for his jealousy, must have acknowledged.
The stranger's rollicking air of gaiety added
present insult to previous injury; and to get
out of the hearing of his rich "ha ha," which
seemed to pervade the whole neighbourhood,
Davie snatched up his hat, intending to walk
off his spleen: he pushed halfway down the
stairs, but there paused— just below, in the
passage by the back-parlour door, was the
obnoxious rustic, with his arm round bonny
Lucy's waist, and his lips seeking a kiss;
while the damsel's hand was put up to shield
her cheek, and her tongue was saying, in
that pretty accent which lovers never take as
truth, " Don't, Tom; please don't! " Tom
caught the uplifted fingers, and held them
fast till he had taken a dozen kisses to
indemnify himself for the delay. Davie, greatly
discomfited, retreated to his room, and made
cautious surveys before venturing to leave it
again. He quite hated Tom, who was a fine,
single-minded young fellow, guilty of no
greater sin against him than having won
blue-eyed Lucy's heart.

When Mrs. Lawley came up-stairs to
remove her lodger's breakfast-things, she looked
glowing with importance, and, after a short
hesitation, confided to him the great family
secret— Mr. Tom Burton, of Ravenscroft
Farm, had offered for Lucy, and they were to
be married that day week. " You'll have
seen him, sir, maybe? " said the proud
mother; " he's been here as often as twice
a-week; and, when I told him it behoved him
to stop at home and attend to his farm, he'd
tell me that corn would grow without watching ;
and I soon saw what he meant. So, as
Lucy was noways unwilling, I bade 'em have
done with all this courting and courting, and
get wed out of hand. Perhaps, Mr. David,
you'll be so good as go out for the day, and
let us have your room for breakfast— or we
should be proud of your company, sir."

The poor poet almost choked over his
congratulations, but he got them out in a way.
Soon after, he saw the lovers cross the
street, arm-in-arm, spruced up for the occasion,
and looking as stiff as Sunday clothes
worn on a week-day always make rustic
lovers look— everybody who met them might
know what they were. Tom had a rather
bashful and surprised expression; as if he
were astonished to find himself part owner
of such a fresh, modest, little daisy of a
sweetheart, and were not quite sure that it
was her cottage bonnet just below his great
shoulder, for so long as Davie had them in
sight he kept looking down into it to make
sure Lucy was there. Davie's feelings were
almost too much for him, but he made a
magnanimous resolve that as Lucy had been
so good and attentive to him, he would make
her a present, and, that he might endure the
deepest pangs, that present should be the
wedding dress and bonnet. He went off
accordingly, post haste, to a great millinery
establishment, and purchased a dove-coloured
silk dress, and the most sweetly pretty white
bonnet, with orange blossoms, that could be
had for money. When Lucy and Tom
returned from their walk, he called her upstairs
and presented them to her. She
contemplated them with surprised delight,
blushing and clasping her hands over them:
never was there anything so beautiful.

Davie bade her try the bonnet on, to see
how it would fit, and, without an atom of
coquetry, she put it on, tied the strings under
her chin, and rose on tip-toe to peep at
herself in the glass over the chimney-piece.

"I must let " (Lucy was going to say "Tom,"
but she substituted " mother" instead); " I
must let mother see it! " and she ran out of
the room, leaving the door open, with that
intent. But somebody met her on the stairs,
and stopped her for examination. Davie
tried to shut his ears, but he could not help
hearing that ominous " Don't, Tom; please
don't; " though, as balm to his wounded
feelings, he also caught the echo of a— what
shall I say?— a slap? a box?— what do you
call it when a pretty maiden brings her hand
sharply in contact with her lover's cheek?
Well, no matter—it is a something which
always is or ought to be avenged by six
kisses on the spot; it was condignly punished
in this instance, for Tom lacked modesty even
more than French polish. Davie instantly
slammed the door, and sat down to compose
his feelings by inditing a sonnet on
"Disappointed Love." When it was finished— the
lines being flowing and the rhymes musical
— he felt more placid and easy in his mind;
but, before the wedding, he withdrew
himself from the house, and went into country
lodgings to hide his griefs. In process of
time he rhymed himself into a belief that
he was the victim of a disappointed passion,
the prey of a devouring sorrow; that his
heart was a wreck, a ruin, dust, ashes, a
stone, dwelling alone; that life was stale, an
unfinished tale, a hopeless, joyless pageant:
all because blue-eyed Lucy had married Tom
Burton of Ravenscroft.

This was the early love-romance which
furnished my brother Davie with his cynicism,
his similes of darts, flames, and wounds
that are scattered everywhere through his
verses. Some of the productions of his
troubled muse, after he fled to Highgate, shall
be quoted. What would have been Lucy's
astonishment could she have heard herself
apostrophised in such burning numbers! her
orbs of sunny blue would have dilated until
she would have looked, indeed, a round-
eyed Juno. Here is one of Davie's effusions
from a little manuscript-hook, bound in
white vellum, the confidante of his poetical
woes at this mournful era:—

Thou hast come like a mist o'er my glorious dreaming,
Thy image stands up 'twixt my soul and the sun!
Oh! why, when youth's noontide of gladness was beaming,
Hast thou darken'd all that it shone upon?