Cuthberts of society permit the grass to grow beneath their feet. Few, if any, are the pauses for reflection, during which a slumbering conscience may be given the blessed chance of, even at the eleventh hour, plucking the wavering weak one from the foul abyss that yawns for her. No moment for the all-important "deliberation" which, despite the poet's dictum, does not always eventuate in the tempter's triumph! Oh no! There is many another deed besides that of marriage which we may do in haste, and repent of God help us!-not only at leisure, but in sackcloth and ashes; and of one of those deeds-the one, par excellence, of which it may, with true pitifulness, be said that, in this world at least, the perpetrator thereof can, let her search ever so carefully, and with the bitterest of tears, find no pl place for rehabilitation - Gerald Cuthbert's young wife became, alas for her! guilty.

There is no need to dwell either upon the particulars of her fall, or on the punishment which almost immediately-for Hetty was no hardened sinner-followed upon her offence. Her fellow-sinner, a brother-officer of Gerald Cuthbert's, and the son of a retired tradesman, a fact which the foolish young man would have given half his allotted lifetime to be able effec

tually to ignore-had been chiefly prompted to the deed that he had done by the most commonplace and least exalted of motives. Gifted with a large share of good looks, and with plenty of money at his command, the son of the retired north country chemist and druggist was en revanche afflicted with a morbid vanity, a thin-skinned sensitiveness to often imaginary affronts which caused him, in spite of his many advantages, to be a miserable man. His name was Bickersteth, one of those harmless patronymics which, unlike many of the more peculiar ones by which not a few of our well-known and prosperous London tradesmen are designated, throw no betraying light upon the position and antecedents of the bearers thereof; therefore, had George Bickersteth's over-anxiety to conceal that he was a tradesman's son not prompted him to the signal folly of giving himself the airs of a fine gentleman, the-to him-mortifying truth might never have been (in the society to which wealth had advanced him) made public. The question of "Who is he?" was never seriously mooted until, as I may here mention, he did, on one memorable occasion, and in the following manner, misconduct himself.

There are, I think, few who are not cognisant of the fact that the hospitality met with in

Dublin by the British "airmy" is openhanded and genial in the extreme. To the Guards in

especial, and that for reasons which in the world have had dominance as long ago as the days when Horace lashed the follies of mankind, the doors of the wealthy Dublin dinner-givers are thrown widely open, whilst champagne is apparently as cheap as the waters of the Liffey, so freely is it poured forth for the delectation of their not always duly grateful guests.

Amongst the many who were, during the stay in the Irish capital of the battalion of the Guards to which George Bickersteth belonged, indulging their natural vivacity and recklessness, no less than their national givenness to hospitality, by dinner invitations innumerable to Her Majesty's faithful soldiers, one of the most noteworthy was Captain Daly, of Dalystown. He was but a Militia Captain, and (for that reason probably) was intensely vain of his military title. His father, whose comfortable fortune had been made in trade, had left this, his only son, sole heir to his possessions-possessions which Captain Daly, whose love of show was in proportion to his genial good nature, was surely but not slowly reducing to a minimum. In this easy and pleasant work he was effectually aided by his family, the which consisted of a wife, two daughters and a

tually to ignore-had been chiefly prompted to the deed that he had done by the most commonplace and least exalted of motives. Gifted with a large share of good looks, and with plenty of money at his command, the son of the retired north country chemist and druggist was en revanche afflicted with a morbid vanity, a thin-skinned sensitiveness to often imaginary affronts which caused him, in spite of his many advantages, to be a miserable man. His name was Bickersteth, one of those harmless patronymics which, unlike many of the more peculiar ones by which not a few of our well-known and prosperous London tradesmen are designated, throw no betraying light upon the position and antecedents of the bearers thereof; therefore, had George Bickersteth's over-anxiety to conceal that he was a tradesman's son not prompted him to the signal folly of giving himself the airs of a fine gentleman, the-to him-mortifying truth might never have been (in the society to which wealth had advanced him) made public. The question of "Who is he?" was never seriously mooted until, as I may here mention, he did, on one memorable occasion, and in the following manner, misconduct himself.

There are, I think, few who are not cognisant of the fact that the hospitality met with in

Dublin by the British "airmy" is openhanded and genial in the extreme. To the Guards in

especial, and that for reasons which in the world have had dominance as long ago as the days when Horace lashed the follies of mankind, the doors of the wealthy Dublin dinner-givers are thrown widely open, whilst champagne is apparently as cheap as the waters of the Liffey, so freely is it poured forth for the delectation of their not always duly grateful guests.

Amongst the many who were, during the stay in the Irish capital of the battalion of the Guards to which George Bickersteth belonged, indulging their natural vivacity and recklessness, no less than their national givenness to hospitality, by dinner invitations innumerable to Her Majesty's faithful soldiers, one of the most noteworthy was Captain Daly, of Dalystown. He was but a Militia Captain, and (for that reason probably) was intensely vain of his military title. His father, whose comfortable fortune had been made in trade, had left this, his only son, sole heir to his possessions-possessions which Captain Daly, whose love of show was in proportion to his genial good nature, was surely but not slowly reducing to a minimum. In this easy and pleasant work he was effectually aided by his family, the which consisted of a wife, two daughters and a