own true-love should be successful, stop not its course with me.'

'You love him then?" said Edward. 'Be it so: but think of your father-think of his wishes!'

'Oh! do not tear my heart! directly we are united we will return.'

'United! and to a knight.

'Oh, Edward! I have watched you, for they told me I was beloved by you. Have not you fixed your eyes above your station?'

''Tis true;' said Edward, sigh

ing.

Then hence with thee, springald,' said the knight, and tell the two dotards, if thou likest, that I have robbed them of their treasure!' "Wert thou not loved by one thou art not worthy of, thou shouldst rue that word dotards!' said Edward, 'as it is, I fear thy designs; and by the heaven above us! I will not leave thee till I see you two united.'

Thou diest then!' said the knight, unsheathing his sword. The blade of Edward was instantly out of its scabbard; but ere the combatants could close, Constance again flung herself between them. Edward!' she exclaimed, 'thy demand is just. Thou shalt see me married, or I will return with thee to thy father's house.'

6

Do you distrust me, Constance!' said her lover.

'Distrust thee!--no!" replied the Merchant's daughter, 'but well do I know that my father, and Edward, and his friends, have dark suspicions -which this step will clear up.'

'Be it so, then,' said her lover, in a discontented tone. • Show us to the next chapel, Master Merchantling; or rather show Constance. I will be with you in an instant: I do but go to fetch a priest.'

In a few minutes the ceremony was performed by a priest, whom the stranger brought, and whom Edward never recollected having seen

:

before. The bride and bridegroom then rode away; Constance bidding a tearful farewell to Edward, and promising a speedy return.

(To be concluded in our next.)

PROMENADES IN PARIS.

THE French are the first promenading people in the world: they have their promenades a pied, en voiture, a cheval; their promenades sur l'eau; and now and then even their promenades dans l'air. Does a provincial town pretend to civilization? it justifies its claim by pointing to its Place de promenade. Does a column of the Grande Armee, after 'covering itself with glory,' take possession of a foreign town, thrusting French employes and French usages down the throats of the subjugated? the first care of the conquerors, their first step towards the improvement of the new subjects, is to pull down their houses or fill up their canals, in order to furnish them a promenade.

The idea of civilization in the French badaud, seems scarcely in fact to extend beyond the existence of a public walk. No wonder then, that accommodations of the kind abound in Paris, the nucleus of modern civilization; and that, during the fine evenings of summer, the gardens of the capital are thronged by shoals of bipeds-men, women, children; plebeians, nobles, dignitaries of the church and state; the rich and the poor, young and old, shabby and elegant, -people in short of every class, of every description of character and physionomy, of all complexions, and of all countries; forming most picturesque assemblages, rich in strong and most amusing contrasts.

Every quarter of the great city, in fact, seems to possess its peculiar place of assembly-its rendezvous of of daily loungers. Here we have the long and magnificent avenues of the Boulevards encircling with a girdle of green the heart of the capital; there among the deep shades of the Thuilleries, the wonders of art, and the perfume of pomegranate and orange blossoms, unite to charm at once the intellect and the senses. Quit the Royal Gardens, and the cheerful alleys of the Champs Elysees, terminated by the imposing masses of architecture of the Barriere de l'Etoile present themselves: the quiet inhabitant of the Marais seeks the cool air of evening in the healthy opening of the Place Royale: the Jardin des Plantes receives under the shade of its cedars of Lebanon and other evergreens, the population of those unknown regions towards the latitude of the Pont d'Austerlitz, the antipodes to the inhabitants of the Chausee D'Antin. In the Luxembourg, that delicious Oasis for the sons of Themis and Esculapius, the student, charmed by the odour of the acacias, instead of poring over class-books and institutes, scribbles his cing codes, with madrigals in honour of the beauties of the Pays latin.

Agitation-the move-the promenade-are the second nature of the Parisian, the elements in which he lives. The constant exercise of all his senses is, with him, an absolute necessity: to see and to be seen, to hear and to relate, to be ever abroad, and to live as it were, in others, is indispensible; hence, this assiduous frequenting of the public gardens, and of places of general assembly. Civilization, commerce, knowledge, are the gainers by this incessant contact of man with man, by this perpetual friction of individual against individual. To its influence may be attributed the sudden formation of public opinion, which spreads with electrical rapidity from the first to the last link in the social chain, and which, by an instinctive impulse of sympathy or antipathy, responds

to every phenomenon of moral, literary, or social order. And how busy, how active, this apparent idleness-this seeming diversion.

The votary of commerce, (like the London stock-broker or attorney at Epsom on the day of the Derby,) never loses sight of the main object; Among a group of loungers, he strikes bargains for his cargoes of log-wood.

