"You must allow me," said Mr. Flash Dashwood, "to present you with a diamond ring."

"My dear sir!" cried the astonished Hawke.

"Not a word; you must let me have my way; come, we must choose a handsome one. What is the price of this ?"

"Thirteen guineas; a superb stone, sir."

"Does it fit your finger?"

66

Perfectly," answered the secretary, confounded at such munificence. Mr. Flash Dashwood paid down the money in blazing new sovereigns, almost hot from the mint, displaying at the same time a heap more of the same dazzling and ringing coin, with a huge roll of notes, fresh and crisp from the Bank of England.

Mr. Hawke felt as if he had made the acquaintance of Croesus, and he actually trembled with wonder and delight as he left the shop with his gorgeous ring, and resumed the arm of his generous friend. He was about to utter a thousand acknowledgments, but Mr. Dashwood would not hear a word; he had only one request to make.

"All I ask, my dear sir, is that you will do me the kindness to wear that small token of my esteem at every meeting of the directors of the Universal Providence, and at all times when you are engaged in transacting our business.'

There was a sentimental delicacy, almost tenderness, in this little request, by which Mr. Hawke was more touched than by the handsome present itself. He could have clasped Mr. Flash Dashwood to his

heart.

"What were we talking of?" resumed that gentleman. "Oh, I was going through the list of our directors."

66

Pray," inquired Hawke, "you are patronised by the Duke of Wellington, are you not? I think I saw his name in the prospectus."

"The great duke? to be sure; some call him the iron duke; we find him the golden duke; then he is such a capital man of business, and so perfectly up to the subject of life annuities."

"Does he attend your meetings?"

"Not all."

"Occasionally, I suppose."

"Yes, occasionally, when requested; but we don't like to give him unnecessary trouble. I go down to him, you know, at Strathfieldsaye, which answers all purposes. Indeed, I should go there oftener than I do, but he always keeps me to dinner, and then other noblemen insist on my dining with them, and that sort of thing won't do, my dear Hawke, in the outset of so great an undertaking as ours. In a month or two it will be another thing; every thing will be in train then, and you and I will probably go down to the duke's together, and have a few days sport with him. He is the keenest sportsman I ever shot with. By the bye, I shall be writing to him by this post, and I'll take care to mention your appointment. You spell your name with an e, I think?"

Poor Hawke's admiration and gratitude knew no bounds. He was actually struck dumb, and before he recovered his speech, his brilliant companion called his attention to a superb edifice, just beginning to emerge from the scaffolding, and take its place amongst the architectural ornaments of London. Dashwood asked Hawke, in a careless way, if he knew what building it was.

"Some new club," guessed the secretary.

"No," said Dashwood.

"It's not like a church."

"No, it's not a church."

"The new Parliament House-oh, no. I have no idea.

"That's our house," Mr. Hawke; "I'm happy to add, your house. Do you observe that suite of rooms along that beautiful Doric colonnade, with those Gothic windows looking into the park?"

"I do."

"Those are the secretary's apartments; you will live there, and give such snug dinners, my boy; perhaps you will be asking the duke."

It was surprising poor Mr. Hawke escaped a fit of apoplexy, out of the extremity of his joy and wonder. He was hardly able to ask Mr. Dashwood what those colossal figures were which supported the front of the majestic structure before him.

"Statues of the four apostles; they call them cary-no, caro-not cantharides, but something like it.

It just struck Hawke that the director of the Universal Providence Assurance Company ought to have known that there were more apostles than four; but he looked at his gold ring, thought of dining with the Duke of Wellington, glanced at the suite of apartments under the Doric colonnade, and promptly forgave Mr. Flash Dashwood the slip he had made in theology.

That gentleman having business in the city, was here under the necessity of taking leave of Mr. Hawke, so, an appointment having been made for the next day, the director and the secretary separated, mutually enchanted with each other; as to the latter, he actually left the print of his diamond ring half-an-inch deep in the hand of his benefactor.

CHAP. VII.

The Jenkinsons and the Hotel des Fâcheux-Home, sweet Home-The Kickshaws and Humblebees.

