"Oh, poor fellow, he was so fond of his business that he went one day and died himself.”

"No, sure! What colour?"

"I mean that he became a corpse, and so we thought we had a fair excuse for burying him."

"Funny enough, only to think! Well, I am sorry you've lost poor uncle Sam."

"Nay, we've not lost him; we know perfectly well where to find him, only he's dead."

"Well, I call that losing him, but I won't be positive, I may be wrong. And your cousin Tony, what's become of him?”

"Tony went to Spain, where he got on so famously, that he has been made harbour-master and port-admiral at Madrid.”

"Only to think! And little Kit?"

"He went to Venice, and has lately been made master of the horse to the doge. Kit drives his own four-in-hand now, and a famous splash he makes when he gallops them over the Rialto."

"Well, I'm not much surprised at that, for Kit was always fond of horses. And Mrs. John Figgins, whom you used to call fat aunt Fanny?"

"Oh, she has done the best of all, for she is now monthly nurse to the queen's maids of honour."

"Blessings on us, here's grand doings! How these Figginsees have got on!"

"Yes, they have," said Philip, beginning to think he had done quite enough for the aggrandisement of his unknown relations, and that it would be safer to change the conversation. "They certainly have, but after all, ambition has its drawbacks, and I question whether any of them are half so happy as you must be in this charming cottage, which is really the prettiest I ever saw, and what a profusion of flowers! I suppose you are a botanist."

"La, dear, no! Susan and I are fond of flowers, but neither of us know their fine names: isn't it funny?"

"We of the profession, on the contrary, are obliged to be great botanists, as we use so many flowers in the preparation of our medicines. Indeed, my father and I grow several of the more useful, and our little garden at Bloomsbury contains some very choice specimens of Delirium tremens, Aurora-borealis, and Georgium Sidus."

"Goodness gracious! What fine flowers they must be to have such grand titles. I should like-Aha! there's a ring at the bell. That must be Susan come home, and I'll go and let her in. La, how funny."

With these words, the little old man left the parlour, nor was Philip sorry to see him depart, for, as the exhilaration produced by the champagne gradually subsided, he began to get tired of hoaxing his feeblewitted companion, and to feel half ashamed of the tomfoolery in which the manifest imbecility of his victim had tempted him to indulge.

CHAPTER IX.

If the vacant, inane, yet somewhat self-satisfied aspect of the father might well provoke a merry banterer to make him his butt, the gentle,

intelligent, and modest expression of the daughter were not less calculated to awaken in her favour an involuntary feeling of respect. Not that Susan was handsome, for though she had the fair skin, light hair, blue eyes, and blooming cheeks that characterise our Saxon damsels, her features were not very delicately moulded, her face was partially freckled, her well-rounded arms had assumed the hue of the rose rather than the lily, and her figure, though not deficient in symmetry, was too substantial for elegance. But her countenance was irresistible. Its expression was so amiable, so beaming, so genial, that to see her was to love her and so completely did it sober Philip's recent exuberance, that he already regretted his treatment of her father, who, as he feared, might repeat some of the ridiculous buffoonery to which he had given vent.

:

She entered the parlour in her shawl and bonnet, bearing on her right arm a large basket, the weight of which had imparted a glow to her features which was still further deepened as her father said-" Susan, dear, who do you think this is? Of all the birds in the air and the fishes in the sea, it's neither more nor less than Mr. Davis, the little Gus, you know, that you used to play with. Isn't it funny?"

Her eyes were cast down for a moment, and then raising them and slowly surveying her visitant with a smile of surprise, she exclaimed,— Pray forgive me if I seem astonished-I should never have guessedwhy papa, you told me that Mr. Davis was-"

"And so he was, my dear, as swarthy and dumpy a little fellow as you could wish to see ; but la! only to think! he was quite transmogrified by an attack of half a dozen illnesses, with names as long as my arm; Gus -I beg his pardon, Mr. Augustus Davis will be good enough to repeat them. But don't do it if it makes your jaws ache. Dear heart! it would put mine out of joint, that's what it would do."

