devote the remainder of her days to expiatory offices of charity and religion, if she could be only once more made an honest woman in England. This was touching Achilles upon the heel; assailing Sir John upon the only vulne rable point. To her sudden fits of angry reproach or pathetic appeal, which were at first of rare occurrence, he could turn a deaf ear; but when they were perpetually renewed, the wear and tear of their annoyance became intolerable to a soft and easy temper like the baronet's; and the idea of freeing himself from her importunities, even by so hazardous an experiment as marriage, began to be more complacently entertained. Debilitated in body, enervated in mind, desiring nothing but a quiet home and the tranquil enjoyment of his bottle; and above all, hoping that by drawing the arrow closer to him he might shoot it away for ever, the simple Sir John, at length, sent for a priest, and, within the walls of the old moated house, converted the Juffrouw Weegschaal into Lady Compton. Incongruous, and even ridiculous and degrading, as this match might be esteemed, Sir John might, perhaps, have been enabled to jus tify his choice, if she had left him as he anticipated, or if her subsequent conduct had been at all consistent with her previous demeanour; but this, unfortunately, was by no means the case. Not that there was any diminution in her personal attentions; not that she broke out into vulgar violence, as women similarly circumstanced are apt to do, or resolved to domineer the moment the attempt might be made with impunity. There was nothing vicious, nothing of the Jezabel, in her disposition; every other passion was absorbed in avarice. To this the whole of her recent conduct had been rendered subservient; even her apparent liberality and temporary advances being but a bait, by which she hoped to hook her prey, and obtain ultimate possession of Sir John and his fortune. Now that this was effected she became sordidly penurious, grudging him as well as herself the common necessaries of life; seizing and hoarding up for her own use the rents, which soon began to be more regularly paid; refusing to let any body else have the smallest insight into his affairs, and grinding every thing into grist for her own private purse, without the least remorse or compunction. Intimidation or entreaty were equally ineffectual; she pursued her course quietly but steadily; and poor Sir John, who grew weary of altercation, and found coaxing of no avail, would have believed that she had a design of starving him to death in his own house, had he not observed, that she denied herself the smallest gratification with the same miserly and pinching sordidness. He was the last man to like such beggarly cheer; but though the grumbling of his stomach expressed itself very intelligibly by his lips, it only brought him the old answer, that her own ante-nuptial claims upon his purse were not yet liquidated, and that it would be time enough to talk of gluttonous luxuries when he had paid his just debts. Such were the domestic arrangements to which he had so ambiguously alluded in his letters to Jocelyn; such were the circumstances which had so long delayed his return; and such was the house to which he was now ushered, in utter ignorance of the woeful change which had taken place in his father's situation and establishment. "Jocelyn, my boy, Jocelyn! 'Sblood! I'm right glad to see you," exclaimed the baronet, grasping his son's hand until it was almost benumbed. "Zooks! you're grown a fine strapping fellow! and the very sight of you, looking so stout and lusty, makes your old father's heart quop for joy, as the saying is. Od's bobs! we'll have rare sport now we are met together in merry old England: 'Come, let's be merry, Drink claret and sherry, And cast away care and sorrow; He's a fool that takes thought of to-morrow.' How goes the rest on't? Ah, Jocelyn, I begin to forget my old songs now, what with the gout, and what with ; but wasn't that a good ballad I sent you about Noll? 'Old Oliver's gone to the dogs, Oh no I do mistake, He's gone in a wherry, Over the Ferry, They call the Stygian lake : But Cerberus that great Porter, Did read him such a lecture, That made him to roar, when he came ashore, |