bold intruder into her dining-room. There stood the very sofa on which Madam Smith had sat in state last summer; there hung the muslin draperies from behind which Miss Maria had "cut her capers," and Miss Smith cast her haughty airs upon Mrs. Mark Luke and her little daughter, as they went to the evening promenade. She would at this moment have given triple rent for the lodging, of which the tenantless or tenantable condition appeared so dubious to the landlady. An idea suddenly struck the applicant, the woman was afraid of her payment.

"You surely do not remember me, Ma'am," said Mrs. Mark Luke, with a simpering consciousness of being as good as the bank.

Mrs. Girvan could not plead ignorance. "I know you well enough, Mem-ye wont to pass this way often enough last season :-ye are Mrs. Luke, the grocer's wife in the Trongate ; -and I'm not just sure that I'm free to set my hoos."

“Mrs. Luke, the grocer's wife in the Trongate!"—it sounded harshly on the delicate auricular nerve of our Mrs. Mark Luke. Had she then no higher status-no independent existence, even with the St. Kitt's fortune? She evacuated the lodging in sulky silence, and strayed towards the still empty, unsold Halcyon Bank; while the landlady, now finding her tongue, lost as little time as possible in informing her gossip, how loath she had been to set off Mrs. Luke, for Mark Luke's siller was as sure as Johnny Carrick's; but she had no choice, as it would ruin the character of her house for ever, if she took in the Pig-wife. Her ignorance on such points had cost her enough before. In inadvertently receiving the Smiths themselves, she had for ever forfeited all hope of getting back the Dempsters, "who were a cut aboon the Smiths, in spite of all their airs and pride, and cousins of Mrs. Gengebre's of the Bank, (Halcyon Bank, to wit,) who was a real lady.' woman!—had she not given these same Smiths reason to believe she thought them the greatest people on Westland ground, and, to their faces, sneered at the pride and poverty of the East country gentles of the writer tribe.

False

When Mrs. Luke returned home without having secured any lodging, she found her husband in a humour which, for the first, fairly threw him into her sphere of sympathies. Nor did she neglect to improve the circumstance. A piece of ground had recently been enclosed in Glasgow, for a new burial ground, which was to be sold out in small portions, and Mark, among his many purchases, had ambitioned that of a decent family lair, to which his father's bones might be lifted, and in which might soon be laid, first his mother, next Mrs. Mark Luke, and then himself-Mysie and her posterity following, to the latest generations. Why Mark imagined that his wife, ten years younger than himself, was to tenant the Luke family lair, and have her virtues recorded on its marble head-stone before himself, we cannot tell, save that matrimonial longevity seems a privilege of our nobler sex.

The burying ground for sale was laid out and divided. Mark studied the ground-plan, which was submitted to him before any places were sold, or many bespoken, and he fixed upon his own, with the approbation of his wife. It was horribly dear he owned; but in a respectable juste milieu situation among the illustrious dead of the Barony parish; dry-neither too large nor too small-too backward, nor too forward; and great was Mark's indignation when he was informed by one of the Trustees that, notwithstanding the earliness of his application, and the extent of his wealth and credit, there was no place for him and his among the defunct Exclusives of his native city. Smith himself, ay, and Dempster, had crushed his claim at once:-no lady had a hand in this. As trustees for the new ground, they had a strong interest in rejecting such applications as might hinder others. "The Walkinshaws are in terms," said Mr. Smith; "but if they hear that such people as Mark Luke are applying, the speculation is ruined: no one will or can purchase after him."

Was ever so ill-starred a family as the Lukes! Excluded in church pews, ex.90ed in summerlodgings, excluded in a burial ground!

It was some slight atonement or consolation that, when Mrs. Mark Luke next read in the Chronicle, "Upset price still farther reduced. That charmingly situated and most desirable Marine Villa," &c., &c.,-there followed in the Gazettelo! and behold!—it was no mistake :-"Meeting of the creditors of Duncan Smith, merchant, to be held in the Tontine, &c., &c., for the purpose of appointing an interim factor."

