who seemed to beset your footsteps!"

"Impossible!!!" exclaimed young De Crespigny, coloring violently, and starting from his seat. "Could it be in the nature of things that I should cut you!"

"True enough! I might have said, like Lady Towercliffe to Prince Meimkoff, 'vous m'avez coupe.'"

"Indeed!" continued the cornet, trying to conceal his countenance. "I wish you had cut my throat in return!"

"If it is to be done, I would rather somebody else did! Why, De Crespigny! you will set the house on fire with that violent poker exercise! Your own face is on fire already! Have more regard for your complexion! Ah! now it is pale enough! Are you ill? My dear fellow! what is the matter?"

"Nothing! I am merely looking at the beautiful sunset!"

"What! does the sun set in the east to-night?" asked Sir Arthur, jestingly; "that is worth looking at!"

"I am annoyed with a spasm of toothache!" said De Crespigny, putting a handkerchief to his face, which nearly covered it; and then suddenly throwing open the window, he looked far out, as if in search of his groom. He leaned forward so long, however, that Sir Arthur kindly but vehemently remonstrated on the danger of exposing himself, while in so much pain, to the cold air; enumerated a whole host of remedies for decayed teeth; suggested the great comfort and convenience of having the offender extracted by Hutchins, and ended by hoping his young friend would still have a tooth left for his proposed dinner at Portobello.

"Depend upon me for that," replied Mr. De Crespigny, with forced vivacity. "I shall ferret you out next week. I have little doubt your pasture is excellent in that quarter, and there is no one from whom I would be half so happy to receive a soup ticket."

"Keep your flattery for the ladies, where it will always be acceptable, and where I hear you are already an experienced practitioner in the arts of captivation. As for my dinner, I consider it an imposition to ask any friend, and not give him the best my cook and cellar can furnish; and you may expect whenever you do come, to find a notice over my door, 'hot joints every day!'"

"But it was the society of your house, and not the dinner, to which my agreeable anticipations were directed; and there, you know, I cannot be disappointed! as somebody wisely said, when shown a tempting bill of fare, 'show me a bill of the company!'"

"That reminds me to say, you must not expect my pretty niece to be at my little bathing machine of a house! It would not be fair to inveigle you under such false pretences; but I promise you an old man's welcome, and the best that my cottage can produce; aged as this newspaper makes me I enjoy every inch of life, and hope you, at the same age, will do the same. I may almost apply to my little villa that favourite saying in Spain,

With a cordial shake of the hand, and a smile of cheerful benignity, Sir Arthur withdrew, and as his firm and stately step receded, Mr. De Crespigny watched him with a look of respectful interest, which ended in his turning away after the admiral had disappeared, and heaving a deep sigh, while a cloud of care darkened on his forehead, and a look of angry vexation shaded his previously animated eyes.

Day after day passed on, subsequent to the preceding conversation, during which Sir Arthur frequently postponed his chop, to what he considered an atrociously late hour, in hopes of his promised guest appearing. Once the admiral felt positively convinced that he had seen him enter a Portobello omnibus at four o'clock, but still he appeared not. Week after week elapsed, and still Sir Arthur ate his dinner alone, in long-surviving expectation that either his own not very dutiful nephew, or young De Crespigny, would "cast up;" but at last these hopes and wishes were ended by his hearing that Sir Patrick's embarrassments had caused him to leave Edinburgh by moonlight, and that, soon after, Mr. De Crespigny as suddenly departed, no one knew why, when, or wherefore.

  CHAPTER II.

The two most dashing, bold, and mischievous boys at Eton during their day, had formerly been Sir Patrick Dunbar and Louis De Crespigny, who astonished the weak minds of masters and pupils, by the strange and startling invention displayed in their exploits, as well as by the ingenuity with which both got safely out of every threatening predicament, and the sly humor or cunning with which they frequently shifted the disgrace, or even the punishment, of their offences, on others who deserved it less, or perhaps not at all. Invariably at the head of every mad exploit, or at the bottom of every secret design, how they could possibly have escaped being expelled was a frequent topic of subsequent wonder among their contemporaries in the classes; but their delight was to run as near the wind as possible, and still to display their skilful pilotage by baffling justice, and evading the utmost rigor of the law, while always ready rather to do harm than to do nothing.

When very young, the two enterprising friends, both since gazetted into the 15th Light Huzzars, had shown an early predilection for military life, by frequently escaping to the neighbouring barracks, assisted by a ladder of rope on which they descended every night from the windows. A gay, joyous reception invariably awaited these lively boys at the mess-table, where they sung many a jovial song, and cracked many a merry jest over their claret, till, after some hours spent in rapturous festivity, they stole silently back within bounds, and were re-admitted at the window, by their respective fags, who had received orders, under pain of death, to keep awake and answer their signals for the ladder by instantly lowering it. The spirits of both these young companions were more like the effect of intoxication, than mere sober enjoyment; and, on one occasion, they set the table in a roar, by having a rivalship which would best imitate the gradual progress of becoming tipsy, though drinking nothing but cold water; in which exhibition they showed so much talent for mimicry, taking off the surrounding officers before their faces, and making so many home-thrusts and personal remarks, that the scene was never afterwards forgotten in the regiment. On another occasion Sir Patrick caused himself to be placed in a coffin, stolen from the undertakers, and was carried through the barracks by his companions, who made paper trumpets with which they played the dead march in Saul, while all the sentries saluted as they passed. Such juvenile exploits in the dawn of life were now the subject of many a laughing reminiscence, and had been followed by others on a more extended scale and of more matured enterprise, at Mr. Brownlow's, a private tutor, where the two young men afterwards distinguished themselves in a way not easily to be forgotten, causing their better disciplined companions to wonder, though in very few instances to admire.

In the favorite aristocratic achievements of driving stage-coaches, breaking lamps, wringing off knockers, assaulting watchmen, with other fistic and pugilistic exploits, they were nearly unrivalled; and occasionally their genius had soared into an extraordinary display of dexterity, in transposing the signs suspended over shops, and in filching silk handkerchiefs from the pockets of their friends, merely as amateurs, but still the deed was done, and the laugh raised literally at the expense of the sufferer, as the plunder was retained to be a future trophy of success. Each successive stage of their youth, in short, supplied an inexhaustible fund of standing jests and lively anecdotes, the wit of which mainly consisted in their mischief, while they betrayed an utter recklessness about the opinions or the feelings of others, till at length the patience of their unfortunate private tutor was so completely exhausted that he gave them a secret hint to withdraw,