"Oh, I did not dream of any return; but, since you are so kind as to think of it, perhaps I may some of these days ask a favour of you." "Well, ask something-do; I long to hear what it is to be. I promise to grant it, whatever it is, in gratitude for this lovely fan."

"Nay, Madeleine, that is rather too extensive a promise," said Agnes, laughing. "Pray put in a proviso."

"I won't; I am sure he can be trusted not to ask anything impossible to give," replied Madeleine.

Edgar Howard looked very much pleased, and his countenance assumed a peculiar expression, which Madeleine seemed well to understand. He stood as if musing for a minute, then advancing nearer to Madeleine, he whispered:

"Will you bestow on me one tiny lock of your beautiful hair?"

"A lock of my hair! That is a strange demand. But yes, you shall have it, as I must not break my word. My super-excellent sister there is always cramming down my poor throat all manner of rules which she considers indispensable, and among these, I think, there is one, that I must always keep my promises; and another, that I must always pay my debts. Where are your scissors, Agnes? Ah! I see your work-box. So now-take your guerdon, Captain- -cousin Edgar."

She drew out her comb, and her silken hair fell about her shoulders. Captain Howard stopped for a moment, lost in admiration of the beautiful tresses, then begging Agnes to assist him, he approached the rich chevelure.

"Agnes will shave me quite bald, if you leave the operation to her," cried Madeleine, "because she is vexed at me; I don't know for what. You must choose the lock yourself, and let her cut it off under your superintendence."

Edgar took up the hair with the utmost reverence-with as much as ever fervent Roman Catholic touched a holy relic-and selecting in his modesty a lock of very moderate dimensions, held out the scissors to Agnes.

*

Alfred just then entered the salon. He looked quite petrified at the scene before him. As soon as he recovered himself, he exclaimed: "Since when have you learned the trade of a coiffeur, Edgar? And why are you now exercising it on Miss- -on Madeleine's head ?"

"I am not attempting to act as coiffeur, Alfred. I am receiving an invaluable gift from Miss Stuart-a lock of her hair. Behold it!" he added, as he waved the shining lock before his cousin's eyes. This," he continued, addressing Madeleine, "shall be my talisman wherever I may go, whether to frozen zones or tropic groves, or

Earth's remotest bounds."

"Don't believe him, Madeleine," said Alfred.

"No doubt he has

levied similar contributions on the heads of fair damsels in every part of the globe where he has been, and this will share the fate of the rest— namely, to be pitched overboard whenever he clears out his desk some idle afternoon at sea."

"You are a bird of ill-omen, Alfred," retorted Madeleine. doubt everybody."

"You

"Yes, you are an unbelieving Jew, Alfred," said Edgar, laughing; "but I hope that Miss Stuart will not allow herself to be influenced against me."

Madeleine busied herself in tying the lock, which no longer adorned her head, with a bit of blue ribbon; and having made, what she called a "true-blue knot," the hair was placed in a sheet of note-paper, and carried off in triumph by the gallant captain.

II.

A PEEP INTO THE PAST.

With his

NOTHING has been said of Edgar Howard's antecedents, yet his earlier life had not been a blank either in events or feelings; though devoted to his profession, he had not been a mere piece of animated naval machinery. Romance and love, disappointment and regret, had all held their sway over him in the cloudless and the cloudy days of the past. warmth of heart, his agreeable manners, his wish to please, and his disposition to be pleased, he had not exhibited himself like a stone or an effigy; he had not been among those very inconstant, or very prudent gentlemen, the first mentioned of whom fall desperately in love apparently for a little time, and falling out of it as quickly, become almost suddenly frigid and formal to the fair damsel, in whose mind their marked attentions had begun to awaken some interest; or the last named, who have either no feelings at all, or have such thorough mastery over them, as to wait until they have made every possible inquiry and calculation relative to pounds, shillings, and pence, before hazarding the least attention to the most beautiful and charming girl that can be.

Edgar Howard did not belong to either of these not very limited classes, nor yet to a third class-that of the male coquette, which genus comprehends a considerable variety of sorts and kinds, the governing principle of the whole, however, being vanity. Howard was neither fickle, avaricious, nor vain. He had felt a strong degree of admiration for, indeed of attachment to, a very amiable girl, who fully appreciated his good qualities, and to whom he had frankly confessed his honest feelings; but he was still a bachelor, and how came that?