"Miss Gibbons, I'm sure will excuse my reverting to such a painful subject. We of the faculty are apt to be a little too technical, and I fear that I must have wearied her good father with my Latin nomenclature." "Latin, was it Latin? I'm sure it was all Greek to me. So were the long names you stuck to the flowers. Just like a kite's tail they were. Oh, Susan, Gus-I mean Mr. Davis, is such a botanist!"

"And you, Miss Gibbons, are very fond of flowers, as I see by your window sills and your garden; but you do not trouble your head, I hear, about their botanical names."

"No, indeed; in the first place I should never recollect them, and if I did it would sound in my ears as if I were making strangers and foreigners of my native play-fellows. I don't care about exotics. The commonest flowers and even wild flowers are my chief favourites: and I dare say you will smile-of course you will as a learned botantist, when I add that in their commonest names I find a certain charm, though I cannot exactly say why. What, for instance, can be so pretty, and what can awake such pleasant thoughts as the words heartsease, forget-me-not, traveller's joy, lords and ladies, three-faces-under-a-hood, wake robin, lady's mantle, rest-harrow, columbine, and eyebright, to say nothing of butter-cups and daisies, and violets and primroses?"

"Ay, Susan," cried the old man, "and bachelor's buttons, and love-inidleness, and jump-up-and-kiss-me. You left them out, did you, you sly little puss! He, he, he, my Susan's so shy, isn't it funny?"

"Several of those you have mentioned have valuable medicinal proper

ties," said Philip, seeing that Susan seemed a little disconcerted at her father's silly remark.

"Very likely, but I don't want to think of nasty physic when I'm looking at sweet and beautiful flowers. What I do value in them is their being such cheerful company, and calling up such pleasant recollections by their names and odours. Why, the very smell of primroses and violets makes me a little girl again and sets me running over the fields and up and down the slopes and dells where I used to gather them; and when I read the mere names of others I can almost fancy that I hear the lark twittering in the sky, and Robin the ploughman whistling as he takes his team to the plough, and can see the sun peeping over the hill, fronting the house in which we used to live before we came to Eccleshall."

"I'm delighted to find that you are of such a romantic turn." "And I am sorry to disappoint you, but really I am not in the least romantic unless the flowers have made me so ; at all events, I never read a romance in my life. Until my poor uncle died I had no time, and since we came here I have been too busy in furnishing and fitting up our cottage."

"And hasn't she done it beautifully? Never was such a notable girl as my Susan! Manages every thing, settles all the accounts, looks after the garden; the queen herself could not make nicer pies and puddings, and between you and me, Gus, she makes shirts, and darns stockings exactly like an angel. Isn't it funny? La, child, you needn't look so sheepish! every word true. Here's blushing, and all about nothing."

it's

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'It's carrying that heavy basket, papa, that makes me flush so." "Why of course it's heavy when we've got friends coming to dinner. Why didn't you get a boy to bring it? I'll take it up to the window-seat yonder, to see how you've marketed, and you and Gus-la! I shall never call him Mr. Davis-can chat together as if I wasn't in the room. You know what he comes about, and if you don't there's his father's letter to read. What, blushing again! Ah, slyboots, have I found you out? Well, well, never mind; girls will be girls. Only to think!"

Gladly did Susan, to escape from this idle raillery, betake herself to the perusal of the paper handed to her, while Philip, well aware that success in his bold enterprise could only be accomplished by a coup de main, resolved to lose no time in enacting the character he had assumed. To remove all doubts as to his identity, though none such were entertained either by the father or the daughter, as well as to excuse a precipitation which might otherwise have appeared indelicate, he displayed upon the table the various notes and letters which he had surreptitiously obtained, and urging the absolute necessity of his quick return to London, since his father's health prevented his attendance on their numerous patients, earnestly, yet most deferentially, implored pardon from his auditress, if he waived ceremony, and proceeded at once to the all-important object which had brought him to Eccleshall. In further defence of his apparent precipitation, he reminded her that they were in reality old friends, and that as their respective families and circumstances were well known to each other, there was neither necessity nor time for a lengthened courtship. Having thus broken the ice, he proceeded to pay his addresses in due form, but as all love-making is proverbially dull, except to the parties immediately concerned, we shall only record such portions as derived an interest from the interposed, though unheard, mutterings of the old gen

tleman who sat in the distant window, conning over the bill of fare for the dinner, which he had written in the morning, and cataloguing the contents of the basket as he successively took them out. These intercalary soliloquisings we shall distinguish by placing them in brackets.

