"Who dines with my uncle to-day?" said Miss Campbell to her cousin, Ellen Burton;-" I see you have an extra cover set, and he seems rather in the fidgets because his guest is not come."

Dr Brown. I expected to have met an elderly gentleman, but was agreeably surprised at meeting with so much elegance, conjoined with youth. He is certainly the most engaging and courteous gentleman I have ever seen, and has already made me an offer, which I think it would be imprudent in me to reject. As I have much to say to you on this subject, I will come down and see you in the coach to-morrow. "Your ever affectionate niece,

"ELIZA CAMPBELL."

So, the Nabob has been hoaxing me all this while," said the clothier to himself, chuckling. He then laughed at Miss Campbell's mistake about his friend's age, and slily remarked, that money was all powerful in modifying ages to suit each other. After considering the matter a little more seriously, he became suspicious that some mistake had occurred, for he knew it to be his friend the Doctor's disposition always to speak his sentiments rather too freely, and, in the present instance, he seemed to be quite chagrined and out of humour whenever Miss Campbell was named. The good clothier had a sincere affection for his niece, and, having a large family of his own to provide for, he was anxious to see her settled in life by a respectable marriage, particularly as she had of late begun to be noted as a great beauty, and was toasted by the beaux. So the clothier remained involved in a puzzle until the next day, when his niece arrived and still from her he could learn nothing, but that all was as it should be. He asked who introduced Dr Brown to her. It was the very friend to whom the clothier had written to perform that friendly office. He made her describe Dr Brown's person and address; and, as far as the clothier could see, they corresponded to a very tittle. Very well, thinks the clothier to himself, as I am uncertain whether the crabbed loon will come to dinner to-day or not, I will say nothing about it, and then I will see how the two are affected when they meet.

Four o'clock came, so the clothier went home to his house, and put on his black coat and silk stockings; and then he paced up and down his little snug parlour, which served as a drawing-room, with much impatience, going every five minutes up stairs to look out at the window.

"I do not know who it is," returned Miss Burton ; "he merely said that he expected a stranger to dine with him to-day-some English bagman, I suppose. We have these people frequently with us; but I never regard them, always leaving them with my father to consult about markets and bargains, as soon as dinner is over; and we will leave them the same way tonight, and go to Mrs Innes's grand tea party, you know.”

"Oh, by all means."

With that the Doctor entered, and was welcomed by a hearty and kindly shake of the hand; and, leading him forward, Burton said, "This is my daughter Ellen, sir, and her sister Jane." Of Miss Campbell he made no mention, conceiving that she and the Doctor were well acquainted before. But either the Doctor and she had not been acquainted before—or else the room was so dark that the Doctor could not see distinctly (for he was very much out of breath, which mazes the eye-sight a great deal), or the beauty of the young ladies had dazzled him or some unaccountable circumstance had occurred, for the Doctor did not recognise Miss Campbell, nor did the young lady take any notice of him. On the contrary, Jane Burton being only a little girl, and below the Doctor's notice at that time of night, he took the other two for the clothier's daughters, and addressed them as such all the time of dinner. The two young giglets being amused by the simple mistake, encouraged the stranger in it, answering to their names, and quizzing one another about the bagman and his patterns, of all which the Doctor understood not one word; but the clethier thought it altogether a very odd business; yet he carved his beef and his chuckies, and held his peace, suffering the girls to have out their joke, deeming it all affectation on Miss Campbell's part, and some strange misconception of the Doctor's, which he resolved to humour.

The Doctor was so polite and attentive to the young ladies, and appeared so highly delighted with them, that they were insensibly induced to stay

longer at table than they intended, and on their going away, he conducted them to the door, kissed both their hands, and said a number of highly flattering things to them. On again taking his seat, being in high spirits, he said, "Why, in the name of wonder, my dear friend, should you endeavour to put grist by your own mill, as the saying is? These daughters of yours are by far the most accomplished and agreeable young ladies whom I have seen since my return from India. The eldest is really a masterpiece, not only of Nature's workmanship, but of all that grace and good-breeding can bestow."

"I thank you kindly, sir; I was afraid they would be a little too fair of complexion for your taste. Pray have you never met with that eldest one before? for it struck me that you looked as you had been previously acquainted."

