might rave about his beauties, but not one of them was fit to be named beside Pamela. So sweet too, and fresh and innocent, with her dear little face like a spring morning. Thinking of that, Jack somehow glided away from his perplexities. He made a leap back in his mind to that frosty, icy day on which he had seen her in the carrier’s cart--to the moment when she sprained her ankle--to all the trifling pleasant events by which they had come to this present point. And then all at once, with a start, he came back to their last meeting, which had been the sweetest of all, and upon which hard fate, in the shape of Mr. Brownlow, had so solemnly looked in. Poor Jack! it was the first time any thing of the kind had ever happened to him. He had gone through a little flirtation now and then before, no doubt, as is the common fate of man; but as for any serious crisis, any terrible complication like this, such a thing had never occurred in his life; and the fact was, after all, that the experienced-man-of-the-world character he was in the habit of putting on did him no service in the emergency. It enabled him to clear his brow, and dismiss his uncomfortable feelings from his face during the evening, but it did him no good now that he was by himself; and it threw no light upon his future path. He could talk a little polite cynicism now and then, but in his heart he was young, and fresh, and honest, and not cynical. And then Pamela. It was not her fault. She had suffered him to lead her along those primrose paths, but it was always he who had led the way, and now was he to leave her alone to bear the disappointment and solitude, and possibly the reproach? She had gone home confused, and near crying, and probably she had been scolded when she got home, and had been suffering for him. No doubt he too was suffering for her; but still the sternest of fathers can not afflict a young man as a well-meaning mother can afflict a girl. Poor little Pamela! perhaps at this moment her pretty eyes were dim with tears. And then Jack melted altogether and broke down. There was not one of them all that was fit to hold a candle to her--Sara! Sara was handsome, to be sure, but no more to be compared to that sweet little soul--So he went on, the foolish young fellow. And if he did not know what he meant at night, he knew still less in the morning, after troublous hours of thought, and a great deal of discomfort and pain. In the morning, however, what he had been dreading came. As bad luck would have it he met his father on the stairs going down to breakfast; and Mr. Brownlow beckoned his son to follow him into the library, which Jack did with the feelings of a victim. “I want to speak to you, Jack,” Mr. Brownlow said; and then it came.