Mrs. Mark Luke ordered her clogs, to return a call from Miss Penny Parlane,—a visit long past due.

"Me never to hear a word of this !—but I hear nothing that goes on in Glasgow."

"And Mr. Luke is to be trustee on the sequestrated estate. It's no possible, but ye must have heard?" said Penny.

"Well if I did, Miss Penny, it was but prudence,-seeing how Mr. Luke stood in relation to the unhappy case, to say little. Here is a downcome!"

"Ay, Mem!-You remember that great discourse of the Doctor's upon the words, Pride goeth before destruction.'

"The Doctor is great upon every subject," said Mrs. Mark Luke, somewhat statelily; and she took her leave, perceiving that she had a better clew for information than even that which Miss Penny was willing to afford. Mark, too, to cheat her so, and keep his thumb upon a!!

To do our heroine justice, she was not, considering the many provocations she had received, at all vindictive; and though Mark, besides being factor, was himself a large creditor, she did not press her belief, which she could indeed have established by the evidence of her confidential maid with the burr,-that the Smiths had a great many more silver spoons and forks, and napery, than appeared in the inventory. There was a silver tray and vase in particular. Mark

himself acted with humanity and fairness; nor did Mrs. Mark Luke next year canvass against the appointment of Mr. Smith as agent to some Insurance company, in which she could now certainly have baffled him. She did not even insult the fallen greatness of the family by pressing her services and society upon them. N.B.While the first meetings of creditors were holding, a letter arrived by the carrier to Mark, ordering some tea and sugar; and announcing, that Mrs. Luke might now have Mrs. Girvan's lodgings; but Mrs. Luke was supplied!

Mr. Smith did not long hold his new situation. He died of what was called a broken heart; and the friends of the family, Mark Luke aiding and assisting, purchased for his widow and daughters the good-will of the Camlachie-Road Establish. ment, from which the presiding lady was opportunely retiring to the higher latitude of Portobello. While these arrangements were in progress, Mrs. Mark Luke's sympathies were deeply engaged for those “ who had seen better days," and who were surely humble enough now. Humble they might be · but it now became a matter of calculation to more rigidly and tenaciously exclusive than ever. This, Miss Smith said, was imperatively demanded by the first interests of the Establishment; which, as the sure way to success, opened with everything either new, distant, or foreign, and, at least, as anti-Glasgow as possible.

In the meanwhile Mrs. Luke had the great good fortune to procure the reversion of a very clever upper-servant, or under-governess, discharged on the bankruptcy. The English girl with the burr, engaged so long ago for the sake of the early purity of Miss Luke's accent, who was to lisp in English speech,

"And drink from the well of English undefiled" had been discharged as next thing to an impostor. She was only from Durham or thereabouts; and Robina, herself, had detected her mispronunciations, and bad grammar; but Miss Dedham was a quite different style of person, and, indeed, in every way, an immense acquisition to Mrs. Luke and her daughter. We have said that our heroine was an apt scholar; thus, she profited, though she was "too much the lady" to own that she either required or received any instruction in high-life and high-lived manners, from the adroit hints of her new companion, or from her descriptions of how such things were managed, by her direction, in her former family, and her former nursery and school-room.

P

Smollett pretends that in one month Peregrine ualified the gipsy girl he picked up under a hedge, to play her part as a young lady of breeding and education in polished society, which she accordingly performed, not only without detection, but with great eclat, till, in an evil hour, the force of original habit burst through conventional usage, not yet become habitual and confirmed. We have ever held this story as a scurvy satire upon modern refinement; but certain it is, that with her own good natural parts, the tacit lessons of the governess, and those ever

VOL. I.NO. IX.