"How was it possible I could ever have seen her? But you know a bachelor of my years assumes a privilege with young ladies which would be widely out of place with our juniors, while it not unfrequently has the effect of rendering us the greater favourites of the two. It is quite well known, Mr Burton, what my errand to Britain is at this time. I have never concealed it from you. It is to obtain a wife; and now to receive one out of your family, and from your own hand, would be my highest desire settlements are nothing between us. These shall be of your own making. Your eldest daughter, the tallest I mean, is positively the most charming woman I ever saw. Bestow her upon me, and I am the happiest man in his Majesty's dominions."

"You shall have her, Doctor-you shall have her with all my heart; and I think I have a small document on hand to show that you can likewise have her consent for the asking, if indeed you have not obtained it already."

"I will double your stock in trade, sir, before I leave this country, if you realize this promise to me. My jaunt from India beyond the Ganges is likely to be amply compensated. Why, the possession of such a jewel is worth ten voyages round the world, and meeting all the lines at Musselburgh. But I'll warrant I may expect some twitches

of temper from her-that I may reckon upon as a family endowment."

"And will there be no equivalent on the other side? No outbreakings of violence, outrage, and abuse? The Ethiopian cannot change his skin, nor the leopard his spots; no more can he of an unruly temper sit beneath the sway of reason. At all events, the reflection on me and my family comes with a bad grace from such a firebrand as yourself."

"Stop, for heaven's sake, my good friend, stop; let us not mar so excellent a prospect, by sounding the jarring strings of our nature together. Why, sir, whenever a man comes within the bounds of your atmosphere, he treads on phosphorus-he breathes it, and is not for a moment certain that he may not be blown up in an electric flash. Why get into such a rage at a goodnatured joke?"

"It was a very ill-natured joke; and I have yet to learn that you ever did a genuinely good-natured thing in your life. Even now you are all this while playing at hide-and-seek with me-playing at some back game, that I cannot comprehend, in order to make a fool of me. Do you wish me to tell you what I think of you, sir ?"

"And pray what do I care what you think of me? Does it any way affect me what may be the opinion of such a being as you? You think of me!"

"There goes! There goes the old man, with all his infirmities on his head."

"Who is an old man, Mr Burton? Who is an old man full of infirmities? Old to your teeth, sir, you are years older than myself."

"Do you know, sir, who you are speaking to, sir? or whose house you are in, sir ?"

"Yes, I do, sir. I know very well whose house I am in, and whose house I shall soon be out of, too; and whose house I shall never enter again as long as I live. Do I not know all these, sir? What you think of me, forsooth! I have thought more of you than ever it behoved me to have done; and this is the reception, I have met with in return !".

"Now pardon me this once, Doctor, and I shall never get angry with you again. I'll bear all your infirmities with the patience of Job; but you

"Miss Campbell whom you wanted to talk about! A singular subject truly, so immediately after the cessation of hostilities. I tell you once for all, Mr Burton, that I will have nothing to do with Miss Campbell-nothing to say to her; for she is absolutely my aversion.

"It is false, sir-every word of it is false; for you shall have to say to her and do with her both, and she is not your aversion. Nay, do not go to get into one of your boundless fits of rage again, for out of your own mouth will I condemn you; and if you deny your own words and mine, I will show you the lady's writ and signature to the fact."

"I was not even able to say a civil thing to the lady."

"You were. You said the most civil things to her that you could invent. You made an offer of your hand to her, and you made the same offer to me."

"I'll fight the man either with sword or pistols who would palm such an imposition on me."

The clothier made no answer to this save by handing over Miss Campbell's note to the astonished physician, who read as follows:-"I am quite delighted with your friend Dr Brown.' Hem! Thank you, Miss Eliza Campbell. So is not his friend Dr Brown

with you, I assure you. I expected to have met with an elderly gentleman, but was agreeably surprisedOho! hem, hem! What is all this? The girl has some sense and discernment though; for, do you know, I am never taken for a man above thirty."

"That I think does not show much discernment either in them or in her."

"I beg pardon, sir; I only meant to say that the girl saw with the same eyes as the generality of mankind, which at least manifests some degree of common sense. But it is all very well; I see through the letter-a trap to catch a badger, I suppose. As to the insinuation that I made her an offer, she has made it, or dreamed it, or conceived it, of herself, one way or other, for the deuce an offer I made to her of any sort whatever."

