so ready and eager to
be cheated and deceived. Sir Edward Lytton has somewhere declared that
a single number of the 'Times' newspaper, taken at random, would be
the very best and most complete picture of our daily life--the fullest
exponent of our notions, wants, wishes, and aspirations. Not a hope, nor
fear, nor prejudice--not a particle of our blind trustfulness, or of our
as blind unbelief, that would not find its reflex in the broadsheet. R.
N. F. had arrived at the same conclusion, only in a more limited sense.
The advertisement columns were all to him. What cared he for foreign
wars, or the state of the Funds? as little did he find interest in
railway intelligence, or "our own correspondent." What he wanted was,
the people who inquired after a missing relative--a long-lost son or
brother, who was supposed to have died in the Mauritius or Mexico: an
affectionate mother who desired tidings as to the burial-place of a
certain James or John, who had been travelling in a particular year in
the south of Spain: an inquirer for the will of Paul somebody: or
any one who could supply evidence as to the marriage of Sarah Meekins
_alias_ Crouther, supposed to have been celebrated before her Majesty's
Vice-Consul at Kooroobakaboo--these were the paragraphs that touched
him.

Never was there such a union of intelligence and sympathy as in him! He
knew everybody, and seemed not alone to have been known to, but actually
beloved by, every one. It was in _his_ arms poor Joe died at Aden. _He_
gave away Maria at Tunis. He followed Tom to his grave at Corfu; and he
was the mysterious stranger who, on board the P. and O. boat, offered
his purse to Edward, and was almost offended at being denied. The way in
which this man tracked the stories of families through the few lines
of a newspaper advertisement was positively marvellous. Whatever was
wanting in the way of evidence of this, or clue to that, came at once
into his attributions.

A couple of years ago, an English lady, the wife of a clergyman, passed
a winter at Rome with her daughter, and in the mixed society of that
capital made acquaintance with a Polish Count of most charming manners
and fascinating address. The acquaintance ripened into intimacy, and
ended in an attachment which led to the marriage of the young lady with
the distinguished exile.

On arriving in England, however, it was discovered that the accomplished
Count was a common soldier, and a deserter from the Pr