have got rid of your puritanical notions, and mean to be a man-I always thought you had pluck in you. Never mind; we shall yet gather our laurels together; who knows but we may be gazetted as lords on the same day?"

"I don't dream quite so fast as you, George," said Dick, "but I fully believe that the soldier's life is the road to glory. Were I brought up to the bar, I must lounge long enough, gaping about me, before I could get a brief; and if I go into the church, who will ever obtain me a deanery or a bishopric? but on the field of glory I should ask no one to earn an immortal name."

"Yes, there we may become Cæsars, Scipios, Cyruses, Alexanders!-comfort yourself," said I, "friend; I am sure my father will do his best for you-he will be delighted that we are not to be separated-we shall yet plant the royal standard of Britain over the tri-coloured flag."

In a subsequent conversation, as we proceeded homewards, he told me that since he had studied the classics and read freely for himself, he had shaken off his idle fancies about religion; and his classical studies, aided by the frequent eulogiums of my father on the Marlboroughs, Cumberlands, and Wolfs of past days, had quite made him athirst for the field of honour, and he would rather die than be checked in his ardour.

We reached home, and I found my father in a humour for a little conversation. I immediately told him that Dick was determined to go with me into the army, but as his father and mother were opposed to it, he wished him to interfere, and see if he could not get his doom reversed, by which he was destined for the church.

My father's eyes sparkled with delight. He saw in my friend another recruit gained for the king's service, and he was willing to undertake. any task that would swell the ranks of King George.

CHAP. V.

IN a few days the family of the Gascoynes was seated around our dinner-table. It consisted of Mr. Gascoyne, Mrs, Gascoyne, my friend Dick, and his brother-in-law and sister, Mr. and Mrs. Claggett.

When my father wanted to compass an object, he always thought that the dinner-table was the way to the heart, and to do him justice he never failed to make it a very pleasant sort of way, for he was never niggardly in supplying his guests with the best things that could be obtained, nor deficient in performing the part that devolved upon him towards doing the honours of the table.

But I must introduce the guests more particularly to the reader. Mr. Gascoyne was a steady portly-looking man, of about the age of my father. His thoughts and words were always measured, and though evidently sociable, yet he had not my father's hilarity. His mind was also obviously more under the regulating influence of religion; though I do not mean to say that he was one usually called a religious man. He had religion, more, perhaps, in his actions than in his creed. He seldom made high professions of it,

E

but he was a pattern in all the duties of virtue and morality.

Mrs. Gascoyne was in shape rather embonpoint; a motherly sort of woman, with little polish, and more adapted for a housewife than for a lady; yet she was far removed from every thing that was vulgar, and though not very fluent in conversation, she had a good stock of common sense, and usually opened her mouth in wisdom.

Claggett was a tall, lanky-looking sort of gentleman, who, though he never fasted, and perhaps rarely prayed, was a mere Maw-worm in his phiz. His mind, too, was as lean as his body; he read no book but the almanac, and his knowledge was bounded by the contents of his fields. Talk about any thing but these, and he was dumb. Horses and cows, clover and hay, corn and wheat, plowing and reaping, breeding and fattening, were his only themes; on these he could enlarge with due eloquence, and he had recommended himself to this prudent family, because he had houses and lands, was a quiet and industrious neighbour, and could tell that two and two make four.

His spouse was a clever, active little woman. My father used to say of her, that the gray mare was the better horse. She was tolerably educated, but her thrifty parents had not forgotten

to qualify her for the sort of partner she had chosen, or rather accepted on their recommendation. She was four or five years older than her brother, and sufficiently sedate for her years.

This was the force my father had to encounter, and he performed his evolutions with some degree of tact; now masking his batteries; now opening a brisk fire; now advancing; now retreating, just as circumstances might render it

necessary.

Dinner being over, the bottle went round, and the ladies were not, as is now generally the case, especially in our circle, indecorously excluded from the society of the gentlemen, but took what part they pleased in the conversation. This indeed, was an advantage possessed over the modern fashionables, for there was more propriety of behaviour maintained, and the wine was never allowed to enkindle impure flames, or to set the tongue on fire, and occasion misunderstandings. Whether gentlemen by smoking and over-much drinking have driven the angels of our parties to seek another sphere, is a question I must leave to be discussed, but the sooner this custom is abandoned the better. If it was thought that intellectual conversation would have a freer flow, the experiment has then been tried and utterly failed; besides, women in general are raised a few steps