"The Captain is in the right," said Benjamin; "I myself am a single man, simply because I could not find one girl who would marry me simply for myself. A dozen would have married me; but they would have married any one. A half dozen would have turned out good wives, but they were so preciously careful about a settlement. Two or three were very nice people and very charming, accomplished, and ladylike; but they were so precious genteel that I would not have them on no account. And so here am I, an old bird, without a mate, ready to hop the twig whenever God pleases.

"Benjamin," said the Captain, "in his symbolical language, has told you a good deal of truth. We have happily outlived the very stupid and pastoral idea of loving for love's sake; and so young people, when they are wise, do as their parents bid them. That is why I tell you to beware of teaparties. If you do not do so, you will be caught. There is nothing will prove the truth of my remark to you so much as the feat of your getting married, when you will find that your invitations to a 'little music' are marvellously few. are marvellously few. Society must help itself. We do not act now-a-days like that rich gentleman—a very pleasant fellow, no doubt-Mr. What's-his-name, in the parable? Bless me, you know, Benjamin."

"Dives," returned the saddler, laconically, and in one syllable.

"Yes, Divës," answered my father, correctively, "who invited his friends to feast sumptuously. Bless you, people do not invite their friends. It is only the simple ones who do that. The people whom, by the way, you will find it necessary to imitate, merely ask those who will ask them back, whose company they prize, and whose cards will look well in the basket; and last, who will be likely to return the compliment. Young unmarried men cannot do the latter. They are, therefore, asked now solely for two reasons. One is, because they can sing a song; and the other, because they are marriageable. I am happy to say, Plantagenet, that you cannot do the first. No gentleman ever thinks of singing; it is effeminate and silly, and the strange contortions it subjects the mouth too are positively cruelly ridiculous. You can, therefore, only be asked for the latter. I would advise you, therefore, to be careful."

"I am not quite certain about what you said about singing, Ephraim," ejaculated the saddler; "why should not a man sing-especially if it be psalms?"

"Good Gaud!

"Psalms!" cried the Captain, starting with horror. Benjamin, what you do you mean ? I put it to you. Do you think that any officer or gentleman, at all known in any circle, of any ton or fashion, and who was ever presented at court, would be likely to be guilty of so insane an action. Benjamin, you frighten me!"

CHAPTER XVII.

A LITTLE MORE THAN KIN, AND LESS THAN KIND.

"WHEN We were sufficiently warmed, without poor ale and wretched pretence of claret," continued the Captain, "I pushed the bottle away from me, rather with disgust than with repletion, and remarked that it was cold."

"Draw near the fire, Captain,' said the elder. The younger wheeled away the office-table to give me room, but I declined. 'The truth is, gentlemen,' said I, 'I want to come to business.'

"Business, eh!' said the elder Mulveeny, pricking up his ears. 'What business is it? Have ye an Irish lawsuit, Captain; have ye come into a fortune, or do you want to settle something on your wife?' "Or does the Captain,' cried the young man, shrewdly, 'want to settle his wife?'

"I was startled with the sudden question. I hesitated, and was silent. I could hear the crackling and spitting of the new wood in the damp little office, and the rasping of Mr. Larry's shoe-brushes outside, as he polished some of the Mulveenys' boots, and beguiled himself with an Anglo-Irish song:

"Oh! Brian O'Linn had no watch to put on,

So he got him a turnip, and scooped him out one;
Thin he popped him a cricket right under the skin-
'Och they'll think it's a tickin',' cried Brian O'Linn.'

"Gad!' said I, 'listen: really your fellow doesn't sing badly. He'd make his fortune very quickly in London as a street-singer. Very ingenious of the gentleman mentioned. Well, yes,' I returned, smartly, to the question; 'yes, I do want to "settle" my wife: can you help me?'

"I turned round to the more likely young lawyer-rather, I thought, the greater villain of the two-when I put this question.

66 6

'Why, ha! umph!' said he, the question is rather abrupt. How can we help you? 'Pon my word

"And upon my word, Saul,' interrupted the old man, angrily, in my young days I would have shot the man who proposed such a thing where my cousin was concerned.'

