rasting, as
every one else did, his own animated face and glittering garb with the
ascetic and gloomy countenance, the unstudied dress, and austere gait
which destroyed in Welford the effect of a really handsome person, our
lieutenant thought fit to express his passion by a letter, which he
conveyed to Mrs. Welford's pew. Mrs. Welford went not to church that
day; the letter was found by a good-natured neighbour, and inclosed
anonymously to the husband.

Whatever, in the secrecy of domestic intercourse, took place on this
event was necessarily unknown; but the next Sunday the face of Mr.
Welford, which had never before appeared at church, was discerned by one
vigilant neighbour,--probably the anonymous friend,--not in the same
pew with his wife, but in a remote corner of the sacred house. And once,
when the lieutenant was watching to read in Mrs. Welford's face some
answer to his epistle, the same obliging inspector declared that
Welford's countenance assumed a sardonic and withering sneer that
made his very blood to creep. However this be, the lieutenant left
his quarters, and Mrs. Welford's reputation remained dissatisfactorily
untarnished. Shortly after this the county speculation failed, and it
was understood that the Welfords were about to leave the town, whither
none knew,--some said to jail; but then, unhappily, no debts could be
discovered. Their bills had been "next to nothing;" but, at least, they
had been regularly paid. However, before the rumoured emigration took
place, a circumstance equally wonderful to the good people of occurred.
One bright spring morning a party of pleasure from a great house in the
vicinity passed through that town. Most conspicuous of these was a
young horseman, richly dressed, and of a remarkably showy and handsome
appearance. Not a little sensible of the sensation he created,
this cavalier lingered behind his companions in order to eye more
deliberately certain damsels stationed in a window, and who were quite
ready to return his glances with interest. At this moment the horse,
which was fretting itself fiercely against the rein that restrained it
from its fellows, took a fright at a knife-grinder, started violently to
one side, and the graceful cavalier, who had been thinking, not of the
attitude best adapted to preserve his equilibrium, but to display his
figure, was thrown with some force upon a heap of bricks and rubbish
which had long, to the scandal of the neighbourhood, stood