arbours, made waterproof with pitch, which bounded the sides of the green.

In one of these Colin soon found the individual of whom he was in search. Having communicated to Peter some general idea that his assistance was required in a very important enterprise.

"True," replied Veriquear, "it may be of great consequence to you; but that, you know, is your own affair. It is no business of mine."

"But you will be well rewarded by Mr. Woodruff afterwards, I doubt not," replied Colin.

"Do you think so? Oh, then, in that case, it begins to look more like my own affair than I thought it was. Yes, yes; good pay, you know, always makes a thing a man's business directly."

And hereupon the matter was discussed at leisure, and in a manner which clearly proved that, upon sufficient reason given, Peter could take quite as much interest in other people's business as ever he had taken in his own.

While Colin thus sat in discourse with his old employer, his attention had several times been partially attracted by a voice in the next adjoining arbour, but which now elevated itself to a distinctly audible pitch in the expression of the following sentiment:—

"Upon my word, those little dears are delightful to look on! The satisfaction of having children to bring up—ay, dear!—the pleasure and delight, Mr. Palethorpe, of leading them as it were by the nose, symbolically speaking:—oh! the delight of it must be—must be—I hardly know what to call it—but something which, in an unmarried state, the imagination can scarcely attempt to soar up to. And then their tiny voices—some ill-tempered people may call it squealing if they please—but to a father's ears, I should think, it must be welcome night and day,—that is, if he has the common feelings of a father about him. It is really astonishing how happy some people might be, if they did but take something of a determination at some time or other of their lives to adopt some course with respect to somebody or other, which might—what shall I say?—might—might—however, I mean, which might lead to something final and decisive."

"Sartinly, meesis," replied the individual thus addressed, "I don't dispoot all that; only, when a man has a good appetite hisself, and can eat most of what's put before him, it seems natteral enough that his children would go and do the same; and that would take a little more mainteaning than some of us can exactly afford. I can't see myself how we could go all that length, with a proper eye to our own old age."

"Ah!" replied the lady, "there it is! I really think there is not a grain of filial feeling left in any farmer in Yorkshire."

"I'm sure, meesis," rejoined Palethorpe, "you 'll not accuse me of wanting in filly-al feeling, when you know there isn't a single filly nor colt neither on the whole farm as I haven't showed the—"

"I don't mean that!" exclaimed the lady; "you don't understand me. But I can only say it for myself, that it would be no great trouble to me, not a bit of it, to sink the whole of myself in the endeavour to raise a prodigy of children, that should prove a complete honour to any farm-yard in the riding. The pretty dears! how I should spoil them out of kindness!—yes, that I should—I know I should. Ugh! I could squeeze their little hearts to pieces, I could!"

This rhapsody left Colin no longer in the dark. Mr. Palethorpe was again in London, accompanied by the loving and amiable Miss Sowersoft.

A capital idea at this moment struck Colin's mind. Mr. Peter Veriquear was already well acquainted with the story of Palethorpe's previous visit to town, and had applauded Colin for the part he had then taken in punishing that poor booby as he deserved. He therefore now only required to be informed that both Palethorpe and his mistress were in the next box, in order, as Colin hoped, to be induced to join him in an innocent trick upon the worthy couple. His proposition was simply this,—that Peter should quietly walk into their arbour, sit down next to Miss Sower-soft, call for drink, as though he had just arrived, and then proceed, according to the best of his ability, in making love to that lady, no less to her own eventual disappointment, than to the annoyance and mortification of the redoubtable Samuel. Veriquear laughed at the notion, but objected that to make love to a lady in that manner could not possibly be any business of his, seeing, in the first place, that he had no desire; in the second, that he was married; and in the third, that possibly he might after all come off the worst for it.

"Besides," he added, "what will Mrs. Veriquear say if she should happen to catch me, for I expect her up to tea here very soon; and if she should come before the joke is completed, I am afraid she would turn it into a regular Whitechapel tragedy."

"Oh, never heed that!" replied Colin. "I 'll be bound to see you safe, and all right. Go in directly, and do it before the chance be lost. Here, waiter!" and he whispered to him to carry a bottle of stout into the next box for his friend, without delay.

In a few minutes more Peter Veriquear was sitting beside Miss Sowersoft, while Colin peeped through a nick in the boards which divided the two boxes, and with high glee observed all that passed.

"A fine evening this, ma'am," said Peter.

"Delightful evening, indeed, sir!" echoed Miss Sowersoft.

"Yees, it 's pleasant," added Palethorpe, who remembered his former exploits, and began to fear a thief; at the same time that he thought it the most advisable course at present to speak civilly to him.

"Admirable places these," continued Peter, "for the enjoyment of the working-people, who are confined in shops and warehouses from week's end to week's end."

"They are, indeed," said Miss Sowersoft.

"I should think so," added Palethorpe.

"And, really," continued the lady, "I had not the most remote conception that such places existed. It is positively like a private gentleman's private grounds."

"Uncommon like," repeated Palethorpe. "Then you are strangers here, ma'am?" asked Peter.

"Quite so, sir!" answered the lady. "We have only been up a few days."

"I ar'n't a stranger, though," protested Palethorpe; "I've bin afore, and know what's what as well as most folks. He'd be a sharper chap than somebody that I see to drop on us." Miss Sowersoft here gave Palethorpe a nudge with her foot, and squeezed her brows and mouth up at him into a very severe expression of reprehension. At the same time Colin poked a sharp toothpick between the boards against which his back leaned, and inserted it about the tenth of an inch deep into Pale-thorpe. The varlet jumped, as, thinking he had hitched upon a nail; and, having looked under him without finding anything, sat down again a little farther off. In the mean time Peter looked very graciously at the lady, who seemed by no means displeased with his attentions, and continued a conversation, in which he prognosticated how many marvellous sights she would see in London, and how much she would be delighted before her return: concluding with an obscure hint that it would give him much pleasure, should he at any time chance to meet with her again, to point out the objects best worthy a stranger's attention. Miss Sowersoft smirked benignantly, and glanced at Palethorpe with an expression which seemed to say that "somebody might now see that everybody did not think so little of somebody else, as some people were apt to imagine," while Palethorpe himself grew paler, and verily began to think that his "meesis" was going to be taken, without farther ceremony, altogether out of his hands. He fidgeted about on his seat, as though bent on polishing his breeches, like a tabletop; while another poke of the toothpick, twice as deep as before, made him fairly cry out, and curse the joiner who had put up, the benches without knocking his nails down.

Encouraged by his success, Peter so far increased his attentions as at length fairly to arouse: the jealousy of Mr.