thieves slide up to Hymen’s bower; and if I had had no other motive than simply to see the young woman who could perform such miracles, I would have gone twenty miles to see her in her marriage dress, orange blossom, and all. I soon got my list completed; indeed, I was now somewhat in a hurry. The apathy with which the Lieutenant had charged me was changed into enthusiasm. Strange perversity of the human heart! I felt a jealousy of the snab. He was unworthy of such perfection. The bride must be mine at all hazards, even if I should be obliged to renounce my beauty to the superior claims of the Colonial Secretary.

Having got my list, I made again for the Cowgate, where, as I passed the stair-foot leading to the room of the intended, I saw the beginnings of the crowd which was to honour this match between the son of Crispin and the daughter surely of that famous goddess who got her skeleton keys from Vulcan for a kiss. I would pay due attention to the crowd by and by, and gratify it perhaps more than by the raree-show it was gaping to see. It was Mrs Thick I was now after; and having again found her at her old post, I went over with her as quickly as I could the long list, and became quite satisfied that her estimate of a cart-load was not much below the mark.

“Now, you are upon your honour,” said I to her. “You must be careful to retain all those articles for an hour or so, for I am sorry to inform you I must take them from you.”

“And can it be possible!” she exclaimed, no doubt with reference to the guilt of her industrious protegé; and then relaxing into a kind of smile, “Surely, surely you’re no to act the animal we were speaking of. The bride’s dressed, the bridegroom is up, the minister is waited for, and the crowd is at the door. Poor Lizzy, poor Lizzy, could ever I have thought this of you!”

“Well, I admit that I intend to be at the marriage anyhow,” said I. “They have not had the grace to invite me; but I am often obliged to overlook slights from my friends.”

And leaving my honest broker in the very height of her wonder—if not with uplifted hands and open mouth—I made my way to the house of rejoicing, shaded as all such are with that quiet decorum, if not solemnity, which the black coat and white cravat have such a power of casting over leaping hearts and winged hopes. The crowd had by this time increased; and among the rest was my assistant waiting for me—though ostensibly there to overawe the noisy assemblage. The Irish boys and girls were predominant, shouting their cries, among which “The snab and the hawker, hurra,” would not sound as an honour up-stairs. When I say Irish boys and girls, I mean to include adults of sixty, grim and shrivelled enough in all save the heart, which is ever as young and green as an urchin’s. Then who does not feel an interest in the evergreen of marriage, albeit its red berries are often full of bitterness and death? The young look forward to it, and the old back upon it—the one with a laugh, the other with a sigh; but the interest is ever the same. Nay, I’m not sure if the sigh has not a little hope in it, even to that last dripping of the sands, when even all other “pleasure has ceased to please.” Excuse me, it is not often I have to sermonise on marriage, except those between the law and vice, where the yoke is not a pleasant one, and yet perhaps less unpleasant than many of those beginning with love on the one side, and affection on the other. And now I am the detective again.

“Are the constables ready?” I whispered to my assistant.

“Yes; they’re in the stair-foot beyond the meal-shop on the other side.”

“Then keep your post, and have an eye to the window.”

“For ha’pennies?” said he, with a laugh.

“I’m just afraid I may reduce the happiness,” replied I, not to be outdone in Irish wit on a marriage occasion, however bad at it.

And pushing my way among the noisy crowd, whose cry was now “M‘Levy!” “He’s to run awa’ wi’ the bride!” “The snab has stown his varnished boots!” “The bride is to sleep in a police cell!” and so forth, I mounted the stair till I came to the marriage-hall. Uninvited as I was, I made “no gobs,” as they say, at entering, but, opening the door, stood there among the best of them. A more mysterious guest perhaps never appeared at a marriage before since the time of the famous visitor at Jedburgh, where the king danced; but I had no attention to bestow on expressions of wonder. The scene was of a character to be interesting enough to any one. To me the chief object of attention was the head of the bride, where the orange blossom ought to be; and there to be sure it was, set off, as it ought to have been, with green myrtle. With this I was so much occupied, that I cannot say it was just then that I scanned Elizabeth’s dress—a fine lavender glacé silk, adorned with as many knots as would have bound all the lovers in the room in silken bands; collar and sleeve of lace, of what kind goes beyond my knowledge; grey boots, necklace, and armlets; white kid gloves, with no doubt a good many rings under them. These notices came rather afterwards, my practical eye ranging meanwhile—the party being dead silent as yet—round the room, where, according to my recollection of my list, I saw a perfect heaping up of all manner of things collected from the sixteen opened houses, which the pretty bride had so industriously entered.

My survey was the result of a few rapid glances, and I recurred to the parties. The amazement was just at its height, yet strange to say the only one who stood there unmoved, and with no greater indication of internal disturbance than a cast-down eye, overshaded by its long lashes, was Elizabeth Gorman. That she understood the object of my visit, I had no doubt; nor was I surprised that a creature of her nerve, capable of what she had done, should stand before me in the midst of all her friends, and in the presence of her intended husband, as immoveable as a lump of white marble—no additional paleness, no quiver of the lip, no hairbrained glances of fear.

“And who are you?” at last cried the souter futur; “you are not invited.”

“No; I have taken the liberty to come uninvited,” replied I, as I threw my eye over the body of the young snab arrayed in absolute perfection, from the glossy cravat to the shining boots, so spruce and smart that the taste of Elizabeth must have been at the work of preparation. Nor was he without some right, if one might judge of the number of houses laid under contribution for a dowry which was to be his, and by the help of which he was to become a master.

Whereupon there arose a perfect Babel of voices—“No right;” “M‘Levy has no right here;” “Turn him out.” To all this I paid little attention; I was more curious about a movement on the part of Elizabeth, whose right hand was apparently fumbling about her pocket. A pocket in a bride’s dress!—ay, just so. Elizabeth Gorman was a bride of a peculiar kind; she had a pocket even as a part of her bridal apparel, and there was more there than a cambric handkerchief.

“I will help you to get out your napkin, Elizabeth,” said I.

And putting my hand into the sacred deposit, I pulled out two check-keys.

With these two keys, she had opened (I speak in anticipation) the whole sixteen houses. I managed this movement in such a manner that I believe no one could know what I abstracted except Elizabeth herself, who seemed to care no more for the discovery than she had as yet done for any part of the ceremony.

“And the orange blossom,” said I, “I have a fancy for this too,” I said, as I, very gently I hope, took off the wreath, and, in spite of the necessary crumpling of so expressive an emblem of bliss, put it in my pocket.

The hubbub was now general, and Crispin thinking that his