400 

 THE LOVER OF BEAUTY; 



OB WHICH WILh HE WED? 

 (Continued from page 318.) 



In less than a quarter of an hour the Captain drove his elegant phaeton 

 to the door ; his boasted greys champing their bits disdainfully, pawed 

 the earth with impatience, appearing scarcely restrained by the glittering 

 harness that gave token of the most elaborate care. A motion of the 

 reins nearly threw the proud animals upon their haunches, and Lewis, the 

 Captain's "gentleman," rode up to their heads, while his master 

 descended and entered the saloon. Lady Eleanor was attired for her 

 ride ; her shawl, her white robe of Chaly, and her green bonnet having 

 been promptly exchanged for a redingote of lavender silk, and a capote 

 of white gauze, trimmed with a superb fall of blond : Mrs. Atherstone 

 commended her, laughingly, to the care of the Captain, who, bowing to 

 the admonition, handed the lady with infinite grace into the phaeton, 

 and then, springing up beside her, kissed his hand to his sister-in-law, 

 and shot from the place with rapidity. 



Behold our military hero in the full possession of his wish ; and what 

 man is there who, calling himself proprietor of a pair of greys, which, 

 for symmetry and action, might rival Priam or Zinganee, attached to a 

 phaeton of the very best style — claret colour, picked out with black, and 

 a double row of brass mouldings — what man so entitled would not 

 triumph in having beauty, rank, and fashion of the first water to grace 

 his equipage ? Not one most assuredly, and Captain Atherstone thought 

 so as his steeds, fresh as those of Apollo, bounded before him, and the 

 delicate little pied of Lady Eleanor arrayed in a bottine of lavender gros- 

 de-naples contrasted — he vowed poetically — with his own more magni- 

 tudinous extremity cased in a shining Hoby, upon which his snowy jean 

 reposed in mathematical adjustment. The sun shone patronisingly upon 

 this tete-a-tete ride ; the skies were bright and blue, sown with a hundred 

 little clouds of pearl and silver that sailed placidly away, as the soft breeze 

 came rushing by ; the linnet sang sweetly in its leafy bower, and the lark 

 answered, blithely, from the braided corn, while the trees and blossoms 

 were laden with leaf and odour, and the fond Zephyrs, stealing by, 

 snatched kisses from the cheeks of Lady Eleanor, and made wild sport 

 with the tresses of her ebon hair. Every thing, in fact, concurred to 

 induce that delassement-du-coiur which is — or rather ought to be — the 

 attribute of youth and health. Captain Atherstone was eloquent in his 

 dissertations upon the enchanting scenery through which they passed, 

 and, lavishly, commented upon the whole to his beautiful companion. 

 The transition from nature to art was easy, and inviting to a connoisseur ; 

 ** Ruysdael, Hobbima, Wynants, Waterloo — all the great Flemings might 

 have studied wood and water, air and sunshine on the spot." "Then 

 the charms of a rural life ! the simplicity, the candour, the delicacy, the 

 tenderness, the perfect immaculacy of a rural swain — a Strephon or 

 Corydon who, a stranger to the delusions of science and the belles-lettres, 

 and unacquainted with the depravities of vice, passes his life under the 

 shade of an elm, alternately discussing the excellence of his brown bread 

 and the incomparable loveliness of his mistress." Love and roses, a 