"Why, now, Doctor, the whole of your behaviour on this occasion is to me a complete mystery; for the young lady who sat on your right hand today at table, is no other than the same Miss Campbell, my niece, whom you have been all along so undeservedly abusing."

"Are you telling the truth, Mr Burton? Are you not dreaming?—I see you are telling me the truth. Why then did you introduce them to me as your daughters ?"

"I introduced my two daughters only, believing that you two were perfectly acquainted before."

"She has then been introduced to me in a mask. There is not a doubt of it. She has spoke to me under a disguise of false form and false features, yet I thought all the while that I recognised the voice. And was yon lovely, adorable creature, with the auburn hair and dark eyes, the seamaw's neck and the swan's bosom, the same who wrote that pretty card about me?"

"The same, I assure you."

"Give it me again that I may kiss it, and look at every elegant letter it contains. I have had flatterers of the sex, black and white, brown and yellow, but never before received flattery from such a superlative being as she is. Where are the ladies? Let us go to them and have tea, for I have an intense longing to look on the angel again. How right you were in your estimation of the young lady, and how grievously I was in the wrong! I would now shoot any man who dared to use such language of her as I did. I would rather she had been your daughter though, for sake of the days of langsyne, even though she is my own half-cousin by the mother's side."

Never was there a more impassioned lover than the Doctor was with this

fair cousin; he raved of her, and fumed with impatience, when he found she had gone to Mrs Innes's party, and that he could not see her again that night. He lost no time, however, in writing out the schedule of a contract, a most liberal one, and to this scroll he put his name, desiring his friend to show Miss Campbell the writing preparatory to his visit the next day. The clothier did this, and found his lovely ward delighted with the match, who acknowledged that the annual sum settled on her was four times what she expected with such an agreeable husband; and although she begged for time and leisure to make some preparations, yet, at her kind uncle's request, she unhesitatingly put her name to the document by way of acquiescence; and thus was the agreement signed and settled, and wanted only the ratification of the parson to render it permanent. He then informed her that the Doctor would wait on her next day to ask her formally, and then they might settle on such time for the marriage as suited both.

Next day the Doctor arrived at an early hour, and found the young lady dressed like an Eastern princess to receive him, and in the highest glee imaginable; but as he did not then know the success of his offer, he kept aloof from the subject till the arrival of his friend the clothier. The latter, perceiving his earnest impatience, took him into another apartment, and showed him the lady's signature and acceptance. Never was there a man so uplifted. The intelligence actually put him beside himself, for he clapped his hands, shouted -hurra! threw up his wig, and jumped over one of the chairs. His joy and hilarity during dinner were equally extravagant-there was no whim nor frolic which he did not practise. He drank tops and bottoms with the young lady every glass, and at one time got on his legs and made a long speech to her, the tenor of which she did not, or pretended that she did not, comprehend; but all the family group applauded him, so that he was elated, and even drunk with delight.

Not being able to rest, by reason of the fervour of his passion, he arose shortly after dinner, and, taking his friend the clothier into the other room, requested of him to bring matters to a verbal explanation forthwith.

He accordingly sent for Eliza, who looked rather amazed when she entered, and saw only these two together.

"Come away, my dear Eliza," said her uncle; "take a seat here, and do not look so agitated, seeing the business is already all but finished. My friend, Dr Brown, has come down today for the purpose of having a ratification of your agreement from your own hand, and your own mouth."

66

Very well, my dear uncle; though I see no occasion for hurrying the business, I am quite conformable to your will in that respect. Why did not Dr Brown come to dinner? Where is he ?"

I wish I had seen the group at this moment; or had Mr David Wilkie seen it, and taken a picture from it, it would have been ten times better. The Doctor's face of full-blown joy was changed into one of meagre consternation, nothing of the ruddy glow remaining, save on the tip of his nose. The internal ligaments that supported his jaws were loosened, and they fell down, as he gazed on the clothier; the latter stared at Eliza, and she at both alternately. It was a scene of utter bewilderment, and no one knew what to think of another. The clothier was the first to break silence.