"Well,' said Saul, 'there is one thing, father, I do not love her well enough to fight for her.'

"If the gentleman wishes,' said I, producing my pistols, and laying them on the table, 'I am quite ready.'

I'

"Much more ready,' cried Saul, 'than I am, my dear captain. think, father, what he says is quite reasonable. I always told aunt and Horatia what their fine notions would come to. It is not every woman with such a figure-head as cousin who can capture a man. The case seems here to be that the captain-a gentleman, as far as I can see, who lives by his wits--'

Exactly so, my engaging young friend,' said I; 'I am not the only fellow who does so either.'

"Well then,' continued Saul, I stick to the Saxon proverb, business is business. We never received anything from Horatia. She was never much good to us: she will be less now-her game is up. The captain has married her, and, of course, must keep her; but if he takes care to arrange matters well, I do not see why he should not have a chance again.

"An extremely sensible speech, sir,' I said. 'You speak like a man of business. Your eloquence may persuade your cousin, where I should fail. Now, with me, a bargain is a bargain. I have just offered Mrs. Smooth a large sum, a very large sum; indeed two-thirds of a little fortune, which I have just come into, if she will set me free. You lawyers might arrange it. I don't mind telling you that the sum is one thousand pounds.'

"A thousand pounds!' cried the old gentleman, starting_up; 'with that sum in ready money in hand, what might one do? Here, in Ireland, one might make thirty per cent., and good security; good security, Captain Smooth-three hundred per annum. Quite a handsome allowance for a woman.'

"If she would only be wise,' suggested Saul Mulveeny. 'She was always a headstrong, stupid creature, but I have something which will cure that.'

"What is it?' cried I; 'I am eager to escape the mess I have fallen into.'

"An instrument,' said Saul.

666 'Legal, of course?' Saul nodded; and opening one of the tin boxes, produced a long, narrow slip of parchment. There it is,' cried he, holding it over his head, 'It is worth a thousand pounds to you, Captain.'

"I rose, and clutched eagerly at it.

"No, thank you,' said Saul, with a grin upon his effeminate face. 'No, thank you. We do not do things in that way. Money first, money down, or else agreement.'

I am

"You're right sir,' said I, coolly, 'one must be cautious with men who sell their relatives; it is as well that I, too, should be sure before I purchase. If you please, I will go, and will call again to-morrow. You can, in the meantime, consider the propriety of letting me know the exact nature of your proposition. If you can, in any way, legally dissolve or annul my marriage with Miss Horatia, why, very goodthe money is yours. If not, why then I must apply elsewhere. a desperate man— I have a strong reason for wishing myself to be a free one. You, possibly, can aid me. Consider this; let me thank you for your hospitality, and withdraw.' So saying, I made a polite bow to my two new connexions, and, taking up my hat, withdrew. I would, my dear Benjamin, have given a hundred pounds beforehand to know what that document contained, but I was not the man to exhibit my feelings to the old lawyer and his ravenous cub.

"Here was a pretty family," continued the moralising captain, “into which I had fallen. An uncle and a cousin who were ready, and that at a moment's notice, to sell, for a miserable sum of money, a relation who was helpless, and who depended on them. My finer feelings

would not let me do that. Had Mrs. Smooth been a relation of mine, and any one had wished to discard her, it would have been, with me, cause enough to declare war to the knife. But these mercenary wretches were ready enough to part with what little honour may be supposed to reside in an Irish lawyer's breast for a pittance-for the sum which a man could win at billiards. Ugh! the wretches. As I went home, I assure you that I congratulated myself, and that strongly, upon my superior organisation, which saved me from such baseness; and I likewise, curbing my impatience as well as I could, comforted myself with a glass of brandy and water and a cigar; the former I found good, the latter very bad; and tried to dream and meditate upon my dear little Amy. I was, I felt, doing everything I could for her. I was glad to think that she had money sufficient for us both; for had I not seen that very day the baseness to which the want of it will reduce anyone! We are all striving for it, one way or another. It has a different value in the eyes of different men; but we all want it.—What could that document contain?"

