if you will take my advice, you will not be too harsh with your sister. A little firmness is seldom amiss with young women, but severity "I will pray your lordship to spare me your advice on this subject. However valuable it may be in other respects, I can, I take it, speak to my own sister in my own way." "Since you are so caustically disposed, Mowbray," answered the Earl, "I presume you will not honour her ladyship's tea-table to night, though I believe it will be the last of the season?" "And why should you think so, my lord?" answered Mowbray, whose losses had rendered him testy and contradictory upon every subject that was started. "Why should not I pay my respects to Lady Penelope, or any other tabby of quality? I have no title, indeed; but I suppose that my family" 66 Entitles you to become a canon of Strasburg, doubtless-But you do not seem in a very Christian mood for taking orders. All I meant to say was, that you and Lady Pen were not used to be on such a good footing." 66 "Well, she sent me a card for her blow-out," said Mowbray ; and so I am resolved to go. When I have been there half an hour, I will ride up to Shaws-Castle, and you shall hear of my speed in wooing for you tomorrow morning." CHAPTER XXXIV. A TEA-PARTY. Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round; COWPER'S TASK. THE approach of the cold and rainy season had now so far thinned the company at the Well, that in order to secure the necessary degree of crowd upon her tea-nights, Lady Penelope was obliged to employ some coaxing towards those whom she had considered as much under par in society. Even the Doctor and Mrs. Blower were graciously smiled upon—for their marriage was now an arranged affair; and the event was of a nature likely to spread the reputation of the Spaw among wealthy widows, and medical gentlemen of more skill than practice. So in they came, the Doctor smirking, gallanting, and performing all the bustling parade of settled and arranged courtship, with much of that grace wherewith a turkeycock goes through the same ceremony. Old Touchwood had also attended her ladyship's summons, chiefly, it may be supposed, from his restless, fidgety disposition, which seldom suffered him to remain absent even from those places of resort of which he usually professed his detes tation. There was, besides, Mr. Winterblossom, who, in his usual spirit of quiet epicurism and quiet self-indulgence, was, under the fire of a volley of compliments to Lady Penelope, scheming to secure for himself an early cup of tea. There was Lady Binks also, with the wonted degree of sullenness in her beautiful face, angry at her husband as usual, and not disposed to be pleased with Lord Etherington for being absent when she desired to excite Sir Bingo's jealousy. This she had discovered to be the most effectual way of tormenting the Baronet, and she rejoiced in it with the savage glee of a hackney coachman, who has found a raw, where he can make his poor jade feel the whip. The rest of the company were also in attendance as usual. MacTurk himself was present, notwithstanding that he thought it an egregious waste of hot water, to bestow it upon compounding any mixture, saving punch. He had of late associated himself a good deal with the traveller; not that they by any means resembled each other in temper or opinions, but rather because there was that degree of difference betwixt them which furnished perpetual subject for dispute and discussion. They were not long, on the present occasion, ere they lighted on a fertile source of controversy. "Never tell me of your points of honour," said Touchwood, raising his voice altogether above the general tone of polite conversation-" all humbug, Captain MacTurk -mere hair-traps to springe woodcocks-men of sense break through them." "Upon my word, sir," said the Captain, "and myself is surprised to hear you-for, look you, sir, every man's honour is the breath of his nostrils-Cot tamn!" "Then let men breathe through their mouths and be d-d," returned the controversialist. "I tell you, sir, that, besides its being forbidden, both by law and gospel, it's an idiotical and totally absurd practice, that of duelling. An honest savage has more sense than to practice it he takes his bow or his gun, as the thing may be, and shoots his enemy from behind a bush. way; for you see there can, in that man's death between them." And a very good case, be only one "Saul of my body, sir," said the Captain, "gin ye promulgate sic doctrines among the good company, it's my belief you will bring somebody to the gallows." "Thank ye, Captain, with all my heart; but I stir up no quarrels-I leave war to them that live by it. I only say, that, except our old, stupid ancestors in the northwest here, I know no country so silly as to harbour this custom of duelling. It is unknown in Africa, among the negroes-in America." "Don't tell me that," said the Captain; 66 a Yankee will fight with muskets and buck-shot, rather than sit still with an affront. I should know Jonathan, I think.” "Altogether unknown among the thousand tribes of India." "I'll be tamned, then!" said Captain MacTurk. "Was I not in Tippoo's prison at Bangalore? and, when the joyful day of our liberation came, did we not solemnize it with fourteen little affairs, whereof we had been laying the foundation in our house of captivity, as Holy Writ has it, and never went farther to settle them than the glacis of the fort? By my soul, you would have thought there was a smart skirmish, the firing was so close; and did not I, Captain MacTurk, fight three of them myself, without moving my foot from the place I set it on?" "And pray, sir, what might be the result of this Christian mode of giving thanks for your deliverance?” demanded Mr. Touchwood. 66 "A small list of casualties, after all," said the Captain; one killed on the spot, one died of his wounds-two wounded severely-three ditto slightly, and little Duncan Macphail reported missing. We were out of practice, after such long confinement. So you see how we managed matters in India, my dear friend." "You are to understand," replied Touchwood, "that I spoke only of the heathen natives, who, heathen as they are, live in the light of their own moral reason, and among whom ye shall therefore see better examples of practical morality than among such as yourselves; who, though calling yourselves Christians, have no more knowledge of the true acceptation and meaning of your religion, than if you had left your Christianity at the Cape of Good Hope, as they say of you, and forgot to take it up when you came back again." "Py Cot! and I can tell you, sir," said the Captain, elevating at once his voice and his nostrils, and snuffing the air with a truculent and indignant visage, "that I will not permit you or any man to throw any such scandal on my character.-I thank Cot, I can bring good witness that I am as good a Christian as another, for a poor sinner, as the best of us are; and I am ready to justify my religion with my sword-Cot tamn!-Compare my own self with a parcel of black heathen bodies and natives, that were never in the inner side of a kirk whilst they lived, but go about worshipping stocks and stones, and swinging themselves upon bamboos, like peasts, as they are!" An indignant growling in his throat, which sounded |