tinued the same languid, listless person as of yore, whom nobody and nothing could enliven

or arouse.

Augustus had been obliged to leave the Royal Military College (as I afterwards learnt) in disgrace; but his father had, nevertheless, succeeded in obtaining for him a commission in the Guards; and he was then, as he expressed it-on "foreign service" in Dublin, and undergoing severe campaigning hardships in the field of :-the "Fifteen Acres "—in the Phoenix Park; besides being harassed to death by incessant duty on the Castle Guard!

Louisa Talbot was likewise during these Christmas holidays, at Brock Hall; she had, -in common with my other fair cousins, Frances, Georgiana, and Agnes Seymour,now shot up into a tall, graceful, and very handsome girl. But the sprightly, dark-eyed Agnes-in my perhaps partial opinion-bore off the palm of beauty and attractive charms.

Well to this moment can I recall how pleasantly did time glide rapidly away, during my

first youthful visit to Brock Hall; amidst what an unceasing round of pleasure and amusements I passed my days; how I then became initiated into Old England's manly sports and pastimes of the field, for which the foundation had been laid whilst scouring on foot and horseback, the most rugged and wildest mountain-tracts of the Canton de Vaud; the scene of many an excursion with those charming girls, with whom I still continued on the same friendly and familiar terms, as when scrambling over the vine-clad hills of Châtelar and of Montreux; or basking together on the sunny margin of the lake.

The time, however, fast approached, when I should be obliged to leave this fairy land, and face the grim terrors of the "Board," before whom that dreaded ordeal was to be undergone the preliminary examination which takes place, before a candidate is admitted to the Military College as a Cadet.

:

The disappointment of a failure would have been greater, since my uniform had just arrived; and so much did I admire the

scarlet coattee, turned up with blue and gold, and also the very tight, close-fitting, and wellmade pantaloons; that, after having tried on the suit, I could not refrain from indulging the boyish vanity I felt, and displaying myself thus arrayed, to my fair cousins'-I doubted not-admiring eyes.

Having, therefore, bestowed upon my new toilette the utmost care, and well surveyed myself in the glass, I impatiently waited till the dinner-bell was rung; then strutted, with all my blushing honours on my back, into the midst of a crowded room, where, to my utter confusion, I was received with undisguised merriment, in which the mischievous Agnes wickedly took the lead.

Abroad, I had been accustomed to see military men in uniform, holding intercourse. with civil life; nor could I imagine why I should be ashamed, of what was to be the honoured badge of my military career.

But I had evidently committed a "grand faux pas;" and sensitive to ridicule in the extreme; vexed with Agnes, and still more

so with myself; in a paroxysm of anger and mortification, I fairly made a "bolt : " escaped from this relentless persecutor, and took refuge in my own apartment, where I sullenly remained, and went dinnerless and supperless to bed.

CHAPTER VI.

THE FOX-HUNT.

46

Attend, ye farmers, to my tale,

And when ye mend the broken rail,
Reflect with pleasure on a sport

That lures your landlord from the court,
To dwell and spend his rents among

The country folk-from whence they sprung.
And should his steed, with trampling feet,

Be urged across your tender wheat,
That steed perchance by you was bred,
And

yours the corn by which he's fed;
Ah! then restrain your rising ire,
Nor rashly curse the hunting Squire."

WARBURTON.

THE unpleasant consciousness of having made myself ridiculous, by infringing what I was not till then aware appeared to be an established