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damsel nestled to the side of her parent, as they commenced their walk, eager to hear the observations which the apparition of the sable head might give rise to.

"He must be an African or a Chinese, Patty, or something of that distant kind I should guess," resumed Mrs. O'Donagough, as they walked on; "yet I can't, for my life, help thinking that he is monstrous handsome, though he is so near being a blackamore. Did you get a peep at him?"

"At who, mamma?" said Patty, innocently.

"At the lodger on the first floor, my dear. Didn't you see the door open as we came down ?"

"I suppose it was while I was running up stairs for my pocket-handkerchief," replied Patty.

"Well then, you must contrive to see him some day or other, child, for it is the most remarkable face I ever beheld; I should not wonder to hear any body say that he was horridly frightful, and yet for the life of me I can't help thinking him monstrously handsome."

"I am sure, mamma, I should like to see him of all things," replied her daughter; "but I don't know how. I can't walk into his room, you know."

"Lor-a-mercy no!" returned the mother, with great animation. "I beg and desire, Patty, that you won't speak in any such flighty way about him. I am quite certain he is not the sort of person for any nonsense of that kind. If he lodges in the house, you will be sure to see him, sooner or later, I dare say, without playing any mad pranks to contrive it."

Patty received this rebuke in silence, and walked on. It had been her intention, when inviting her mamma to take the air, to cross the street, and parade up and down leisurely on the other side of it; thereby giving an opportunity to the first-floor gentleman to see them out of the window if he liked it; but she was too sensible a girl to persevere in this project now, and they languidly pursued their way to Regent-street, first streaming along to the top of it, and then down again.

Nothing could be a greater proof that the mind of the fair Patty was preoccupied than the indifference with which she gazed into the shopwindows; but with her mother it was otherwise. Notwithstanding the stifling heat and dust of a fine October day in London, Mrs. O'Donagough's energies all returned, as she contemplated the glories, faded and waning as they were, which every step presented to her view. "Oh, Patty!" she exclaimed at length," what are you thinking of? Did you ever in all your days see any thing so heavenly beautiful as these shops. Just look at those coloured muslins! How they do make one long! Don't they?"

"To be sure they do," replied Patty, roused at last, and throwing, as it were, all her recovered soul through the plate-glass barrier that separated her from the objects in question. "But it makes one sick and miserable to look at them without a single sixpence in one's pocket. I declare I'd rather be dead than going on as I am now!" This melancholy reflection, and her own pathetic expression of it, recalled to the memory of the fair mourner the necessity of managing ably her projected attack upon the heart of her father; and no sooner did she think of this, than the injury which her gay dress might produce, should they chance to meet him, struck her forcibly.

"Let us go home now, mamma," said she in a tone of great depression and fatigue. "Upon my word I am so tired, I can hardly stand." Mrs. O'Donagough could willingly have walked and gazed a while longer, but she yielded to this urgent entreaty, and they returned in time for Patty to prepare herself for the reception of her papa.

There was considerable cleverness displayed in her manner of doing this. She knew she could not turn pale, and she was very sorry for it; but all she could do, she did. She pushed back her redundant locks behind her ears, and made them hang as disconsolately as their nature would permit; she practised before the glass a sort of heavy, heartbroken look, dressed herself in a dirty faded suit, and then crept down stairs so quietly as to escape the keen ears of the Spaniard, whom she by no means wished to encounter in such a trim. Having placed herself in an attitude of great weariness and dejection, she awaited her father's return in such pertinacious stillness that she very nearly fell asleep; but he entered at a favourable moment, real heaviness assisting that which was assumed, and giving her the appearance of being in a very deplorable condition.

Mercy on me, Patty! what's the matter with you?" exclaimed Mr. O'Donagough. "I hope," he added, turning to his wife, "that she is not going to have the smallpox, or measles, or any thing of that sort! Have you got a headach, my dear?"

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"Yes, papa, my head aches very bad," replied Patty, in a gentle voice. "I believe people have always got the headach when they are as miserable as me!"

"Miserable? why what have you been doing to her, Mrs. O'D.? You haven't been scolding and badgering her, I hope? You know I don't approve of it, and I won't have it.'

"No, dear papa, that is not it," said Patty, drawing out her pockethandkerchief, 66 mamma has nothing whatever to do with it; but my very heart is broken, at thinking that I am in London, and can't see the only friend I ever had in the world. I should not mind any thing if you would only let me go and call upon Matilda Perkins!"