ready ministers to the improvement in fashionable taste of those who have plenty of moneythe milliners, namely, and the perfumers, and jewellers, and confectioners, and toy-dealers, and elocutionists, and lecturers-Mrs. Mark Luke had genteelified and absolutely refined more in one season, than in some half-a-dozen former years of stinted appliances, and with no one of sufficient authority to instruct her in the use of such as were proper. Miss Ferrier, Captain Hamilton, and, above all, Mr. Theodore Hook, among the secondary novelists, have exhausted themselves in ridicule of the blundering, clumsy, and ludi. crious attempts of the would-be-gentle folks to imitate their betters; the presumption of cits, noveaux riches, and parvenus, and cockneys, who presume to converse and give musical parties and dinners like the highly-polished privileged orders. Even Miss Edgeworth has given one ambitious dinner, remarkable for entire and ludicrous failure; but then she has the discrimination to shew, that the failure does not arise from any want of knowledge in the grocer's refined and ambitious lady, but solely from want of adequate means to accomplish her elegant hospitality. Lady Clonbrony has more vices of pronunciation, and is guilty of more breaches of conventional English manners, than the Dublin vulgarian ; and while Lady Dashfort is as brusque, rude, and familiar as her high rank warrants, her maid is the very pink of formal, elaborate politeness. In this Miss Edgeworth shews her superiority to ordinary fictionists: she is aware that while Maria Louisa, the daughter of an Emperor, and the descendant of a line of princes, born to the manner, if such may be, was simple to awkwardness, Josephine, the poor Creole, possessed all the refinement and elegance of manners which accomplishes an Exclusive petite maitresse.

Our own wonder and amusement has never been excited by the blunders of such pretenders as Mrs. Mark Luke, but rather by the truth, the vraisemblance of their imitation; and the absolute identity with great folks, in all exterior shows which they were able to maintain and display after a very little experience. The ladies of the family of a rural esquire or laird, though of undisputable gentility of birth, will much oftener blunder in some part or other of costume, and in the last forms of etiquette, than the females of a respectable town tradesman. It has been remarked that the purest speakers of the English language in England, next to the highest class of nobility, are those shopkeepers and tradesmen in the west end of London, who associate with them daily in supplying their wants. The principle holds in many other points; and we think that the sketchers of parvenu manners should now rather direct their observation to how the proscribed castes pronounce their minds and accentuate their ideas, than to their aa's and ee's; and to how are pronounced, or exhibited, the few distinctions in their natural modes of thinking and feeling, between classes so far separated by external rank.

To return to our heroine. She tired of the 2 U

tacit teaching of the accomplished Miss Dedham, and was pleased to be rid of her; as, in the course of other two years, she formed quite another plan for Miss Luke than the original one of a home education. She no longer required instruction in speaking English herself ; for though she still occasionally blurted out a broad aw, when a delicate a was prescribed, and dealt largely in false emphasis, she began to feel returning confidence in herself, from Kean or O'Neil we really forget which—having sancti fied some of her supposed blunders, freely attacked by Miss Dedham. Besides Mysie's English master, (the highest charger in Glasgow for private lessons,) had, in different words, decided against the governess; and, in short, she was civilly dismissed.

Miss Luke was now, in jockey phrase, rising eleven; and a plain, good-tempered, sensible child, who took," it was said, after her father Her mother's friends, and Miss Dedham, in par-. ticular, long affirmed that she promised to be a beauty; and Miss Betsy Bogle, that Lukie would never keep her word. Even her own mother feared for her beauty, but she resolved that she should be highly accomplished, and never keep but the best company; in short-for it is nonsense to conceal it longer-that she should be finished off at the Camlachie-Road Boarding School.

