sir. This Baldwin, surnamed _Le----_"

"Mrs. Ogleton challenges you, sir; she insists upon it," said Tom still
more rapidly, at the same time filling a glass, and forcing it on the
_scavant_, who, thus arrested in the very crisis of his narrative,
received and swallowed the potation as if it had been physic.

"What on earth has Miss Simpkinson discovered there?" continued Tom;
"something of interest. See how fast she is writing."

The diversion was effectual; every one looked towards Miss Simpkinson,
who, far too ethereal for "creature comforts," was seated apart on the
dilapidated remains of an altar-tomb, committing eagerly to paper
something that had strongly impressed her; the air--the eye in a "fine
frenzy rolling"--all betokened that the divine _afflarus_ was come. Her
father rose, and stole silently towards her.

"What an old boar!" muttered young Ingoldsby; alluding, perhaps, to a
slice of brawn which he had just begun to operate upon, but which, from
the celerity with which it disappeared, did not seem so very difficult
of mastication.

But what had become of Seaforth and his fair Caroline all this while?
Why, it so happened that they had been simultaneously stricken with the
picturesque appearance of one of those high and pointed arches, which
that eminent antiquary, Mr. Horseley Curties, has described in his
_Ancient Records_, as "a _Gothic_ window of the _Saxon_ order"; and then
the ivy clustered so thickly and so beautifully on the other side, that
they went round to look at that; and then their proximity deprived it of
half its effect, and so they walked across to a little knoll, a hundred
yards off, and in crossing a small ravine, they came to what in Ireland
they call "a bad step," and Charles had to carry his cousin over it; and
then when they had to come back, she would not give him the trouble
again for the world, so they followed a better but more circuitous
route, and there were hedges and ditches in the way, and stiles to get
over and gates to get through, so that an hour or more had elapsed
before they were able to rejoin the party.

"Lassy me!" said Miss Julia Simpkinson, "how long you have been gone!"

And so they had. The remark was a very just as well as a very natural
one. They were gone a long while, and a nice cosy chat they had; and
what do you think it was all about, my dear miss?

"O lassy me! love, no doubt, and the moon, and eyes, and nightingales,
and----"

Stay, stay, my sw