good and all that is bad, in a very large class of his fellow citizens. He is quick-witted, prompt in action, enterprizing in all things in which he has nothing to lose, but wary and cautious in all things in which he has a real stake, and ready to turn not only his hand, but his heart and his principles to any thing that offers an advantage. With him, literally, "nothing is too high to be aspired to, nothing too low to be done." He will run for governor, or for town-clerk, just as opportunities occur, is expert in all the practices of his profession, has had a quarter's dancing, with three years in the classics, and turned his attention towards medicine and divinity, before he finally settled down into the law. Such a compound of shrewdness, impudence, common-sense, pretension, humility, cleverness, vulgarity, kind-heartedness, duplicity, selfishness, law-honesty, moral fraud and mother wit, mixed up with a smattering of learning and much penetration in practical things, can hardly be described, as any one of his prominent qualities is certain to be met by another quite as obvious that is almost its converse. Mr. Bragg, in short, is purely a creature of circumstances, his qualities pointing him out for either a member of congress or a deputy sheriff, offices that he is equally ready to fill. I have employed him to watch over the estate of your father, in the absence of the latter, on the principle that one practised in tricks is the best qualified to detect and expose them, and with the certainty that no man will trespass with impunity, so long as the courts continue to tax bills of costs with their present liberality. You appear to know the gentleman, Grace; is this character of him faithful?"

"I know nothing of bills of costs and deputy sheriffs, but I do know that Mr. Aristabulus Bragg is an amusing mixture of strut, humility, roguery, and cleverness. He is waiting all this time in the drawingroom, and you had better see him, as he may now be almost considered part of the family. You know he has been living in the house at Templeton, ever since he was installed by Mr. John Effingham. It was there I had the honour first to meet him."

"First? Surely you have never seen him anywhere else!”

"Your pardon, my dear. He never comes to town without honouring me with a call. This is the price I pay for having had the honour of being an inmate of the same house with him for a week."

Eve rang the bell, and Pierre made his appearance.

"Desire Mr. Bragg to walk into the library."

Grace looked demure while Pierre was gone to usher in their visitor, and Eve was thinking of the medley, of qualities John Effingham had assembled in his description, as the door opened, and the subject of her contemplation entered.

"Monsieur Aristabule," said Pierre, eyeing the card, but sticking at the first name.

Mr. Aristabulus Bragg was advancing with an easy assurance to make his bow to the ladies, when the more finished air and quiet dignity of Miss Effingham, who was standing, so far disconcerted him as completely to upset his self-possession. As Grace had expressed it, in consequence of having lived three years in the old residence at Templeton, he had begun to consider himself a part of the family, and at home he never spoke of the young lady without calling her

"Eve," or "Eve Effingham." But he found it a very different thing, to affect familiarity among his associates and to practise it in the very face of its subject; and although seldom at a loss for words of some sort or another, he was now actually dumb-founded. Eve relieved his awkwardness by directing Pierre, with her eye, to hand a chair, and first speaking. "I regret that my father is not in," she said, by way of turning the visit from herself; "but he is to be expected every moment. Are you lately from Templeton ?"

Aristabulus drew his breath, and recovered enough of his ordinary tone of manner to reply with a decent regard to his character for selfcommand. The intimacy that he had intended to establish on the spot was temporarily defeated, it is true, and without his exactly knowing how it had been effected; for it was merely the steadiness of the young lady, blended as it was with a polished reserve, that had thrown him to a distance he could not explain. He felt immediately, and with taste that did his sagacity credit, that his footing in this quarter was only to be obtained by unusually slow and cautious means. Still, Mr. Bragg was a man of great decision, and, in his way, of very far-sighted views; and, singular as it may seem, at that unpropitious moment, he mentally determined that, at no very distant day, he would make Miss Eve Effingham his wife.

"I hope Mr. Effingham enjoys good health," he said, with some such caution as a rebuked school-girl enters on the recitation of her task"he enjoyed bad health, I hear" (Mr Aristabulus Bragg, though so shrewd, was far from critical in his modes of speech,) "when he went to Europe, and after travelling so far in such bad company, it would be no more than fair that he should have a little respite as he approaches home and old age."