ABOUT the same hour of the day two elderly gentlemen, one spruce and lively, the other dry and sombre, were walking in Oxford-street, proceeding in opposite directions on the same side of that great thoroughfare, the result of which was, that their meeting was a matter almost of mathematical necessity. One was Mr. Chatterley, the other was Mr. Joseph Jenkinson, commonly called Joe Jenkinson. They were old acquaintances, although they did not cross each other often in society. Chatterley, having that morning taken leave of his sister, Mrs. Goslin, whose house was now in possession of the Hawkes, had his mind fully engaged with the latter interesting family; he was bent upon learning all about them, and intent upon watching their movements, or studying, as he said, their natural history. After the usual routine remarks, and a word or two on the invisible shell and the long range, Jenkinson asked Chatterley to dine with him "quietly at six."

"We have nobody with us but one of the little Hawkes."

"Bless me!-one of the little Hawkes!"

"Oh! then the Hawkes are friends of yours?" "My sister has the felicity of their acquaintance." "Odd people-here and there and everywhere."

"Both migratory and predatory. Birds of passage and birds of prey."

"Something of both."

"Homely people, that prefer the homes of others to a home of their own."

"I find them domestic enough at any rate. We had two or three of them domesticated with us all the winter, and one of the girls is with us still."

"The old birds are in town, and at my sister's."

"I thought the Goslins had left town."

"Yes, and the Hawkes have seized on the vacant nest. They belong to a species, like the cuckoo, that never builds. I must get a pair of them for the Regent's Park."

"I'm devilish sorry to hear of their arrival. If you would cage them all, you would do Mrs. Jenkinson and me a very signal service."

"You will see a little of them, I dare say; at six o'clock-eh, Jenkinson?"

"By G-, Chatterley, I have promised Mrs. Jenkinson a trip to the Rhine this summer, and I'll start before the end of the week."

"Your only! plan, rely on it; but Mrs. Hawke is really a monstrously clever woman.

"And her daughter, the little girl that we have with us, promises to match her. I have a singing-master for my girls, but you would suppose he was paid only to teach Jenny Hawke; she manages to get his lessons all to herself. I am certain her mother puts her up to it."

"No doubt of it; you educate her daughter, as well as board and lodge her."

"Only yesterday I heard the little hussy praying to be taught 'Home, sweet home.'

"Capital! Mamma's favourite air! Ha, ha!"

"You've hit it; her very

words."

"You'll take her with you to the Rhine, after all."

"I'll be d if I do. By the bye, Chatterley, have you taken a share in the Universal Providence Assurance?"

"No; too flash a concern for me."

"That's a slap at Dashwood, but he's an honest, good fellow, and is doing the business in style."

"Dinner at six?"

"Sharp!"

And Joe Jenkinson proceeded to take his daily survey of the mansion in Pall Mall; while Chatterley went about his own business.

In truth Chatterley's business was pleasure, and his pleasure just now was a bit of mischief. He was bent upon fluttering the Hawkes, and if he could not dislodge them from his sister's house, he was charitably resolved to make them as uncomfortable in it as he could. With this view he proceeded to take a meditative saunter in Hyde Park, where no doubt, a great deal of mischief, private and public, is occasionally brewed.

Joe Jenkinson was considered well off in the world, and would have been thought a richer man, only that he was known to be a great speculator; he lived handsomely, although quietly, and substantially rather than elegantly and luxuriously. His house, upon Cardigan-terrace, Bayswater-road, was neat and comfortable; plainly and solidly furnished, but the plainness was not that of economy, but of taste. Mrs. Jenkinson

was an amiable woman-indeed, too amiable by many degrees-she had the same fault as Sir Frederick Freeman, an excessive serenity of temper and facility of disposition, which exposed her to a host of social inconveniences, and in particular made her house a general rendezvous for country cousins, droppers-in, and marauders of all sorts and sexes, people whose conversational attractions seldom repaid the expense of their entertainment, while they deterred agreeable company from accepting the Jenkinsons' invitations.

"The Jenkinsons have asked us to dine, shall we go?"

"The Jenkinsons!--no. They are very well themselves, but they have such queer people always with them."

"We should certainly meet the Hawkes."

"Or the Kickshaws."

"Or the Humblebees-who are the Humblebees?"

"Relations of Mrs. Jenkinson."

"Well, I have stood it twice already this season, and I positively cannot stand it a third time."

This is the sample of a dialogue that often took place amongst the friends of this excellent family, who wanted either the tact or the firmness to resist the visitations of those male and female brigands by which English society is as much infested at present, as ever the Mediterranean was in former times by the corsairs of Algiers and Tunis. Mr. Jenkinson was generally too busy with his schemes to attend to domestic affairs; however, he sometimes took a bold resolution, and seemed on the point of making war on the pirates, like a second Pompey the Great; but nothing could overcome his wife's placid powers of endurance, and thus No. 10, Cardigan-terrace, was always a kind of Hotel des Fâcheux, a sanctuary for the scourges and outcasts of society.

