satisfaction that is radiating from every point of that rosy countenance. Who on earth could be angry with him? One might be provoked, but angry one couldn't be. It is evidently the face of one who takes the world lightly--who esteems nothing as very heavy--retains no impressions very long--enjoys the hour and its pleasures to the very utmost, and has no great consciousness of sin or shame in any thing that he does. He is, in fact, a fat butterfly, who, though he may have some difficulty in fluttering from flower to flower, does his best to sip the sweets of all he finds, and not very unsuccessfully. With that same jaunty light step, with that same good-humoured, well-satisfied smile, Sir John Slingsby advanced straight to his sister, took her in his arms, gave her a hearty kiss, and shook both her hands, exclaiming in around, full, juicy voice, almost as fat as himself, "Well, my dear Harriet, I'm very happy to see you; this _is_ kind, this is very kind indeed; I could hardly believe my ears when the servants told me you were here, but I left the fellows immediately to fuddle their noses at leisure, and came to assure myself that it was a fact. And my dear Mary, too, my little saint, how are you, my dear girl?" "We were brought here, John," replied Mrs. Clifford, "by a very shameful trick." And she proceeded to explain to him the trick which had been practised upon her. "Gout!" exclaimed Sir John, "gout in the stomach! It would be a devilish large gout to take up his abode in my stomach, or else he'd find the house too big for him;" and he laid his hand upon his large paunch with an air of pride and satisfaction. "Gout! that does not look like gout I think," and he stuck out his neat foot, and trim well-shaped ankle; "never had but one threatening of a fit in my life, and then I cured it in an afternoon--with three bottles of Champagne and a glass of brandy," he added, in a sort of loud aside to Mary, as if she would enter into the joke better than her mother. "And so really, Harriet, you would not have come if you had not thought me dying. Come, come now, forget and forgive; let bygones be bygones; I know I am a d--d fool, and do a great many very silly things; but 'pon my soul I'm very sorry for it, I am indeed; you can't think how I abominate myself sometimes, and wonder what the devil possesses me. I'll repent and reform, upon my life I will, Harriet, if you'll just stay and help me--it's being left all alone to struggle with temptation that makes me fail so often, but every ten minutes I'm saying to myself, 'What an old fool you are, Jack Slingsby!' so now you'll stay like a dear good girl, as you always were, and help to make my house a little respectable. Forget and forgive, forget and forgive." "My dear John, I have nothing to forgive," answered Mrs. Clifford. "You know very well that I would do any thing in the world to promote your welfare, and always wished it, but---"