Ah! It was not Coralie's fault: too happy she would have been to have married the true-hearted sailor, but Fate, imperious, harsh, unjust Fate, had decided it otherwise.

Coralie was not an English girl, though she had been educated in England. She was a native of one of the beautiful and blooming islands of the West Indian Archipelago-those islands, now ruined and fallen into oblivion, which were formerly considered such valuable dependencies of Great Britain. Those islands, to which the younger and poorer scions of aristocratic families, English, Scotch, and Irish, found it convenient to flock in former days; there, amidst their fertile soils, and under their sunny skies, to acquire the wealth denied them at home. The names of some of the earliest settlers-the O'Niels, the Stanleys, the Gordons, the Melvilles-show that the first British and Irish inhabitants of these islands were not sprung from the scum of the earth. The best blood of cen

turies flowed in their veins, nor could the wide waters of the blue Atlantic, which they had to cross, wash that out. Very different they were to the early emigrants to many other colonies.

The vast plains, the rich gold-fields of Australia, were not known when the now decayed West Indies were in their prime. That extensive southern region scarcely had found then a place in the maps of civilised countries. Only a small corner of its immense territory was recognised, and that merely as a penal settlement-a place of exile for criminals of all grades; then few undertook the tedious voyage except felons, who were

Doomed the long isles of Sidney Cove to see.

Coralie's father was descended from one of the early settlers, who himself was the younger son of an Irish baronet of ancient date. The part of the family transplanted to the West Indies had flourished for many years, and their connexions "at home" had been well pleased to acknowledge the relationship, on account of which they received a great number of handsome presents from those who had exiled themselves. Most people are willing and happy to claim affinity to the owners and inheritors of wealth; it is only poor relations whom it is embarrassing to recognise, for selfishness holds, with gold, joint sway over the world.

The grandfather and great-grandfather of Coralie had been wealthy proprietors, but their estates, when transmitted to her father-Gerald FitzHugh-had not been altogether so valuable. He had several brothers and sisters, and on taking over, as eldest son, the large landed property, he had to pay the portions of all these brothers and sisters out of the proceeds of the estate; for their father had made no other provision for them, having never thought of saving anything from his considerable rentals. The payment of these portions rather hampered the new proprietor, and in an evil hour he borrowed money from the merchants who were his consignees in England, to acquit himself the more speedily of these heavy demands.

It would have been wiser, and better for himself, if he had entered into arrangements with his own near relatives to have paid them off by instalments, if he had even sold one of the estates to assist in clearing off these domestic encumbrances. Because, to become in debt to a European merchant, has always been, for the West Indian, the first step to ruin. The iron heel is then placed on his neck-there is no escapehe must be crushed. To add to the evils brought on by this ill-judged proceeding, the price of sugar, the staple commodity of the West India islands, which had been enormously high during the long war which ended with the fall of that great man the first Napoleon-one of the greatest men the world ever saw, though not greater than his namesake and ultimate successor the present Emperor of the French, whose moral sway is even more extensive than was the military sway of his glorious predecessor-the price of sugar had come rapidly down, creating difficulties and perplexities where none had existed before.

Crippled by this sudden diminution of their profits, the planters were still more crippled by the usurious charges of their correspondents in Europe, who seemed only intent on feathering their own nests, to use a common expression, no matter at what disadvantage to the parties by whom their services were engaged and paid. With some of these harpies,

the object of their not exactly nefarious, but certainly not handsome doings, was to get possession of the properties which their own acts, and very often the carelessness and too confiding conduct of the West India planters, had placed to a great extent in their power.

Many of the merchants had agents in the islands, authorised to act for them, and much depended on the disposition of these individuals. Some of these agents were highly respectable men, anxious to perform their duty to their employers, but also tenacious of not going beyond their duty, and discreetly willing to do justice to all parties. Others were low-minded, sordid fellows, who performed their missions harshly, and took pleasure in exhibiting, in the most disagreeable manner, their temporary authority.