Had Eve been told that the man who uttered this nice sentiment, and that too in accents as uncouth and provincial as the thought was finished and lucid, actually presumed to think of her as his bosom companion, it is not easy to say which would have predominated in her mind, mirth or resentment. But Mr. Bragg was not in the habit of letting his secrets escape him prematurely, and certainly this was one that none but a wizard could have discovered without the aid of a direct oral or written communication.

"Are you lately from Templeton?" repeated Eve, a little surprised that the gentleman did not see fit to answer the question, which was the only one that, as it seemed to her, could have a common interest with them both.

"I left home the day before yesterday," Aristabulus now deigned to reply.

"It is so long since I saw our beautiful mountains, and I was then so young, that I feel a great impatience to revisit them, though the pleasure must be deferred until spring."

"I conclude they are the handsomest mountains in the known world, Miss Effingham!"

"That is much more than I shall venture to claim for them; but, according to my imperfect recollection, and what I esteem of far more importance, according to the united testimony of Mr. John Effingham and my father, I think they must be very beautiful.”

Aristabulus looked up, as if he had a facetious thing to say, and he even ventured on a smile, while he made his answer.

"I hope Mr. John Effingham has prepared you for a great change in the house?"

"We know that it has been repaired and altered under his directions. That was done at my father's request."

"We consider it denationalized, Miss Effingham, there being nothing like it, west of Albany at least."

"I should be sorry to find that my cousin has subjected us to this imputation," said Eve, smiling-perhaps a little equivocally, "the architecture of America being generally so simple and pure. Mr. Effingham laughs at his own improvements, however, in which, he says, he has only carried out the plans of the original artiste, who worked very much in what was called the composite order."

"You allude to Mr. Hiram Doolittle, a gentleman I never saw, though I hear he has left behind him many traces of his progress in the newer states. Ex pede, Herculem, as we say, in the classics, Miss Effingham. I believe it is the general sentiment that Mr. Doolittle's designs have been improved on, though most people think that the Grecian or Roman architecture, which is so much in use in America, would be more republican. But everybody knows that Mr. John Effingham is not much of a republican.",

Eve did not choose to discuss her kinsman's opinions with Mr. Aristabulus Bragg, and she quietly remarked that she "did not know that the imitations of the ancient architecture, of which there are so many in the country, were owing to attachment to republicanism.”

"To what else can it be owing, Miss Eve?"

"Sure enough," said Grace Van Cortlandt; "it is unsuited to the materials, the climate, and the uses; and some very powerful motive, like that mentioned by Mr. Bragg, could alone overcome these obstacles."

Aristabulus started from his seat, and making sundry apologies, declared his previous unconsciousness that Miss Van Cortlandt was present; all of which was true enough, as he had been so much occupied mentally, with her cousin, as not to have observed her, seated as she was partly behind a screen. Grace received the excuses favourably, and the conversation was resumed.

“I am sorry that my cousin should offend the taste of the country,” said Eve, "but as we are to live in the house, the punishment will fall heaviest on the offenders."

"Do not mistake me, Miss Eve," returned Aristabulus in a little alarm, for he too well understood the influence and wealth of John Effingham, not to wish to be on good terms with him; "do not mistake me. I admire the house, and know it to be a perfect specimen of a pure architecture in its way, but then public opinion is not yet quite up to it. I see all its beauties, I would wish you to know, but then there are many, a majority, perhaps, who do not, and these persons think they ought to be consulted about such matters."

"I believe Mr. John Effingham thinks less of his own work than you seem to think of it yourself, sir, for I have frequently heard him laugh at it, as a mere enlargement of the merits of the composite order. He

calls it a caprice, rather than a taste: nor do I see what concern a majority, as you term them, can have with a house that does not belong to them."

Aristabulus was surprised that any one could disregard a majority; for, in this respect, he a good deal resembled Mr. Dodge, though running a different career; and the look of surprise he gave was natural and open.

"I do not mean that the public has a legal right to control the tastes of the citizen," he said, "but in a republican government, you undoubtedly understand, Miss Eve, it will rule in all things."

