discovery absorbed his travelling companion's whole
attention at the outset of the journey. By
some extraordinary oversight, Miss Bygrave had
been left, on the eve of her marriage, unprovided
with a maid! Mr. Noel Vanstone declared
that he would take the whole responsibility
of correcting this deficiency in the arrangements,
on his own shoulders; he would
not trouble Mr. Bygrave to give him any assistance;
he would confer, when they got to
their journey's end, with the landlady of the
hotel, and would examine the candidates for
the vacant office himself. All the way to London,
he returned again and again to the same
subject; all the evening, at the hotel, he was
in and out of the landlady's sitting-room, until
he fairly obliged her to lock the door. In
every other proceeding which related to his marriage,
he had been kept in the background; he
had been compelled to follow in the footsteps of
his ingenious friend. In the matter of the lady's
maid he claimed his fitting position at last—he
followed nobody; he took the lead!

The forenoon of the next day was devoted to
obtaining the license—the personal distinction of
making the declaration on oath being eagerly
accepted by Mr. Noel Vanstone, who swore, in
perfect good faith (on information previously
obtained from the captain), that the lady was of
age. The document procured, the bridegroom
returned to examine the characters and qualifications
of the women-servants out of place, whom
the landlady had engaged to summon to the hotel
—while Captain Wragge turned his steps, "on
business personal to himself," towards the residence
of a friend in a distant quarter of London.

The captain's friend was connected with the
law, and the captain's business was of a twofold
nature. His first object was to inform himself of
the legal bearings of the approaching marriage on
the future of the husband and the wife. His
second object was to provide, beforehand, for
destroying all traces of the destination to which
he might betake himself, when he left Aldborough
on the wedding-day. Having reached his end
successfully, in both these cases, he returned to
the hotel, and found Mr. Noel Vanstone nursing
his offended dignity in the landlady's sitting-room.
Three ladies'-maids had appeared to pass
their examination, and had all, on coming to the
question of wages, impudently declined accepting
the place. A fourth candidate was expected to
present herself on the next day; and, until she
made her appearance, Mr. Noel Vanstone positively
declined removing from the metropolis.
Captain Wragge showed his annoyance openly
at the unnecessary delay thus occasioned in the
return to Aldborough, but without producing
any effect. Mr. Noel Vanstone shook his obstinate
little head, and solemnly refused to trifle
with his responsibilities.

The first event which occurred on Saturday
morning, was the arrival of Mrs. Lecount's letter
to her master, enclosed in one of the envelopes
which the captain had addressed to himself.

He received it (by previous arrangement with
the waiter) in his bedroom—read it with the
closest attention—and put it away carefully in
his pocket-book. The letter was ominous of
serious events to come, when the housekeeper
returned to England; and it was due to Magdalen
—who was the person threatened—to
place the warning of danger in her own possession.

Later in the day the fourth candidate appeared
for the maid's situation—a young woman of small
expectations and subdued manners, who looked (as
the landlady remarked) like a person conversant
with misfortunes. She passed the ordeal of
examination successfully, and accepted the wages offered
without a murmur. The engagement having
been ratified on both sides, fresh delays ensued,
of which Mr. Noel Vanstone was once more the
cause. He had not yet made up his mind whether
he would, or would not, give more than a guinea
for the wedding-ring; and he wasted the rest of
the day to such disastrous purpose in one
jeweller's shop after another, that he and the
captain, and the new lady's-maid (who travelled
with them), were barely in time to catch the last
train from London that evening.

It was late at night when they left the railway
at the nearest station to Aldborough. Captain
Wragge had been strangely silent all through
the journey. His mind was ill at ease. He
had left Magdalen, under very critical circumstances,
with no fit person to control her; and
he was wholly ignorant of the progress of events,
in his absence, at North Shingles.

THIRTEEN PRINCES OF WALES.

ON Sunday, the ninth of November, his Royal
Highness the Prince of Wales will arrive at the
mature age of twenty-one, and will complete the
three times seven which fulfil the mystical number
of the years of discretion. A few months
afterwards, he will take to wife a German-Danish
princess.

There are some who believe that for man
generally the number of the years of discretion
has been wrongly settled by the mystical arithmetic;
that three times three is the right multiple
of seven; and that man properly comes of
age when he is sixty-three. In the number
sixty-three, observe the six and three, which,
when added together, make nine, the complete
number of the muses, but when subtracted one
from the other, will make three, the number of
the graces. Out of twenty-one you can get by
addition only three, the number of the graces;
you cannot get the muses. Whether you add,
subtract, multiply, or divide, for them, they will
not come. For are not the graces led by youth,
and the muses by experience? Inheritance of
property on coming of age would obviously be
preferable under the rule of nine times seven.
For while it would oblige men whose ancestors
have thriven, to live by their own energy in years
when a man ought to do so, it would secure them