CHAP. VIII.

Punctuality thrown away An Ocular Deception - First Appearance of Haidee-Dinner at Sixes and Sevens-Old Mr. Kickshaw-Iced SoupGeneral Panic-Irruption of the Pirates.

MR. CHATTERLEY left the Park in time to dress for dinner, and as he was the pink of punctuality, he was under the balcony of Mrs. Jenkinson's drawing-room, precisely as the clock in the hall struck the appointed hour. The balcony was loaded with mignionettes and balsams; the windows were open to receive a breath or two from the south, and every thing was charming but the half vocal, half instrumental jargon that descended to his ear, and in which it was only too easy to discover the energetic attempts of Miss Jane Hawke to make herself mistress of the execrable song of " Home, sweet home." Chatterley, however, remarked that the girl's voice was by no means a displeasing one. He expected the scream of a falcon,

There is no virtue more commonly wasted than punctuality. Mr. Chatterley's appearance excited general consternation. The servant who opened the door took him for a morning visiter. From the bottom of the second flight of stairs, he observed a rush of petticoats from the drawing-room, with the rustle of many muslins. He entered, and looked about him. At first he thought there was nobody in the room, but immediately exclaimed,

"Oh, Jenkinson, we are before the ladies I see."

Jenkinson advanced to meet him, but not a word did he say. Mr. Chatterley extended his hand, and so did the other. Another step-it was not Mr. Jenkinson, but his own reflection in a large looking-glass. Chatterley was short-sighted, and had met many odd adventures owing to that defect.

However, in a quarter of an hour his host did appear, and made his excuses; another quarter produced Mrs. Jenkinson, who made her apologies; and finally, after a further lapse of time, her daughters, accompanied by Miss Jane Hawke, joined the party.

Jane Hawke was a pretty, sprightly, black-eyed, dark-haired girl of thirteen or fourteen, an age that has great social advantages over fifteen or sixteen, when young ladies begin to be unapproachable. She had one of those sunny faces and promising figures that one particularly likes to meet or overtake on the stairs of a morning, and has no objection to sit by at a good breakfast afterwards. She gave no trouble; you might talk to her, or not, as you pleased; she was not tall enough to be important, or old enough to be exigeante. The age at which young ladies generally "come out," is precisely the period when they ought to be locked up, for just then they make extremely dull company, and are good for nothing on earth but to fall in love with; a use to which nobody thinks of turning them, except a cornet of hussars, or a blockhead.

It was evident at a glance that Jane was not de trop, whatever opinion the Jenkinsons might entertain of her enterprising parents. Chatterley could discover nothing in the manner of his hostess that was not even more than polite and hospitable to the little freebooter, while it was plain that with the Jenkinson girls she was an immense favourite. But still, unable to repress the feeling with which the Hawkes had inspired him, he was no sooner introduced to Miss Jane than he declared that she strongly reminded him of Byron's Haidee.

"Yes, indeed," said Jenkinson, "there is a likeness-dark hair-long eyelashes."

"Lambro's daughter!" said Chatterley, in a sarcastic aside.

Mr. Jenkinson smiled, and made an allusion to dinner.

My dear," said Mrs. Jenkinson, "I asked old Mr. Kickshaw." "He asked himself, mamma," said one of her daughters.

"But we never wait for Mr. Kickshaw," said Jenkinson.

"No, to be sure; but I said we dined at seven."

"There it is; I mentioned six to our friend here."

Thus it was always with this family; it was six in one invitation, halfpast six in another, seven in a third. Their dinners were consequently always at sixes and sevens, and the cook was blamed, when the fault was the loose chronology of her master and mistress. Why should Jenkinson say "Six, sharp?"

Chatterley was out of humour, when, at length, at half-past seven, the circle opened to admit a deaf old country gentleman, and the party went down to what had been a hot dinner.

The soup was positively cold. Chatterley said he loved soup iced, and told an anecdote of Captain Parry. The fish was salmon. Mrs. Jenkinson was helped, and Chatterley, who sat beside her, observed,

"I am not allowed to eat fish, but that is just the way I like it." The salmon was outrageously underdone, and was sent from the table.