ce quo l'on aime, il faut se contenter de ce
que l'on a.'' Or, in other words, when a man
has not got what he likes best, he will do well
to make himself contented with that he has
got. At the present season, however, with
all our admiration for the animal, you had
better leave him alone. When cold weather
returns, and the cholera disappears, you may
sup on him without fear.

NORTH AND SOUTH.

BY THE AUTHOR OF MARY BARTON.

CHAPTER THE TENTH.

MR. THORNTON left the house without
coming into the dining room again. He
was rather late, and walked rapidly out to
Crampton. He was anxious not to slight
his new friend by any disrespectful
unpunctuality. The church-clock struck half-past
seven as he stood at the door awaiting
Dixon's slow movements; always doubly
tardy when she had to degrade herself by
answering the door-bell. He was ushered
iiito the little drawing-room, and kindly
greeted by Mr. Hale, who led him up to
his wife, whose pale face, and shawl-draped
figure made a silent excuse for the cold
languor of her greeting. Margaret was
lighting the lamp when he entered, for the
darkness was coming on. The lamp threw
a pretty light into the centre of the dusky
room, from which, with country habits, they
did not exclude the night-skies, and the
outer darkness of air. Somehow, that room
contrasted itself with the one he had lately
left; handsome, ponderous, with no sign of
feminine habitation, except in the one spot
where his mother sate, and no convenience
for any other employment than eating and
drinking. To be sure, it was a dining-room;
his mother preferred to sit in it; and her will
was a household law. But the drawing-room
was not like this. It was twice — twenty times
as line; not one quarter as comfortable. Here
were no mirrors, not even a scrap of glass to
reflect the light, and answer the same
purpose as water in a landscape; no gilding, a
warm, sober breadth of colouring, well
relieved by the dear old Helstone
chintz-curtains and chair covers. An open davenport
stood in the window opposite the door; in
the other there was a stand, with a tall white
china vase, from which drooped wreaths of
English ivy, pale-green birch, and copper-
coloured beech-leaves. Pretty baskets of
work stood about in different places: and
books not cared for on account of their bindings
(solely) lay on one table, as if just put
down. Behind the door was another table,
decked out for tea, with a white table-cloth
on which flourished, the cocoa-nut cakes, and
a basket piled with oranges and ruddy
American apples, heaped on leaves.

It appeared to .Mr. Thornton that all
those graceful cares were habitual to the
family; and especially of a piece with
Margaret. She stood by the tea-table in
a light-coloured muslin gown, which had
a good deal of pink about it. She looked
as if she was not attending to the conversation,
but solely busy with the tea-cups, among
which her round ivory hands moved with
pretty, noiseless, daintiness. She had a bracelet
on one taper arm, which would fall down
over her round wrist. Mr. Thotnton watched
the re-placing of this troublesome ornament
with far more attention than he listened to
her father. It seemed as if it fascinated him
to see her push it up impatiently, until it
tightened her soft flesh; and then to mark
the loosening — the fall. He could almost
have exclaimed — " There it goes, again!"
There was so little left to be done after he
arrived at the preparation for tea, that he
was almost sorry that the obligation of eating
and drinking came so soon to prevent his
watching Margaret. She handed him his
cup of tea with the proud air of an unwilling
slave; but her eye caught the moment when
he was ready for another cup; and he almost
longed to ask her to do for him what he saw
her compelled to do for her father, who took
her little finger and thumb in his masculine
hand, and made them serve as sugar-tongs.
Mr. Thornton saw her beautiful eyes lifted to
her father, full of light, half-laughter and
half-love, as this bit of pantomime went on
between the two, unobserved, as they fancied,
by any. Margaret's head still ached, as the
paleness of her complexion, and her silence
might have testitied; but she was resolved to
throw herself into the breach, if there was
any long untoward pause, rather than that
her father's friend, pupil, and guest should
have cause to think himself in any way
neglected. But the conversation went on; and
Margaret drew into a corner, near her
mother, with her work, after the tea-things
were taken away; and felt that she might let
her thoughts roam, without fear of being
suddenly wanted to fill up a gap.

Mr. Thornton and Mr. Hale were both
absorbed in the continuation of some subject
which had been started at their last meeting.
Margaret was recalled to a sense of the
present by some trivial, low-spoken remark of
her mother's; and on suddenly looking up
from her work, her eye was caught by the
difference of outward appearance between
her father and Mr. Thornton, as betokening
such distinctly opposite natures. Her father
was of slight figure, which made him appear
taller than he really was, when not contrasted,
as at this time, with the tall, massive frame
of another. The lines in her father's face
were soft and waving, with a frequent
undulating kind of trembling movement passing
over them, showing every fluctuating emotion;
the eyelids were large and arched, giving to
the eyes a peculiar languid beauty which was
almost feminine. The brows were finely