Mr. O'Donagough threw a glance round the room, and then at the personal decorations of his wife and daughter.

"Do you really wish, Patty, to let your friends see you in this changed condition?" said he gravely, but without harshness. "When they saw you last, you looked like a duchess]; and now, darling, upon my word you look like her housemaid. Don't you think it would be better to wait till we are up again?"

"Wait for three months, papa, without seeing Matilda Perkins? I am sure it will kill me, I am certain that I can't bear it." And here Patty applied her handkerchief to her eyes.

"I wonder any man alive would ever rear a daughter," sang Mr. O'Donagough laughing, and attempting to withdraw the handkerchief from the bright orbs he so greatly admired. "Come, Patty, don't be a fool! Look up, and be a good girl, and we'll contrive some way or other about seeing the Perkinses. But I must not have all my plots and plans spoiled either, mind that, if you please."

"I am sure I don't want to spoil any thing, papa !" replied Patty; "only let me see Matilda, and I'll tell her any thing in the world that you like." "There's a darling! Very well, Patty, you shall go with your mother and call upon them to-morrow morning if you will; only you must

dress yourselves nice, and tell them that you came into town entirely to see them, for that you are in lodgings at Richmond, till your London house is ready.-No, no, upon second thoughts you had better say that we are staying with friends at Richmond, or else perhaps they might expect to be invited. Do you understand, Patty ?"

"Yes, papa, perfectly; and I shall like all that very much; a great deal better than letting them suppose that we are actually living in such a place as this. And nothing can be easier, you know, than telling them exactly whatever you please about it; only I shan't at all get the sort of comfort I want if I am only to go once, and have no place where I may tell Matilda to call upon me in return."

"It is my turn now," said Mrs. O'Donagough. "I have not said a word yet; but if you will listen to me, both of you, I'll engage for it I will manage the business better than either."

"And likely enough, too, my Barnaby," gaily replied her husband, who for some reason or other had returned in excellent spirits." Likely enough, Patty, she'll beat us both at a plot. So say your say, Mrs. O'D., and let us hear how we can contrive to let the beauty have her way without interfering with what I have laid down as firmly as the laws of the Medes and Persians."

"Well then, Donny, I'll tell you what we must say to the Perkinses. First we'll begin by letting them know that we have been invited to stay with some very elegant friends at Richmond, and I can put in a word or two about our all enjoying it so very much. And then we'll go on to say that there is but one drawback, which is the inconvenience of the distance from town just at the time when we have so much to do in preparing a house for the winter and spring; and then I can say, that dear Mr. O'Donagough is so dreadfully afraid of my being overfatigued that he has taken a little bit of an out-of-the-way lodging just for us to sleep in, whenever it happened that we were too much knocked up by a day's shopping to be able to return to Richmond the same night. And then you know nothing will be easier, at any time, than to fix a day for their calling, by saying, come Monday or come Tuesday, for we have made appointments with tradespeople which will oblige us to be in town."

"Well done, Barnaby!" exclaimed Mr. O'Donagough, slapping her on the back, and laughing heartily. "Isn't your mother a capital hand, Patty? In that way, my dear, you may see this dear friend of yours, three times in a week, if you like it."

"And I should not make the least objection," observed Mrs. O'Donagough, "to her passing a day or two at a time with them, if they happened to invite her. The change would do her a deal of good, dear creature, and the Perkinses are such perfectly proper people, that there could be no reason in the world against it."

This was an idea that made Patty's eyes sparkle again, as brightly as before they were rubbed by her pocket-handkerchief; and with such a prospect before her, and a delicious new novel, called "The Doubtful One," to fill up all mental interstices, when her own meditations had been sufficiently indulged, the day passed away without another sigh or groan being heard from her.

(To be continued.)

HAVING ONE'S OWN WAY.

BY LAMAN BLANCHARD, ESQ.

"Mother. Oh! dear Alfred, don't upset the inkstand!
Dear Alfred. I will.

Mother, Oh! my little darling, put papa's razors down.
Little Darling. I won't."

DOMESTIC LIFE, A TRAGI-COMEDY.

WHO, that has looked upon the world" for four times seven years" (which one's wife calls five at least), has ever, throughout that period, discovered more than one way that he ardently desired to have, or could conscientiously think worth having. Of course, the one way is one's own way. For my part, I never wanted any other; but I have invariably wanted that. Now that happens to be exactly the way that people, of whatsoever degree, will never let you have if they can help it. You may have theirs if you will, and welcome; they endeavour with all their soul and with all their strength to persuade you to have it; nay, you may pick from a profusion; but you must not have your own way. The world is all before you where to choose, so that your choice fall not on the sole object that you thirst for the one thing you want-that one thing happening of all others upon earth to belong to you by right-to be emphatically your own.