"I can understand that one would wish to see his neighbour use good taste, as it helps to embellish a country; but the man who should consult the whole neighbourhood before he built would be very apt to cause a complicated house to be erected, if he paid much respect to the different opinions he received; or, what is quite as likely, apt to have no house at all."

"I think you are mistaken, Miss Effingham, for the public sentiment, just now, runs almost exclusively and popularly into the Grecian school. We build little besides temples for our churches, our banks, our taverns, our court-houses, and our dwellings. A friend of mine has just built a brewery on the model of the Temple of the Winds."

"Had it been a mill, one might understand the conceit," said Eve, who now began to perceive that her visiter had some latent humour, though he produced it in a manner to induce one to think him anything but a droll. "The mountains must be doubly beautiful, if they are decorated in the way you mention. I sincerely hope, Grace, that I shall find the hills as pleasant as they now exist in my recollection!"

"Should they not prove to be quite as lovely as you imagine, Miss Effingham," returned Aristabulus, who saw no impropriety in answering a remark made to Miss Van Cortlandt, or any one else, "I hope you will have the kindness to conceal the fact from the world."

"I am afraid that would exceed my power, the disappointment would be so strong. May I ask why you show so much interest in my keeping so cruel a mortification to myself?"

"Why, Miss Eve," said Aristabulus, looking grave, "I am afraid that our people would hardly bear the expression of such an opinion from you."

"From me and why not from me, in particular?"

66

'Perhaps it is because they think you have travelled, and have seen other countries."

"And is it only those who have not travelled, and who have no means of knowing the value of what they say, that are privileged to criticise?"

"I cannot exactly explain my own meaning, perhaps, but I think Miss Grace will understand me. Do you not agree with me, Miss Van Cortlandt, in thinking it would be safer for one who never saw any other mountains to complain of the tameness and monotony of our own, than for one who had passed a whole life among the Andes and the Alps?"

Eve smiled, for she saw that Mr. Bragg was capable of detecting and laughing at provincial pride, even while he was so much under its

influence; and Grace coloured, for she had the consciousness of having already betrayed some of this very silly sensitiveness, in her intercourse with her cousin, in connexion with other subjects. A reply was unnecessary, however, as the door just then opened, and John Effingham made his appearance. The meeting between the two gentlemen, for we suppose Aristabulus must be included in the category by courtesy, if not of right, was more cordial than Eve had expected to witness; for each really entertained a respect for the other, in reference to a merit of a particular sort; Mr. Bragg esteeming Mr. John Effingham as a wealthy and caustic cynic, and Mr. John Effingham regarding Mr. Bragg much as the owner of a dwelling regards a valuable house-dog. After a few moments of conversation, the two withdrew together, and just as the ladies were about to descend to the drawing-room, previously to dinner, Pierre announced that a plate had been ordered for the land agent.

CHAPTER II.

"I know that Deformed; he has been a vile thief this seven year; he goes up and down like a gentleman."-MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.

EVE and her cousin found Sir George Templemore and Captain Truck in the drawing-room, the former having lingered in New York, with a desire to be near his friends, and the latter being on the point of sailing for Europe, in his regular turn. To these must be added Mr. Bragg and the ordinary inmates of the house, when the reader will get a view of the whole party.

Aristabulus had never before sat down to as brilliant a table, and for the first time in his life he saw candles lighted at a dinner; but he was not a man to be disconcerted at a novelty. Had he been a European of the same origin and habits, awkwardness would have betrayed him fifty times before the dessert made its appearance; but, being the man he was, one who overlooked a certain prurient politeness that rather illustrated his deportment, might very well have permitted him to pass among the oi polloi of the world, were it not for a peculiar management in the way of providing for himself. It is true, he asked every one near him to eat of everything he could himself reach, and that he used his knife as a coalheaver uses a shovel; but the company he was in, though fastidious in its own department, was altogether above the silver-forkisms, and this portion of his demeanour, if it did not escape undetected, passed away unnoticed. Not so, however, with the peculiarity already mentioned as an exception. This touch of deportment (or management, perhaps, is the better word), being characteristic of the man, it deserves to be mentioned a little in detail.

The service at Mr. Effingham's table was made in the quiet, but thorough manner that distinguishes a French dinner. Every dish was removed, carved by the domestics, and handed; in turn to each guest.