Here, too, the agent of Sidy Mahmoud recruits Circassians destined to embellish the harem of his master. While criticising in the gallery of the Louvre the painting of the Sacre, your banker also will negociate with a plenipotentiary some great national loan which shall add another million to the many which already fills his coffers, and attach to his button-hole the only riband wanting to complete his collection of European orders. Odry, seated near a group of commercial-travellers, overhears their jests, and picks up the bon-mots and calembourgs which he retails in the evening on the boards of the 'Varietes.' The opposition depute, lounging through the Jardin des Plantes, seized the bold metaphor, with which, in his eloquent extempore, he enchants the Chamber, from the elegant neck of the Giraffe; and the poet of the romantic school, reciting his dithyrambic under the jet-d'eau of the Thuilleries, would arouse the voice of the swans by the sweet melody of his verse. Not such places, however, it must be owned, has the divine Astrea chosen for her retreat; wo to the countryman whose exterior shall happen to bespeak ingenuousness and simplicity! Figures of this description are real prizes at Paris. The new-comer is already in the hands of some hospitable host, whose smile is most winning and gracious: who is proud to introduce the stranger to the first society; anxious to make him acquainted with all the curiosities of the great metropolis; to procure him a sight of the stud of the Duc de Bordeaux; to make him familiar with the moustaches of the first grenadier of France, with the cocked hat and green frock of the petit tondu. Our stranger accepts the attention of his influential friend; he is charmed with the gossip, the wit, the cordiality of his cicerone; and on arriving at his lodgings, full of calculations of the advantages to be derived on the morrow from his courtly acquaintance, he finds his pockets empty.

Who can that elegant figure be with the silky cashemere-her features gently shaded by a curtain of fine blonde, surmounted by a weeping plume, and whose attire is altogether so attractive, so picturesque? It is the young Countess of, the Ninon of the Faubourg St. Germain,' says aloud, an exquisite as he passes. No such thing;' says a second, in a lower tone, 'she is the chere amie of a money-changer-the Dubarry of the Quartier d'Antin.' 'You are both wrong,' says a third, better informed than his companions; 'she is purely and simply Francisca, the mantua-maker of the Gallerie Vivienne: I was with her this very morning giving orders for the weddingdresses of an heiress who is about to be my bride, and whose rentes will help me out of the clutches of the rascally duns who are incessantly tormenting me for my college debts: this imposing Aspasin is a mere show figure of the fashions-a sort of walking shop-window.'

Under the shade of the wideleaved sycamore behold a young lady, her long dark lashes shading her brilliant eyes so modestly cast on the ground; in her person the voluptuous form of the mistress of Titian, is ennobled by a face full of the graceful purity of a holy vir

gin of Raphael: a slight expression of melancholy shadows her countenance and heightens its expression; her bosom seems to heave oppressed by some soft pain, and now and then to find relief in a gentle sigh. An elderly person of her own sex, is her sole companion, and watches, with anxious solitude, the slightest movement of her interesting charge. Surely, this must be the amiable widow of one of the slain heroes of Trocadero; or, perhaps, the bride of some officer of rank, whom orders to embark for the Morea had torn from his home and the arms of his beloved, at the moment when the rites of the church had hallowed their felicity.

Not far from this charming picture of abstraction, behold, seated at his ease, one arm thrown with graceful negligence over the back of his chair, a young captain of lancers, who seems to have Poniatowsky for his model, as gallant in his bearing, as well made as the noble Pole, as fascinating in his air and attitudes: he sits silent, absorbed, and timid in the presence of so much delicacy and beauty. Yet a natural look of complaisance on the countenance of his neighbour gives him courage ; the fall of a withered bough furnishes the smitten lancer with an excuse for addressing a few words to the pensive recluse: moroseness and beauty never were allied-the politeness of the cavalier is acknowledged with due reserve. dened by the condescension, our soldier pushes his advances, and a conversation ensues. In the evening, behold our handsome couple witnessing, from a private box, the representation of Marino Falieroacquaintances, you would think, from infancy, having cemented their new alliance with perdreau aux truffles and champagne in a cabinet particulier of the sumptuous restaurant of the Rue Rivoli.

Embol

In the midst of a variety of episodes and burlesque scenes, the twilight passes, night throws her shades of ebony over the garden of the Tuilleries, the brilliant lights of the chandeliers begin to shine through the windows of the Palace of Kings, the rattling drums of the Cent Suisses give the conge to the promenaders, the empty chairs are built in pyramidical piles, the groups separate, the crowd disperses, and silence and solitude succeed to the scene, lately so full of life and animation.

Travelling Companiou.

No. I.