The agent of a merchant to whom Mr. Gerald FitzHugh had become in debt was one of the last description. A hard-hearted, coarse-minded, half-educated person; very sharp in money matters, but without a single noble feeling in his soul. Money was the god of his idolatry, and he stuck at nothing to make it. As well as being the paid agent of a mercantile house in England, he carried on some trade on his own account, and as he had a small capital, and could pay cash in England for the goods he imported to the West India island, he had generally a large and excellent assortment of various articles, upon which he usually made the trifling profit of a hundred per cent.! This person, Mr. Babington, was a good-looking man, kept fine horses, and gave handsome dinnerparties to gentlemen, for he was a bachelor, and not much in the society of ladies. He was known to have acted, on behalf of his employers, in more instances than one, with unnecessary and uncalled-for harshness, and people were rather afraid of him, though they despised and disliked him.

Happy and fortunate were those who were not in his gripe; but poor Mr. FitzHugh owed money to the house he represented. Coralie's father was one of the kindest-hearted, most generous of men, always ready to assist those who were in embarrassment or distress, and keeping up, on the most extensive scale, the old proverbial hospitality of the West Indies. But he was careless in money matters, and no match for the cunning, sordid spirit with whom he had to deal. Brought up in the midst of luxury himself, and accustomed to look upon his means as large, he never stinted himself or his family in anything, and therefore the blow came upon him the more severely when one fine day Mr. Babington pounced down on him unexpectedly for a much larger sum than he had just then at command.

The easy-going planter was shocked and quite unnerved, until somewhat comforted by his wife, who hinted that there might be a means of accommodating matters.

Mrs. Fitz Hugh was a native of the French island of Guadaloupe, and had been brought up in Paris. She was a fine-looking woman, with extremely graceful and polished manners, but she was selfish, designing, and in her own family tyrannical. Her two daughters, Malvina and Coralie, stood greatly in dread of her. She had also two sons, one of whom was a boy at Eton, the other a young midshipman on board the ship in which Edgar Howard was a lieutenant. Malvina, the eldest daughter, was a very amiable, clever, and accomplished girl, but not at all pretty; Coralie,

the younger, was also amiable and accomplished, but she had the misfortune for such it was in her case-to be extremely beautiful.

Mr. Babington saw her at a public ball not long after her arrival at her West Indian home, and he was struck with her beauty. He was not, of course, a man to understand her superiority of mind and her delicacy of feeling, or to appreciate her talents, but he liked a pretty girl, and she was the prettiest he had seen for a long time. He made advances to the mother, which were well received, and he knew the tactics of the family sufficiently to be certain that the daughter's cold and distant manners would be no impediment to his suit, if he thought fit to prosecute it. He led Mrs. Fitz Hugh to believe that he could very materially benefit her and her husband if he chose to do it, and that he could make everything smooth for them, if he were empowered as a son-in-law to act in their affairs. The bait took with the heartless and selfish mother, who was more willing to sacrifice her daughter's happiness than her own comforts. She could not bear the idea of leaving Boyne Hall, with its large handsome house, and if the estate were brought to sale, she could not remain there. She could not think of parting with even one of her three carriages the close carriage, the barouche, or the low pony-phaeton; she must be screened from all inconveniences, happen what might. It was no matter whether Coralie liked or disliked Mr. Babington. Marry him she must, if that were the only means of averting the evils she dreaded.

Mr. Fitz Hugh was a very affectionate father, but he seldom conversed long with his daughters, and never entered into any discussions of feelings with them; in fact, he was quite a stranger to them, except as they appeared in society, for Boyne Hall was generally filled with guests, and the girls were seldom alone with their father. He had no reason, therefore, to disbelieve his wife when she confided to him the secret that there would probably be a match between Coralie and Mr. Babington. His first exclamation, however, was one of surprise and annoyance.

"What! Coralie, my pretty little darling Coralie, marry that brute! Of what can you be dreaming, Julie ?"

"It is no dream," replied Mrs. Fitz Hugh, "and it will end in a fact."

"How dare he have the presumption to think of her? A low-" "Hush!" cried Mrs. FitzHugh, laying her delicate white hand on his mouth. "Stone walls, and wooden walls still more certainly, have ears. Why should you abuse the man? Remember that he has it in his power to ruin us, or to save us from ruin."

66

Nay, I deny that he has such powers. He is only an agent, and can do nothing without the permission of his principals. I hardly think that these London merchants, grasping as they are, would sanction downright robbery."

"They would not think it robbery to repay themselves, and you know you cannot raise the money at present."

"True, not just at present, but with a little time I could pay them off. And I would rather borrow money from that American Jew, who is so ready to lend his cash at a very high interest, than sacrifice my poor little Coralie."

"Good Heavens! how wild you

are. Borrow money from that Jewish