"What ails you, my dear niece?" said he. "Are you quizzing or are you dreaming? or have you fallen into a fit of lunacy? I say, what is the matter with you, child? Is not this my friend, Dr Brown, whom I have known from his childhood?-the gentleman whom I sent for to be introduced to you, and the gentleman, too, to whom you have given yourself away, and signed the gift by an irrevocable deed?"

"What! To this old gentleman ? Dear uncle, you must excuse me, that I am in a grievous error, and a quandary besides. Ha, ha, ha!--Hee, hee, hee! Oh, mercy on us! I shall expire with downright laughing."

"What do you mean by such insulting behaviour, madam? Have I come here to be flouted, to be cheated, to be baited by a pack of terriers, with an old fox-hound at their head? But, beware, madam, how you press the old badger too hard. I have your signature here, to a very serious deed, signed before witnesses, and if you do not fulfil your engagement to me, I have you at my mercy; and I'll

"Mercy on us!" exclaimed the clothier. "We shall all go in a flame together, and be consumed by collision. My dear niece, you know not what you are doing or saying. This is no person to be despised, but the celebrated Dr Brown from India, chief of the medical staff of a whole Presidency your own kinsman-my friend, of whom you approved in your note to me, and in conjunction with whom you have signed a contract of marriage. So none of your bantering and flagaries; for have him you must, and have him you shall. The deed cannot now be annulled but by mutual consent."

"Well, then, it shall never be farther ratified by me. This may be your Dr Brown, but he is not mine; and however worthy he may be, he is not the man of my choice."

"Is not this the gentleman of whom you wrote to me in such high terms of approval ?"

"That the gentleman! Dear uncle, where would my seven senses have been, had that been he?"

"And is this not the lady, sir, whom you met in Edinburgh ?"

"I know nothing at all about it. If this be not she, I like her worse than the other."

"There is some unfortunate mistake here. Pray, Dr. Brown, who was it that introduced you to the lady, with whom you met?"

"Your friend, Mrs Wright, to be sure; whom else could it have been?" "And you did not see Mr Anderson, then?"

No; but I left your letter at his office, thinking there might be something of business."

"There it goes! Mrs Wright has introduced you to a wrong Miss Campbell, and Mr Anderson has introduced a wrong Dr Brown to her.-Plague on it, for you cannot now throw a stone in Edinburgh, but you are sure to hit either a Brown or a Campbell."

This was simply the case: The clothier wrote to his friend, Mrs Wright, to find means of introducing the bearer, Dr Brown, to their mutual friend, Miss Elizabeth Campbell. Mrs Wright, having an elderly maiden sister of that name, mistook, in perfect simplicity of heart, the term mutual friend, and, without more ado, introduced the Doctor to her sister. Now, the Doctor knew perfectly well that the other letter, which he carried to Mr Anderson, related likewise to some meeting with Miss Campbell, but not caring about any such thing, he merely popped the letter into the shop as he passed; and Mr Anderson, knowing nothing about Dr Brown's arrival from India, sent for the only unmarried Dr Brown whom he knew, and introduced him to Mr Burton's niece, as desired, and there the attachment proved spontaneous and reciprocal. - Miss Campbell, finding now that she was in a bad predicament, having given her heart to one gentleman, and her written promise to another, threw herself on the old Doctor's mercy, explained the mistake, and the state of her affections, and besought him to have pity on a poor orphan, whose choice might be wrong, but which she was incapable of altering. worthy Esculapius of the East was deeply affected. He took both the young lady's hands in his, kissed first the one and then the other, and, invoking on her all earthly happiness, he not only returned her the bond, but alongst with it a cheque on his banker for a considerable sum, as a marriage-present.

The

Miss Campbell was shortly after married to a dashing student of medicine, and they now reside in a distant province, very poor, and not over happy; and Dr Brown married the eldest daughter of his old benefactor, a simple, modest, and unassuming young creature, whom he carried off with him to the paradise of India, and placed her at the head of a magnificent Eastern establishment. I have seen several of her letters, in all of which she writes in the highest terms of her happiness and comforts. The two old friends quarrelled every day while together, but at parting, they both shed the warm tears of affection, and words of regret passed between them such as to be remembered for

ever.