"I can assure you, Miss Gibbons, that I feel the awkwardness of my situation in thus abruptly-indeed, I am quite overcome-I want courage

to-"

("What comes first? La! I'm glad to see this. The dog wants a bit of pluck. I'll put this paper aside for him.")

"From our short conversation before you came in I know already what I shall find in your worthy father."

("A calf's head at top.")

"He seems to be a truly estimable and friendly man."

("And a goose at bottom.")

"What I was as a boy, he will doubtless have already told you." ("A little pickle.")

"And, on the other hand, I know what you were as a child.” ("A nice little chicken.")

"With an excellent heart."

("And a very fine liver and gizzard. La! here's a rabbit, too.") Should I be fortunate enough to become one of your family-" ("We'll have him smothered in onions, that's what we will, won't we, Susan, dear?")

"Established in such a respectable business as ours, I need hardly assure you that my views are perfectly disinterested." ("A bit of gammon.") I have not made any ("That's the cheese!")

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allusion to your

fortune."

Upon that subject I can confer with your good father."

("Where's the mint for sauce? Nobody takes lamb without mint sauce. Oh, there it is. Well, you do know how to go to market. How funny!")

66

Pray do not imagine that in seeking your hand it is my object to obtain-"

("A hand of pork, a pound of sausages, a bottle of soy, three lemons, two pieces of Windsor soap, aud a box of lucifer matches. Goodness me! what a head Susan has; never forgets any thing, and I never remember any thing. But I've settled all my dinner, except the dessert. A cake to be done brown, and afterwards cut up, that's my dessert; and so I'll leave the lovers to themselves, and carry the basket into the kitchen.")

A FEW MONTHS IN SOUTHERN AFRICA.

BY LIEUT.-COLONEL E. NAPIER.

THE KAFFIRS OF THE PRESENT CENTURY.

"I used the words 'irreclaimable savages' advisedly; they convey my mature opinion, and I am neither disposed to modify nor to retract it."-From Sir Benjamin D'Urban's Despatch to Lord Glenelg, dated Cape Town, June 9, 1836.

THE Conclusion of the last chapter brought the reader to the period, when, in 1795, the colony of the Cape of Good Hope fell into our possession.

Sir James Craig, the first English governor, was in 1797, succeeded in that office by Lord Macartney, who, finding the Eastern Province still exposed to the insults of the Kaffirs, and consequently in the same disorganised condition as heretofore-his secretary, Mr. Barrow, was despatched thither for the purpose of investigating the state of affairs, and coming, if possible, to some sort of arrangement with the Kaffir chiefs as to their future relations with the colony.

The result of this mission was the re-establishment of some kind of order amongst the frontier Boers, and the promise on the part of the Kaffirs to retire within their own boundary beyond the great Fish River; their usual excuse of the fear of Gaïka, being obviated by the successful mediation of the British commissioner.

The eastern frontier was found to be in the same disordered state, in which it had been left at the conclusion of the peace of 1794; being now in the exclusive occupation of the Kaffirs, who made it the starting point for fresh encroachments, which they had carried to such an extent, that some of their plundering parties had even penetrated as far west as the neighbourhood of Swellendam.

In consequence of this state of things, the Zuureveld had been entirely abandoned by the colonists; a "circumstance, no doubt, that induced the Kaffirs once more to transgress the fixed boundary. So long as they remained in small numbers in these forsaken parts, and during the confusion in the affairs of Graaf Reynet, little notice had been taken of their encroachments; but of late they had poured over in such multitudes, and had made such rapid advances towards the interior and inhabited parts of the district, levying at the same time, contributions of oxen and sheep on those colonists, whose habitations they approached in their passage through the country, that the affair was become seriously alarming.'

Mr. Barrow took advantage of his mission to form a treaty of alliance with Gaika; one of the stipulations of which was, that no Kaffir should pass the boundary of the Great Fish River; but notwithstanding this agreement, and the promise above adverted to, to evacuate the Zuureveld, the Kaffirs immediately afterwards renewed their depredation,

• See Barrow's Travels, vol. i., p. 112.