come back, I own that my resolve to go out to
India has been aided by Marine that Loyd, of
whom I spoke in my last, is to leave by the next
mail, and will take passage on board the P. and
O. steamer Leander, due at Malta on the 22nd.
My intention is to be his fellow-traveller, and
with this resolve I shall take the Austrian
steamer to Corfu, and come up with my friend
at Alexandria. You will perhaps be puzzled to
know why the claims of friendship are so strong
upon me at such a moment, and I satisfy your
most, natural curiosity by stating that this is a
mission of torture. I travel with this man to
insult and to outrage him; to expose him in
public places, and to confront him at all times.
I mean that this overland journey should be to
him for his life long the reminiscence of a
pilgrimage of such martyrdom as few have passed
through, and I have the vanity to believe that
not many men have higher or more varied gifts
for such a mission than myself. My first task
on reaching Calcutta shall be to report progress
to you.

"I don't mind exposing a weakness to an old
friend, and so I own to you I fell in love here.
The girl had the obduracy and wrong-headedness
not to yield to my suit, and so I had no choice
left me but to persist in it. I know, however,
that if I could only remain here a fortnight
longer I should secure the inestimable triumph
of rendering both of us miserable for life! Yes,
Drayton, that pale girl and her paltry fifteen
thousand pounds might have spoiled one of the
grandest careers that ever adorned history! and
lost the world the marvellous origin, rise,
progress, and completion of the dynasty of the great
English Begum Calvert in Bengal. Count upon
me for high office whenever penny-a-lining fails
you, and, if my realm be taxable, you shall be
my Chancellor of the Exchequer!

" You are right about that business at Basle;
to keep up a controversy would be to invest it
with more interest for public gossip. Drop it,
therefore, and the world will drop it; and, take
my word for it, I'll give them something more
to say of me one of these days than that my hair-
trigger was too sensitive! I'm writing this in
the most romantic of spots. The moonlight is
sleeping—isn't that the conventional?—over the
olive plain, and the small silvery leaves are
glittering in its pale light. Up the great Alps,
amongst the deep crevasses, a fitful flashing of
lightning promises heat for the morrow; a
nightingale sings close to my window; and
through the muslin curtain of another casement
I can see a figure pass and repass, and even
distinguish that her long hair has fallen down, and
floats loosely over neck and shoulders. How
pleasantly I might linger on here, 'My duns
forgetting, by my duns forgot.' How smoothly
I might float down the stream of life, without
even having to pull an oar! How delightfully
domestic and innocent and inglorious the whole
thing! Isn't it tempting, you dog? Does it not
touch even your temperament through its thick
hide of worldliness? And I believe in my heart
it is all feasible, all to be done.

"I have just tossed up for it. Head for
India, and head it is! So that Loyd is booked
for a pleasant journey, and I start to-morrow, to
ensure him all the happiness in my power to
confer. For the present, it would be as well to
tell all anxious and inquiring friends, into which
category come tailors, bootmakers, jewellers,
&c., that it will be a postal economy not to
address Mr. Harry Calvert in any European
capital, and to let the 'bills lie on the table,' and
be read this day six years, but add, that if
properly treated by fortune, I mean to acquit my
debts to them one of these days.

"That I 'wish they may get it' is, therefore,
no scornful or derisive hope of your friend,
"H.CALVERT.

"If—not a likely matter—anything occurs
worth mention, you shall have a line from me
from Venice."

When he had concluded his letter, he
extinguished his candles, and sat down at the open
window. The moon had gone down, and, though
star-lit, the night was dark. The window in the
other wing of the villa, at which he had seen the
figure through the curtain, was now thrown
open, and he could see that Florence, with a
shawl wrapped round her, was leaning out, and
talking to some one in the garden underneath.

"It is the first time," said a voice he knew to
be Emily's, "that I ever made a bouquet in the
dark."

"Come up, Milly dearest; the dew is falling
heavily. I feel it even here."

"I'll just fasten this rose I have here in his
hat; he saw it in my hair to-night, and he'll
remember it."

She left the garden, the window was closed.
The light was put out, and all was silent.

NEW WORK BY MR DICKENS.
In Monthly Parts with the Original Editions of
"Pickwick," "Copperfield," &c.
Now publishing, PART I., price 1s, of
OUR MUTUAL FRIEND.
BY CHARLES DICKENS.
IN TWENTY MONTHLY PARTS.
With illustrations by Marcus Stone.
London: CHAPMAN and HALL, 193, Piccadilly.