Within a day or two, it was known throughout the house that Mr. Frederick was fixed upon to go to Valparaiso. Lyvett, Castlerosse, and Lyvett were the agents for an important house there, and some business had arisen which rendered it expedient that one of the firm should proceed thither. This was actually the case, and Mr. Lyvett had been thinking of despatching his eldest son.

Frederick Lyvett scarcely knew whether to be pleased or annoyed. Were there no Sophia May in the case, he would have been gratified beyond measure. But a young man's desire for adventure overcame even his love, and he departed in high spirits, after vowing eternal fidelity to her.

Sophia May was stunned by the blow. So sudden had been the announcement, so urgent the business, that Frederick had received but two days' notice before he was off. His only remonstrance to his father had been, that there was "no time to get his traps together." However, the time was made to be sufficient, and on the day but one following the first announcement, he and his "traps" were escorted by Mr. Lyvett himself down to Liverpool, to join the good ship The Skimmer of the South, then on the point of sailing. Not a whit dreamt Fred that his father knew as much about Sophia as he did.

The next scene was with Mr. and Mrs. May. On the return of Mr. Lyvett from Liverpool, they were ordered into the presence of himself and of Mr. Castlerosse. Old Mr. Lyvett had also come down in his carriage for the occasion, but he was feeble, and took no part in the proceedings. He sternly informed them that the fact of their having inveigled his son into a clandestine intimacy with their daughter was now known to him, and that Mr. Frederick's voyage to Valparaiso was undertaken to break off the disgrace. Terribly confused and ashamed, they knew not what to say, and in their perplexity they gathered what Mr. Lyvett had not intended to imply, for he was a man of strict veracity-namely, that Mr. Frederick was a party to the scheme, and that it was he, in especial, who wished to be rid of Sophia. The porter did venture upon a defence, as well as his confusion would allow-that Mr. Frederick had not been "invaydled" at all; that he had took to come of his own accord, and said he would come, whether or no; and he, May, humbly hoped the gentlemen would condescend to pardon him and his wife for what warn't no fault of theirn. Mr. Lyvett's pardoning consisted in handing May a certain amount of wages in lieu of notice, and ordering them all three to be out of the house by five o'clock that evening.

"It is not possible!" shrieked Sophia, when her father and mother descended to the kitchen dissolved in grief, "it is not true! Frederick Lyvett would never behave so infamously as to go off on the sly."

"But he has done it," angrily retorted the porter. "If you don't believe, you can go up and hear it from the gentlemen themselves. A pretty pass your tomfoolery, in getting him down here, has brought us to! I looked upon this house as my home for life.”

"It's no such a fat home," raved Sophia.

"It's a better than we shall get again," sobbed Mrs. May. "I don't know how we are to get another. Mr. Lyvett says any body as comes for a character he shall tell the reason we are turned off. Who will engage us, with a handsome girl like Sophiar, to turn young men's heads?"

"Who have done so much damage here," complained the unfortunate porter.

"I thought it was not all square," sighed poor Mrs. May, "and I have told Sophiar so, and she has snapped at me, like a rabid dog, for saying it. If it had been anybody else but a young Lyvett, I might have had faith, but, when you come to reflect on it, it was not probable for one of them. When a gentleman, whose family keeps their carriages and footmen in silk stockings, comes to lower himself down to their own servants and sit with them in their kitchen amongst the dirty ashes, as it were, from the up-stairs fires, it ain't to be expected but what he will take himaway, as soon as his whim's tired out."

self

"Don't you ever try it on again, Sophiar," gruffly interrupted the

father.

She was sitting with a pale cheek and livid lips, leaning her elbow on the round table, vowing vengeance in her heart against Frederick Lyvett. It did not occur to her to suspect the truth: she fully believed he had really gone away to break with her, and she believed, and her hand clenched viciously at the thought, that his protestations of love were all false, and he had only been laughing at her in his sleeve the whole time of their acquaintance.

"This ain't packing up," sullenly interposed Mr. May.

"I can't pack up," returned Mrs. May, "I am too much shook. Whatever is to be done with the pianer?"

"They must fetch it away, wife. There ain't nothing else to be done with it."

66

Oh," groaned Mrs. May, "I wish I was dead."

"Much use it is, wishing that," said the porter; "I'd recommend you to turn and pack up, instead. If the things bain't in the cart by five, we shall have 'em thrown in for us. I know our master; he sticks to his word when he's roused. You'd better begin with them pots and kettles. They can go in that empty case."

Mrs. May dried her eyes, and slowly rose. said, “you must lend a helping hand to-day."

"Come, Sophiar," she

"I!" returned Sophia, in a tone of ineffable contempt. "I lend a helping hand with pots and kettles! You forget yourself, mother. I will pack up my own things, and glad enough to do it, and be away from this horrid hole, but I shall soil my fingers with nothing else."

She sailed out of the kitchen as she spoke, and ascended to the top of the house. The porter departed to secure two rooms which were to let in the neighbourhood, and to bring in help to get away their goods in time. Later in the day, when they were engaged in the attics taking down the bedsteads, and Sophia was in the kitchen alone, somebody stole in at the door. It was Mr. Jones, whom we once saw just after he was articled-and Sophia too. His articles were done with now, but he remained in the office at a good salary, hoping a vague hope that he might sometime see on the door-posts "Lyvett, Castlerosse, Lyvett, and

Jones.'

"My dear Miss May! I have so longed for a little conversation with you, and now that puppy Fred Lyvett's out of the way, I hope my turn has come. I adore you."

"What?" said Sophia, turning on him no pleasant expression. She was in an awful mood that day.

"I adore

“Then take that," answered Sophia, dashing over him the contents of a wooden bowl, an apparent compound of grease and damp coffeegrounds. "And if you don't take yourself off you shall have this."

