24 THE SMUGGLER. 



a pretty game of picquet with you, you may chance to win it ; 

 but you must not dangle after Edith, or you will burn your 

 fingers. She'll not have you, if you were twenty baronets, 

 and twenty majors of dragoons into the bargain. She has got 

 some of the fancies of the old uncle about her, and is deter- 

 mined to die an old maid, I can see." 



"Oh, the difficulty of the enterprise would only be a soldier's 

 reason for undertaking it!" said Sir Edward Digby. 



"It won't do; it won't do;" answered Mr. Croyland, 

 laughing; "you may think yourself very captivating, very 

 conquering, quite a look-and-die man, as all you people in red 

 jackets fancy yourselves, but it will be all lost labour with 

 Edith, I can tell you." 



" You excite all the martial ardour in my soul," exclaimed 

 Digby, with a gay smile; "and if she be not forty, hump- 

 backed, or one-eyed, by the fates you shall see what you shall 

 see." 



"Forty!" cried Mr. Croyland; "why she's but two-and- 

 tvventy, man! A great deal straighter than that crouching 

 wench in white marble they call the 4 Venus de Medici,' and 

 with a pair of eyes, that, on my life, I think would have made 

 me forswear celibacy, if I had found such looking at me, any 

 time before I reached fifty!" 



"Do you hear that, Osborn?" cried Sir Edward Digby. 

 " Here's a fine field for an adventurous spirit. I shall have 

 the start of you, my friend ; and in the wilds of Kent, what 

 may not be done in ten days or a fortnight?" 



His companion only answered by a melancholy smile; and 

 the conversation went on between the old gentleman and the 

 young baronet till they reached the small town of Lenham, 

 where they stopped again to dine. There, however, Mr. 

 Croyland drew Sir Edward Digby aside, and inquired in a 

 low tone, " Is your friend in love? He looks mighty melan- 

 choly." 



"I believe he is," replied Digby. " Love's the only thing 

 that can make a man melancholy; and when one comes to 

 consider all the attractions of a squaw of the Chippeway 

 Indians, it is no wonder that my friend is in such a hopeless 

 case." 



The old gentleman poked him with his finger, and shook 

 his head, with a langh, saying "You are a wag, young gen- 



