Births.-On the 2nd ult., at the Dell, county of Devon, the lady of W. R. Anketell, Esq, of a daughter.- 4th, at Warnford, Hants, the wife of the Rev. Frederick B. Pryor, of a son.-5th, at the residence of his Grace the Archbishop of Armagh, in Charles. street, St. James's-square, the lady of George Dunbar, Esq., of a son.-6th, at Anningsleypark, Chertsey, the Hon. Mrs. James Norton, of a daughter.-6th, at Mount-grovehouse, Hampstead, the wife of T. Jackson, Esq., of a son.-7th, at 5, St. James's-terrace, Regent's-park, the wife of Murray M. Johnson, Esq., of Enfield, of a daughter.— 7th, at Clifton, the lady of S. H. Stuart Esq., of a daughter.-10th, at the residence of her father, No. 18, New Ormond-street, Queensquare, the wife of W. P. Draffen, Esq., Royal Marine Artillery, of a son.-At the Terrace, Camberwell, Mrs. William Hooton, of a son.-At Southend, Lewisham, the wife of the Rev. Stewart E. Forster of a son.At Itchenor, near Chichester, the lady of the Rev. Stenning Johnson, of a son. Marriages.-On the 2nd ult., at West Hackney Church, by the Rev. William Finch, John Weise, Esq., of Turret-grove, Clapham, to Jeannette Alice, second daughter of David Trickey, Esq., of Hertford-road, Kingsland. The bride and bridegroom then left town for Bangor.-4th, at Whitsbury, Hants, by the Rev. Richard Fortescue Purvis, Richard Purvis, Esq., commander R.N., youngest son of Rear-Admiral Purvis, of Bury-hall, Hants, to Georgiana Rachel, eldest daughter of the late Major-General Cock, of Hopton-hall, Suffolk.-6th, at St. Marylebone Church, by the Rev. W. H. Charlton, Charles Sacre, Esq. of Boston, Lincolnshire, to Miss M. Brain, youngest daughter of R. Brain, Esq., of Brussels.7th, at Beaminster, by the Rev. William Rose Holden, B.A., of Dorset-cottage, Worcester, the Rev. William Laxton, M.A. incumbent of Atworth and South Wraxall, Wilts, to Ella, eldest daughter of James William Daniel, Esq., of Beaminster. Deaths. On the 13th ult., at his residence, Burgh Castle, near Great Yarmouth, after an illness of only three days, Thomas Spilling, Esq., late of Magdalen-hall, Oxford, aged 26.-18th, at New York, after a few days illness, John William, second son of Mr. George Beale Brown, late of Liverpool, and grandson of the late Mr. John W. Goss, of Bull-wharf, London, and Walthamstow, Essex, in the 28th year of his age. -29th, at her residence, Merrion-square, Dublin, the Lady Mary Knox, eldest daughter of Anthony, eighth earl of Meath, and relict of Arthur Knox, Esq., Castle Rea, Mayo, and Woodstock, Wicklow Ireland.At Margate, Thomas Adams, Esq. aged 58. LORD M-, a widower, stern of aspect, gray headed, and childless (with the exception of a daughter from whom he was alienated), was standing at a window of his seat in Berkshire, looking at some poor women whom he presented every winter with cloaks and blankets, and who were in the habit, when they departed with their presents, of turning round towards the window, and making his lordship a thankful curtsey. 66 Now, now, my lord," said one of his old female servants; "this is the person I spoke of; she as is going down the steps with the little boy. She'll turn in a minute and make the curchey. Your lordship's very good, I'm sure, to put up with my boldness. I don't pretend to know who the lady is,-for I'm sure she is a lady,-nor to dare for to say or to know anything which mayn't be proper for my place; but begging your lordship's pardon, as you aint angry, I was struck all of a heap when I seed the little boy, he's such a moral of your lordship in the picter when your lordship was of the same age; and though the poor woman-I beg the lady's pardon I'm sure, if she is a lady,never bring'd him with her before, I've noted her now for a matter of these three years, always trembling and quaking like whenever she receives the things, and always a-keeping her face hidden with some N. S. VOL. XXXI. Y thing as if she'd got a rheumatiz, or a swelled cheek, or something of that sort. There, my lord; now she's going to make the curchey." Lord M. said not a word to all this, nor to much that had been said before by the old woman to the same effect. He seemed neither to approve, nor yet to disapprove;-certainly not to be angry. In fact, he looked rather amazed and stunned than otherwise. He turned pale; stared as if in astonishment; sighed once or twice very deeply; then compressed his lips and brows, and kept his eyes fixed in the direction indicated. The female with the little boy turned round, and after standing still for a moment as if to recover herself made a very low curtsey. The little boy at the same time took off his cap and made a bow, exhibiting a face at which his lordship started. The female was covered with one of the cloaks given at the hall; and her face, besides being wrapped up as the servant had mentioned, was held down. As to the curtsey, it was not easy to say what sort of a curtsey it was, partly by reason of the cloak. Only it is certain it was not a clownish or rustical curtsey. Neither was the bow of the little boy either clownish or artificial; but a simple, unstudied, child-like bow, which though the little fellow did not seem to think much of it, was more respectful than otherwise, and quite proper. "Three years, do you say?" at length inquired Lord M. in a low tone of voice. "Three years, my lord, come this blessed day; and her hand always shakes and quivers like when she takes the things. Mrs. Jones has axed her many times if she was ill; but though she speaks in a whisper like, she always says, No; only a little tired. Mrs. Jones, my lord, noted as how the child was like the picter; and so did Thomas." This was the tenderest point that could have been touched in Lord M. He was a stubborn and resentful, but not unaffectionate man; and his anger with his child had been sustained by the belief, not only that she did not care for him, but that all her affections were absorbed in his enemies. He had a theory that children resemble those persons most, of whom the mother was most in the habit of thinking; and therefore when he heard that his grandchild was such an image of himself, a revulsion of all his former impressions took place, and he was now as anxious to behold him as he before recoiled from the possibility. Not that the child was heir to his title, for that was confined to heirsmale of his own family, and went to a distant relation. But he had an estate to will nevertheless, a pride in need of relief, and above all, a dormant set of affections to awaken. "Say no more of this, Letty, till I speak to you again," said his lordship; "and go and tell Richard to bring my horse." Lord M. watched