go away brides
themselves!" Here the girl whispered something in a low voice, at which
the general coloured up, was a little fluttered, and suffered himself to
be drawn aside under the hedge, where he appeared to listen to her with
great earnestness, and at the end paid her half-a-crown with the air of
a man that has got the worth of his money.

[Illustration: The General in the Toils]

The girl next made her attack upon Master Simon, who, however, was too
old a bird to be caught, knowing that it would end in an attack upon his
purse, about which he is a little sensitive. As he has a great notion,
however, of being considered a roister, he chucked her under the chin,
played her off with rather broad jokes, and put on something of the
rake-helly air, that we see now and then assumed on the stage by the
sad-boy gentlemen of the old school. "Ah, your honour," said the girl,
with a malicious leer, "you were not in such a tantrum last year when I
told you about the widow you know who; but if you had taken a friend's
advice, you'd never have come away from Doncaster races with a flea in
your ear!"

There was a secret sting in this speech that seemed quite to disconcert
Master Simon. He jerked away his hand in a pet, smacked his whip,
whistled to his dogs, and intimated that it was high time to go home.
The girl, however, was determined not to lose her harvest. She now
turned upon me, and, as I have a weakness of spirit where there is a
pretty face concerned, she soon wheedled me out of my money, and in
return read me a fortune which, if it prove true, and I am determined
to believe it, will make me one of the luckiest men in the chronicles of
Cupid.

I saw that the Oxonian was at the bottom of all this oracular mystery,
and was disposed to amuse himself with the general, whose tender
approaches to the widow have attracted the notice of the wag. I was a
little curious, however, to know the meaning of the dark hints which had
so suddenly disconcerted Master Simon: and took occasion to fall in the
rear with the Oxonian on our way home, when he laughed heartily at my
questions, and gave me ample information on the subject.

The truth of the matter is, that Master Simon has met with a sad rebuff
since my Christmas visit to the Hall. He used at that time to be joked
about a widow, a fine dashing woman, as he privately informed me. I had
supposed the pleasure he betrayed on these occasions resulted from the
usual fondness of