cannot lay claim to such
an interest, and were seen but like the phantoms which a magic lantern
throws upon the wall,--moving and grouping for a moment and then lost
forever.

It is from no want of respect to our reader, if we trace not the current
of such lives; it is simply from the fact that when they ceased to act,
they ceased, as it were, to exist. Are we not, all of us in the world,
acted upon and influenced by events and people,--purely passers-by,
known to-day, seen perhaps for a week, or known for a month, and yet
never after met with in all life's journey? As on a voyage many a casual
air of wind, many a wayward breeze helps us onward, and yet none inquire
"whence it cometh or whither it goeth,"--so is it in the real world; and
why not in the world of fiction, which ought to be its counterpart?

Of those in whom our interest centred, the reader knows all that we know
ourselves. Would he, or rather she, care to learn that the elder Miss
Kennyfeck never married, but became a companion to Lady Janet, who on
the death of Sir Andrew, caused by his swallowing a liniment, and taking
into his stomach what was meant for his skin, went abroad, and is still
a well-known character in the watering-places of Germany, where she
and her friend are the terror of all who tremble at evil-speaking and
slandering?

Olivia married the Reverend Knox Softly, and seems as meek as a curate's
wife ought to be, nor bears a trace of those days when she smiled
on cornets or mingled sighs with captains of hussars. If some of our
characters have fared ill in this adventurous history, others have
been more fortunate. The Dean is made a Colonial Bishop, and the
distinguished Mr. Howie's picture occupies a place in the last
Exhibition!

Meek is still a placeman: bland, gentle, and conciliating as ever,
he made at the close of the session a most affecting speech upon the
sorrows of Ireland, and drew tears from the ventilator at his picture of
her destitution!

Mrs. Kennyfeck and "Aunt Fanny" keep house together in the ancient
city of Galway. Attracted to each other by a thousand antipathies, more
cohesive than any friendship, they fight and quarrel unceasingly, and
are never known to agree, save when the enthusiasm of their malevolence
has discovered a common victim in the circle of their "friends."

Here ends our history; nor need we linger longer with those whose
happiness, so far as worldly prosperity can make it, is at last secured.