"And you are ungenerous enough, Captain Hector Coles, first to do an improper action and then to find fault with your own discomfiture!" was the reply, as the lady once more took the proffered arm of the officer and left the alley, the combatants still pursuing the concluding game of that most memorable match of left hand against scanty practice. Whither one of them went, an hour or two later, may possibly be discovered at no distant period of this narration. * * * * * There were stormy times, that night, in the chamber of connubial bliss occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Brooks Cunninghame; and poor Caudle, belabored as he was in the imaginative mind of Douglas Jerrold, never suffered as much in one hour as on that occasion did the ex-contractor, ex-Alderman and ex-purveyor of mettled steeds for the United States cavalry service. Shoddy was in an ill-humor, and Shoddy had a right to be in an ill-humor. Every thing had gone wrong, specially and collectively, from the moment of their entering those fatal mountains. Mishap the first: Mrs. Brooks Cunninghame had fainted and been called "Bridget," before company. Mishap the second: Master Brooks Brooks Cunninghame had overeaten himself and come near to leaving the whole family in mourning as loud as his own wails. Mishap the third: Master Brooks Brooks had badgered the bears, in plain sight of all, caused a serious accident, and been visited, both loudly and silently, with objurgations not pleasant to remember. Mishap the fourth: Mrs. Brooks Cunninghame had been herself badgered, worse than the bears, by an irreverent scamp who threw discredit at once upon her foreign travels and her geography. Mishap the fifth: Master Brooks Brooks had tumbled into the Pool, been nearly drowned, and come out a limp rag requiring some washing and several hours wringing before recovering its original consistency. Mishap the sixth: Mrs. Brooks Cunninghame, in the agitation of that serious accident, had called the dear boy by a name, that of "Patsey," which would be likely to stick to him, in taunting mouths, during his whole stay at the Profile. Mishap the seventh: Mr. Brooks Cunninghame had fallen in, that day, with the before-mentioned certain stage-drivers, who consented to drink brandy, wine and punch at his expense, enticing him thereafter into low stories of the days when he drove a horse and cart about town, and leaving him eventually in a state of fuddle amusing to their hard heads and harder hearts but by no means conducive to his standing in fashionable watering-place society. Mishap the eighth: Miss Marianna Brooks Cunninghame had passed two evenings in the parlor and one day among the guests in their rides and walks, bedizened in successive fineries of the most enticing order; and not one person had desired the honor of her acquaintance out of doors, asked her to dance in the parlor, or paid her any more attention