The other was a carving-knife, which she raised menacingly towards him. Mr. Jones, more chapfallen than he ever remembered to have been, retreated up the stairs, wondering how on earth he should get his hat out of the office, and himself and his shirt-front through the streets. Just then he met Mrs. May, carrying down some bedposts.

"Sakes alive, sir!" she uttered in astonishment, "whatever is the matter? I never saw anybody in such a pickle in my life."

"You may well ask what it is, Dame May !" spluttered Mr. Jones. "It is the work of your fury of a daughter. I addressed a polite word to her, as civilly as I could speak it, and she flung this poison over me— or whatever it is. It's well for the house that it's going to have a clearance, for I believe she's gone mad."

"What did you do that for, Sophiar ?" demanded Mrs. May, when she reached the kitchen.

"Do what?"

"That to Mr. Jones."

"Because I pleased. And I won't be questioned."

"Whatever shall we do with you, if you are to behave like this?” exclaimed poor Mrs. May. "You'll murder somebody some day."

"Don't trouble yourself as to what you'll do with me. I shall leave home, and do something for myself."

"Where to go to? what to do?" quickly responded Mrs. May. "I shall go out as governess. My mind is made up.”

you

"As governess?" repeated the mother. "Well, Sophiar, if I don't believe have just hit it," she added, after a pause. "There's many a respectable tradesman's family would be glad of you to help edicate their girls."

Very likely," remarked Sophia. "But I shall enter a nobleman's." Mrs. May was petrified. "You can never get admittance to a nobleman's house, child-as a governess."

"You'll see," coolly returned Sophia. And so shall we.

ANGLING IN FRANCE.*

A WORK on French angling is very acceptable. Practically, we know something of the running streams of la belle France, and of its great stagnant waters; but many an amateur, like ourselves, would be glad to know more. It is pleasant to dwell upon the peculiarities of a country in connexion with a favourite sport, both in regard to the produce, the ways and means, the whereabouts, and the local systems. Such a book is also a step in the right way, even although there is not yet material enough in angling in France to make up a volume without the aid of reference to that most unsportsmanlike proceeding the net. M. L. Rouyer has, indeed, done well in his illustrations to represent two veritable badauds in blouse as engaged in so discreditable a proceeding as déployant l'épervier, or "throwing the casting-net."

Let the morose and selfish utilitarian say what he will, the art of angling is one of the most agreeable and morally improving in the entire range of rural sports. Were so innocent, and yet so beneficial, a practice more cultivated in France, depend upon it there would be much less political excitement. The energy and zeal of our Continental friends and allies would find a new outlet, and they might exhaust even some of their military ardour in the pursuit of trout and salmon. They would, at the same time, acquire a more lively sense of the beauties of external nature, and a keener relish for the sympathies which they

*La Pêche à la ligne et au filet dans les eaux douces de la France. Par N. Guillemard.

awaken in the human breast. Such a pursuit would first open to them the pleasures, known only to a few, of mingling the spiritual and contemplative with the manly and active; and to saunter by the banks of the river and the brook would become to them redolent, as it is to all true Waltonians, of the most refreshing pleasures and charming associations. When national sports and pastimes are in strict accordance with all that is improving in body and in mind, they cannot be too sedulously cultivated among the bulk of the people. And in a country like England, where angling is almost a trait in the manners, it is amusing to find Mr. Guillemard girding his loins to the task of upholding that which even the bustling worldly American acknowledges to produce gentleness of spirit and serenity of mind, by quotations from a tract, "De Venatione Piscatione," &c., published in 1625! He might have gone at once back to anti-historical times, and transferred to his pages the placid countenances of the Egyptians angling on the painted walls of the Theban tombs. Olden arguments in favour of fishing are, indeed, unanswerable. The deluge was the saturnalia of the finny tribe; Tobit expelled the demon Asmodeus with the fumes arising from the heart and liver of a great fish captured in the Tigris, and which Bochart absurdly deemed to be a shark; it was more likely a trionyx; Jonah was preserved in a fish's belly; and our Saviour selected his disciples from among humble fishermen.

Modern arguments are of a different and less irresistible character. They are generally tinged with the writer's own mode of viewing the subject; some love angling, simply for the pleasures which it brings with it, regardless of the results; others only regard it in proportion, not to the goodness, but to the size of the fish they catch. The paradise of many a bloated cockney angler is a punt, a barrel of ground-bait, a gallon of beer, and a barbel every six hours. Now, to a Frenchman the great question is the cuisine. M. Guillemard's arguments are, that a salmon or a fine trout can bear comparison with a pheasant or a woodcock; a good matelote of barbel, carp, or eel, makes no bad show by the side of a civet of hare; and a good fry of round and plump gudgeons is not to be despised, even when set against a brochette of thrushes and larks!

The art of angling, M. Guillemard tells us, is generally considered in France to be a pastime only suited for those of small means. It is high time that such a prejudice should be uprooted. M. Guillemard does his best to bring about the result. He tells his countrymen that angling in England is considered to be a sport in every way worthy of a gentleman. The two words being in vogue just now on the Continent, may have their effect. Not only, he says, is there nothing improper in the pastime, but the means of carrying it out are got up with that luxe de comfort with which the English delight to surround themselves. The last two English words printed in italics, as we have given them, are a little more hazardous than the first. The luxury of comfort might apply to the Melton Mowbray pies, but it can scarcely be said to do so to the tackle and gear.

M. Guillemard is, however, zealous in the cause. He looks upon the migration of this taste for angling to the other side of La Manche, as one of the most desirable results of the alliance. As to the fear of ridicule, that, he intimates, must be discarded by "a holy and a happy April-VOL. CIX. NO. CCCCXXXVI.

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