the Ring I found absolutely abandoned, though, as a ride, one of the prettiest in the kingdom; and all the world, at the hazard of crushing one another to pieces, were parading in triple rows, up and down one long dull line, between the two gates."

"That seems bad," observed Tremaine, "and is new since I was there.”

"To our point," said the Doctor. "When I entered from Piccadilly, I observed Sir Giles the Baronet, you know, with a vacant face, waiting on horseback behind the rails of Rotten Row, in seemingly immediate expectation of something coming."

"And did it not come ?" asked Tremaine.

"I think not," replied Evelyn, "for having gone round the Ring, I found him precisely in the same spot and attitude, and precisely with the same vacancy of countenance, seemingly as much as ever at a loss for what he expected. I had, however, in the mean time made a similar remark on Sir Charles, Sir John, My Lord, and your friend the Quizzer himself; who all, on horseback or on foot, were leaning over the rails, all along the road."

"There must have been some reason," said Tremaine.

"They were all foin parliament men,'" replied the Doctor.

"Pshaw!" said Tremaine, perceiving his drift,

"what possible harm can there be in gentlemen talking together in the manner you describe?''

"None in the world," said Evelyn drily; "you will observe I am on my defence; I only said that a wall was as good as a rail."

Georgina rather laughing, Tremaine said gravely, "are we to understand, then, that there is no difference in persons or things? that this rough neighbourhood supplies as good society as London? that this dirty lane is equal to Hyde Park? and that you or I could have the same pleasures here, as in the conversation we found there ?”

"Sçavoir," answered the Doctor, who, from having been abroad, often interlarded his talk with foreign phrases, "sçavoir what the conversation is. That which I caught in my daily visit to the park, consisted, I will not say for the most part, but altogether of the scandal of the gaming-house, or boudoir ; who lost the last thousand? how long it would be before Lady A- ran away to Lord B-, whom. she had always wished to marry instead of her husband; or, at best, the empty speculations of people who knew nothing at all about the matter, upon a change of ministry."

"And this you call London conversation?" exclaimed Tremaine.

"Far from it," answered his friend; "I said it was London rail conversation, and as such not better, if

not something worse than country wall conversation. There is a great deal of good talk in London, which we can seldom command in the country: there is also a great deal of frivolity which we escape. Our bad and ridiculous passions may not indeed be eradicated, but they are not exercised.”

"You allow then, at last," interrupted Tremaine, "that solitude is a good thing."

"Not a bit of it," replied the Doctor.

Suppose we ask Mr. Careless what he thinks of it," said Georgina, " for there he is ;" and she pointed him out.

Jack was at that moment in the very middle of the farm-yard, on the other side of the garden, giving a lecture to his tenant, who listened with great approbation, upon what both agreed was a desideratum in farming science;-the best mode of baiting a mole-trap.

"I think I have made him understand it," said Jack, as he leapt the garden-wall, with the mole-trap in his hand.

"You deserve to be immortalized," observed Tremaine;" your own invention, I suppose?"

"An improvement," answered Careless," and I hope a very good one; it cost me a night's sleep, besides two or three consultations with the Squire Rector here, to say nothing of Georgy, who had a voice in it too; had not you, Georgy?"

"Upon my word," said Tremaine, bowing to them all, "the occupations of the country want no farther panegyric or comment, to prove their superiority. A doctor of divinity, an accomplished young lady, and a gentleman of high degree, all bending the force of their genius, and giving their time to molecatching. I want no other proof of the value of time in the country."

"And why not?" said the Doctor, "as well as to fox-catching with squires, or paradox-catching with philosophers, or rat-catching with politicians?"

Tremaine did not very well like the reply; and the conversation, after pausing, took another turn, and fell upon subjects concerning which we do not think it expedient to trouble the reader with any detailed report; shortly after which the whole party proceeded to the little town of Belford.

Here, too, we are compelled to do another small violence to our historical feelings, and refrain from accompanying our friends in their ride. Suffice it that they went and returned without incurring any moving accident" by either "flood or field;" not, however, without having previously arranged to dine in pic-nic under the mulberry tree in Careless's garden.

66

"Charming!" exclaimed Georgina, on the proposal to the above effect being made by her father,

in consequence of a set of gypsies having passed up the lane just as they were starting ; “ charming !” and that word 'charming' silenced an objection which had already reached the end of Mr. Tremaine's tongue, but which, from the moment Miss Evelyn expressed her opinion, never got beyond it..

Careless declaring that nothing would be so delightful to him as the proposed plan, but the utmost he could command was a leg of mutton, the Doctor sent off his servant with a carte-blanche to the housekeeper at Evelyn Hall; and Tremaine would have sent him on to Woodington, with a like order to Monsieur Bertrand his cook, had not the whole party declared against French cookery under an English mulberry tree, and even carried it so far, that an equally firm protest was made against the claret and sauterne for which Tremaine very strongly pleaded.

"You say true, my good friend,” said the arbitrary Doctor, arguing the point, "prejudice is prejudice, whether English or French: but the stomach is above all fashionable feeling, and will speak for itself; and if these fine wines are acrid poisons to you instead of support, they will not destroy you the less because you are prejudiced for or I against them."

"But consider his reputation," said Georgina, archly: "how would it sound at White's, if it were