The world is singularly consistent in its inconsistency. Every individual atom in society is duly impressed with a conviction of the privilege and the pleasure of having its own little way, while it is immovably fixed in a resolution to let no fellow-atom secure that requisite and natural indulgence. "I don't care, I will have my own way," says every man to himself. "Now, don't be so obstinate, don't insist upon having your own way," is the cry of every man to his neighbour.

I hate obstinacy as I hate egotism. I never could bear unnecessarily to oppose myself to the wishes of other people. I blush like a lobster when I get into hot water. But at the same time, though the most docile and tractable creature alive, I always said from my very cradle, and I always shall say it, "What is the use of other people's ways to me? Let me always have my own; I never ask for more, and won't be satisfied with less." If there's any thing unreasonable in this, let the reader tell me so at once, and I'll discuss the point with him when we meet. I was always a friend to free discussion. I'm of opinion with Mr. Croaker, in some play that I once saw, that there's no objection to argument when you have finally made up your mind, because reason can then do no harm.

I had hardly crept out of the cradle just adverted to, when I began to give proofs of that independent turn of mind, the self-acting principle of my disposition, which I am now laying claim to as being almost all that I can positively call my own-the more reason you will say why I should value it as I do, and take pride in the possession of it. It has cost me something, I'm sure, and ought to be worth bragging of-but I never boast. Why should you? you will ask in the sequel. Poor old Wheezle! If she were alive, wouldn't she remember the day!

It was my fourth birthday, and there was a general conspiracy all through the house to make me comfortable and happy. They were all, I believe, very fond of me. Indeed, I have generally observed, that spirited children who show signs of having a will of their own, who won't submit to be quietly trained up in the way they should go like young rab bits-who are not afraid to squall, and can kick for themselves as it were, are much more apt to attract notice, and to be petted and indulged by the people about them, than children of a meeker and less impatient temper. It fared so with me, at all events; for I had always ten times as many toys, sweetmeats, and holidays, as my brother, who was too meek and mute to disturb a mouse, and who would, with surprising readiness, and as I sometimes thought with real, but certainly with apparent pleasure, do exactly at all times what he was told to do, instead of the reverse, which ever seemed so natural to me. It happened, at any rate, on this birthday of mine, that all hands were busied in supplying materials for a grand nursery festival. It was all arranged; I was to go out in the morning, receive company when I came home, and be allowed to make myself almost as ill as I liked. But somehow all this displeased me. I got up in an ill humour, and as I liked it, I kept in it throughout the day. I was very fractious, undoubtedly, as boys will be. They had all resolved that I should be happy, and I remember that I could not bear the sense of control -I could not bear that they should have their way, and I not have mine. So they were all thwarted, for I would neither go out nor see my visiters, and lest I should break a blood vessel, or my father's afternoon nap, my mother ordered that I should "have my own way." Poor Wheezle, she did humour me, to be sure! All day long I led her such a life, and she never crossed me in any thing. At last having scattered or torn up all my books and prints, my eyes rested upon a splendid volume (one of Hogarth's) of which I had once or twice caught a glimpse, and which I now resolved to finger. I screamed for it, but in vain. Wheezle was not an ill-natured woman, but she was just one of those persons who will cheerfully render you ninety-nine services, and then refuse the hundredth if it does not suit them to grant it. Now it was this hundredth that I wanted, and certainly I did roar. Any book but that I might have-dozens were offered-but there could be no substitute-1 screamed and stamped. Few boys are fully aware of what screaming and stamping will effect, if duly persevered in. My mother came as before, "Let him have his way-his father says he may have the book." And then observing, perhaps, that I was standing rather close to the fender, she quitted the room with a maternal direction, "Take care he doesn't play with the fire."

Now it so happens that I had never thought of such a thing as playing with the fire. Of all the mischievous expedients which I had that day hit upon, playing with the fire had never crossed my mind. Here was a discovery! Playing with fire must be pleasant under any circumstances; but playing with fire when care was to be taken that I did not! who could resist, that loved to have his own way? The book instantly lost its charms, but I was quiet as I turned over its leaves; and fatigued to the utmost, so as to be completely overcome by the sudden change from tumult to tranquillity, my old attendant began to doze. I seized the opportunity, tore two or three of the prints out of

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