the female and the little boy till they turned a corner where the trees hid them. He then turned himself, and paced the room with his eyes on the carpet; then looked earnestly forth again towards the steps of his house. At length he is on horseback, and rides cautiously in the track of the persons he is thinking of. Lord M. had not married happily. His wife was not a loving woman; his daughter, as she grew up, too much resembled her, he thought, in nature as well as in face, though it was only because she too often took her mother's part, out of grief at her very faults. But she certainly resembled her mother's relations more than she did her father's, and, unfortunately, only one of these relations possessed her loving nature. Lord M. quarrelled with them all; and when his daughter proceeded to marry one of them against his will, though it was the person who formed the exception to their unpleasantness, his anger became so great as to grow worse and worse the more they tried to appease him, till at length he told his daughter that if" ever she wrote to him again, or he again beheld her face, his curse should be upon her." Never from that moment did he again behold it, nor had he beheld it now, though the servant's guess was correct. It was truly enough his daughter that had stood before him, making that grateful curtsey. It was his daughter that wore the duffel cloak, and that had been glad to receive the blankets in winter time. It was Lady Susan M., now understood to be a Mrs. Wilson, who born and bred in every luxury, and loving her father with religious devotion, trembled in M.-hall every twenty-fourth day of December, as she stood in the house where she had been the joy of the poor, and now was one of them herself, trembling with self-pity and sorrow, with desire to clasp her father to her heart, and the dread, nevertheless, of being seen by him for fear of the curse. She had been more than religiously educated: and though experience, as well as the nature and fineness of her own heart and understanding, had taught her a superiority to such fears as far as regarded others, she could never get them out of her head in application to herself, or cease to dread being looked upon by that face which she would have given worlds to look upon in security and love. Lady Susan was now thirty-two, and had been thus estranged from her father for nearly nine years. Her husband had died five years ago, leaving her a boy who was just six. He had made unwise speculations, and died of chagrin at anticipating both his means and her own. The pittance which remained to her was no greater than the pocketmoney she once spent in toys and charity at M.-Hall; and this was so poorly increased by articles which she wrote for the press, that on fine days in winter time, she was often fain to encourage her little boy to skip and play in a paddock of the cottage where she lodged, while she put out the fire that had made her breakfast and would sometimes weep for cold. She had lived four years in this way, in her father's neighbourhood, in order that she might still live and die, if possible, in the dear old place, not without cherishing a hope, meanwhile, that some lucky chance, which she at once longed for yet dreaded, might bring her boy to the knowledge and pity of his grandfather, without the dreadful curse to herself; and in something of this mingled fear and hope she had, for the first time, brought the child with her to the hall, and was now this moment sitting, and almost weeping her heart out, upon the trunk of a tree by the road-side, while the good little boy was crying with her as she held his hand, and her father, unseen of both, had stopped his horse, and was gazing at the spectacle. "That is my daughter," thought he, " in the cloak of charity, afraid of her father; and that is my infant self in the shape of her little child, giving her pity." And as he thus thought, he wondered at it all, and at circumstances and at changes, and at unfeeling habit, and at the dreadful effects of one senseless word. The daughter rose and continued her path with the little boy, and the father again cautiously followed on his horse. At length he saw them enter a cottage in a little secluded hamlet, and as he halted irresolutely, not knowing what to do, he again saw them coming forth, and going further on. Lord M. rode slowly to the cottage door and alighted. The possessor of the cottage, an old widow woman, knew him, and curtsied profoundly to the lord of the manor. His lordship entered the cottage, and sitting down, inquired, as if out of curiosity, respecting her lodger. The good woman knew nothing of her except that she was a poor young widow lady, from London, who lived, she believed, by what they called writing for books, which must be a very poor livelihood, she said, for such a gentle body, though she paid her way; for she was glad enough of his lordship's Christmas charity, even to the taking of the guinea, though, for that matter, she made a strange use somehow of the guinea, for she would spend part of it, and of that particular guinea and no other, in buying a better dinner than she allowed herself on any other day, and then the dear little boy was to drink half a little glass of wine to the memory of his papa, and another half a glass to the memory of his grandpapa and grandmama, and then the good lady would cry and kiss him for half an hour together, till she dried up her tears, and made him laugh again; and so all was right. Only I think, my lord," concluded the dame, "that something has put it in the child's head to-day not quite to like it; for he asked his mother why she went and stood among those old women, and why she made him make a bow to the big house, and cried so in the lane; and so she looked at me, my lord, and was all of a flush of red, and took the child out directly to go and buy the things for Christmasday, which she always does with that particular money, as I told your lordship; and so we shall have the wine again to-day, and the kissing and the crying; unless, poor soul, she has had crying enough." Lord M. at some parts of this speech looked greatly distressed, and at others, as if his thoughts were far away. He then asked whether he could see the room which the lady chiefly inhabited; and being a great lord, and lord of the manor, of course he could, and so he went up, and signifying his wish to that end, was left alone. He gave as a reason for his wish, that he desired to write a letter, which was to be given to her. He first requested, however, that in case she returned before the letter was finished, the woman was not to say anything of |