(To be continued.)

ST. NICHOLAS OF NEW YORK.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "SKETCHES OF CANTABS."

IN the course of a long vacation ramble through the United States, to refresh myself for the possible briefs which may await me upon my return, I have chanced to light upon a certain pleasant resting-place, called the St. Nicholas Hotel, New York. This stupendous building, facing Broadway, somewhere about the centre of the town, excites the curiosity of the passing stranger, who would probably take it for the American Exhibition of all Nations, if its walls, instead of stone, were only constructed of glass. As it is, his impression will possibly be that it unites the Mansion House, the State Bank, the courts of law, and all the public offices, under one roof. Great will be his astonishment, on approaching the doorway, to see the words "St. Nicholas Hotel" standing out, in gold letters, over it. As this enormous caravansera seems to be open at all hours, and to all comers, to ramble, smoke, and spit over it at their pleasure, I think that we could not do better than devote five minutes to a stroll together through the interior marvels of the place.

How many acres do we cover? How many beds do we make up? What was the cost of construction? I am not positively "posted up,' as the natives would say, on these points; and would suggest the issue of a small handbook or guide, to be delivered gratis to each visitor (if with little scraps of poetry, when any particularly remarkable feature is to be pointed out, so much the better)-the whole after the style of Messrs. Moses and Sons. Certain it is that we extend to the length of a short London street, and must accommodate the population of a

small country town, returning two members under schedule B. The windows all round I have attempted to count, but abandoned the attempt, partly from fatigue, partly from the reflection of the sun in my eyes. From the window of my own room I look down upon the specks of passers below, as from one of those monuments the comparative heights of which are registered in the children's atlases side by side with the altitude of the mountains and the length of the rivers.

We will go in, if you please, by the "Gentlemen's Entrance." You may have noticed that a little lower down there is a separate entrance for ladies, the necessity for which will soon be obvious to you. To the left of the spacious hall in which we are now standing, are the readingrooms, furnished with newspapers from all parts of the Union. To the right is a shop annexed to the hotel, where every kind of article for the toilet may be obtained, without stirring from under the roof. Further on, on the same side, is that peculiarly American institution, the barber's shop. Here, surrounded by carving and gilding, miniature fountains, vases and flowers, and gorgeous accessories generally, stand some half-dozen chairs, luxuriously cushioned, and constructed so that the patient falls, proprio motu, into the position best adapted for a successful operation. Attached to each of these chairs (which seem never to be empty) is a young gentleman of aristocratic appearance, profusely bearded and moustachioed, one of whose jewelled hands is for ever on the razor, the other on the nose of a fellow-creature. Seated on sofas, close at hand, are some dozen gentlemen, all patiently waiting their turn to be shaved. The art of shaving oneself in America must be about equivalent to the capacity of cutting out their own trousers enjoyed by some young gentlemen on this side of the Atlantic. Hence the prostration of mind of the Americans when removed out of reach of a barber's fingers is amusing to witness. "I should not care if there were only a barber's shop here," was an expression which I heard more than once in crossing the ocean. In a country like this, where business-men scarcely find time to eat their dinners, it is astonishing that half an hour should be daily wasted in getting that done for him which a few mornings' practice would, one would think, enable every man to do for himself. Underneath this sanctum is a range of wellordered baths, which I have not found (though that might be only accident) by any means so inconveniently crowded as the room above. A little way on, the hall opens into a kind of square-one might almost say a quadrangle—the left side of which abuts upon a vista of internal shops-Americané stores;" while, to the right, is the spacious staircase conducting to the upper storeys. Here are placed two offices; the secretary's office, where the keys of the bed-rooms are deposited, the hotel books kept, accounts made up, valuables entrusted to the management—to speak of the "landlord" of such a place would be ridiculous-safely guarded, and so forth; and the postoffice, where, sorted into so many separate compartments, each bearing the number of a corresponding room, the letters and parcels addressed to the various lodgers lie waiting until called for. By the way, let me warn any of your readers who may chance to come here of a very