BEING a lover of character, an observer of nature, and having somewhat an erratic disposition, a favourite pastime of mine, for years, has been to jump on a stage coach, when oppressed with ennui, and ride a few miles for the sake of the change of company and fresh air, instead of rendering myself disagreeable to others, at home, by dwelling on my own infirmities, real or imaginary. Thus, then, it may easily be conceived, in a few years, I have met some strange characters and odd adventures, some of which, as they dissipated my own bile or spleen at the time, may, perchance, do a like service to some of your readers.

'I think it is likely to rain,' said I, cautiously, to an elderly gentleman who sat opposite, and who eyed me with complaisancy on my entrance. The French laugh at our mode of salutation, but really I know not why, for with perfect strangers the object should be to select a subject of common interest; if one tries politics, it is dangerous ground, for our companion may be no politician-or if he is, probably of a different school; religion is too fertile a source of discord to warrant an approach; and as to the resource

of a tea-table, private scandal, that must fall as a dead-letter where the parties are unknown to each other; for, as my Lady Tabby says, 'what then remains but to talk of the weather? for all parties may alike experience inconvenience or pleasure according as sunshine or clouds prevail. Well, I sent forth my feelers, as Wordsworth expresses the first smiles of infants, and found my old gentleman conversant and agreeable-but he seemed not to offer any points to claim particular interst; he was one of a large class, with scarcely intellect enough to excite an idea, nor ignorance to warrant a silence-in fact, I could have wished him either remarkable for his wit or his folly.

I had just come to this conclusion, when the coach stopped, and a slight, dark complexioned gentleman, with a cloak on his arm, seemed to await the opening of the door. There was 'speculation in his eye,' and I hailed him as a traveller of promise. sir!'

Please remember the porter,

Why, what have you done, my man?'

'Given your portmanteau to the coachman, your honour, and your cloak to yourself!"

'Mighty service, truly-here's sixpence for you; turning quickly round to me, 'six sixpences, I assure you, sir, have I paid for similar services in two days. I landed but two days since from Calcutta, and if I go on so, I need to have brought with me the wealth of the Indies.'

Truly, sir; but in a country densely populated, and where property is so unequally divided, there must he many poor, and to beg for small service is better than to vagabondize in a poor-house; besides, sir, he knew you came fresh from the land of wealth, and judged you, "Gad, I thought you were coming to that; the good people of England seem to think we, who have spent our lives in foreign service, must have made fortunes, and therefore ought to be considered fair game. They pluck us so unmercifully, that scarcely a feather will be left.'

'In my heart I loved old England more in India, than now I feel to do on her terra firma.'

'Perhaps, sir, the wish to be possessed of what was impossible to be obtained, might occasion this. You would gladly have put up with these impositions, and an hundred more, could you instantly have changed the sultry climate of Calcutta for the more general one of England? A man's life is of first importance, his property the second, but without the second the first loses half its charms.'

'True, but being from India' 'Ah! I see you are equally infected with the common English idea-you suppose that every sojourner in India must be rich.'

'It is generally so, I believe.' 'It would be, were all as moneygetting there, as I know to my cost they are in England: but you must know, that to keep up the common decencies that one's station requires, many appendages, unknown here, are essential ;-and rank, you know, in the army, must be sustained; in a country where every private has his own servant, a captain or a colonel must have a retinue. And then the pay is reduced; government formerly made allowances for this extra expenditure, by giving service-pay to the officer from the instant he sailed for India; now, it is far otherwise.'

But promotion advances as rapidly as the tropical vegetation. Yes, for men are as the grass before the mower.'

6

What becomes, think you, of the

twelve thousand who annually are drafted from England ? or how many are registered to return?'

' I never heard the calculation.'

Not more than one hundred and twenty a year; and will you say they, the few saved from the general wreck, ought not to be recompenced? why, Noah and his family possessed the whole world as a compensation for their loss of friends!'

'But, sir, the soldier's darling passion--his ambition, is sated; he returns full of glory, and his grateful country offers him the honours, and an asylum, as the reward for his services. Cicero says, ' to serve a friend is worthy a mortal, but to serve one's country is worthy a god:' now poets and rhetoriticians impel young men to action by such sentences; but the worn, broken soldier--his health sacrificed-his friends lost-returns with melancholy proofs of their fallacy. I was a captain in 1800-I served in Egypt, where the burning sandthe simoom-produced an opthalmia, which had nearly cost me my eye-sight. I was in the whole of the Peninsula war--at the taking of Malta; in fact, I have since 1794, been in actual service. I have fought my country's battles in Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, for thirty-three years-have risen to the rank of major-have had the singular fortune to be the only surviving man of two regiments, 900 strong. I have now returned, after such service, to be beggared on halfpay-nor is this all, for while in India, I have had the mortification to have new officers put over my head-young unexperienced sons of noblemen, whose only claim was their patent of aristocracy.'

By this time the coach had arrived at its destination, and we parted, fully sympathising with the feelings of the old major.