Mr. Luke thought Mysie very pretty already, and to him her acquirements at eleven were quite wonderful-save in music. There Mark, who had a natural gift, felt that his heiress fell far short of her mamma; while Mrs. Luke herself, and Miss Dedham, affirmed just the contrary-Miss Luke was wonderful in music, as in everything else, for her years. Often had Mark given up his eyes to satisfy them, but he would not yield his ears. If Mysie's attempts were music, then was the female world of the West advancing backwards. His own family afforded an apt illustration. Before going to his apprenticeship he had been charmed by the old ballads of the «Free maids who wove their thread with bones," in Hamilton; and with his old mother's song of "Saw ye my father." Even the everlasting

Flower of Dumblane," and the "Whistle, and I'll come to ye," of his wife in their sprightly days of courtship, were, if not well sung, at least intelligible; and of Miss Peaston's five pieces on the piano, Mark could, at all events, recognize the "Legacy," and the "Woodpecker tapping;" but as to Mysie's melodious efforts upon the new Edinburgh instrument, and her peahen screechings!-mortifying as it was to Mark to own it, he fairly gave them up. Rossini's music and as probationer for the Camlachie Establishment, Miss Luke was, at this time, allowed to look at nothing else,-sounded to Mark Luke, grocer, exactly as it did to Samuel Taylor Coleridge, poet,-like nonsense verses; and for the same reason, which was, that their fashionable friends decided they had no more ear than a post. Mark defied his wife's sentence, by proud reference to his own capitally sung Burns' songs, and Tannahill's to bootas Coleridge might, by

citing the exquisite harmony, the breathing mus sic of his verses; but Mrs. Luke would have eluded this by the supplementary declaration,→ "No ear for really good-that is for fashionable Italian music, Mr. Luke.”

Meanwhile the Camlachie Establishment was rising in reputation every day. It had been con ducted from the first, Mrs. Luke assured her husband, with the greatest tact:—all the governesses were Swiss, the domestics English,-and they were held at such at a distance! Miss Maria herself was just returned from France.

There was an impenetrable mystery in the management of the seminary, with "the strictest discipline, and the most rigid observance of etiquette." Mrs. Mark Luke was willing to forget all her early injuries and insults, for the sake of her daughter." It was always allowed," she remarked, "that Madame Mère, which she understood was Mrs. Duncan Smith's style in the school, was quite the lady-too much so, poor woman! in former days but now of great advantage in forming the minds, and moulding the manners of young ladies; the discipline, Mrs. Luke understood, was so admirable, that every time she entered the school-rooms, every pupil, however engaged, rose, and dropt a low curtsy; then the regimen was so well regulated, and the young ladies were, from the practice of Calisthenics, so remarkable for their fine carriage. True, the terms were high; but then the pupils were so se lect, and Miss Maria so accomplished, and Miss Smith so intellectual!"

All this was poured into the unmusical ears of Mr. Luke with a rapidity, which gave him no opportunity either for question or remark, much as he admired and wondered, and deeply as, on account of Mysie, he was interested. As for Mrs. Smith, or "Madame Mère," he knew her of old to have been a senseless, proud, extravagant woman, who had ruined her husband, and brought up her children too like herself. Miss Maria had been, whatever she now was, a saucy, satirical little cuttie, who had often laughed at his simple good wife, in face of the whole kirk, and Miss Smith a vain, conceited fool. In this elementary way did Mark silently reason upon these great characters. Calistenics, he presumed, was some puppy of a French dancing-master; and as to accomplishments, he understood them quite well, for his own wife had been accomplished, and Miss Betsy Bogle was very accomplished-many of his female friends were very accomplished, whom he thought useless tawpies for all that; but he nevertheless yielded to the necessity of his Mysie, when she had finished her English, and writing, and arithmetic, and geography, and dancing, being made neibour-like and accomplished-though he absolutely boggled at intellectual. Could Miss Smith preach like Dr. Chalmers, or lecture like Professor Sandford, or write politics and polis tical economy, like the Editor of the Glasgow Herald; and was she to impart all this intellectuality to his little Mysie? Allowing she were capable of imparting these goodly gifts-to which, however, Mark demurred, he could not all at once

deration shown by Mark Luke, at that very unpleasant time when Mr. Smith's affairs became deranged."

"Ma'am, is it your wish to ruin the seminary?" cried Miss Smith, addressing her mother in a tone of asperity. "Receive Luke's daughter-have her vulgar bustling mother going about the town proclaiming that her Miss is with us, and lock up your doors.-Could ever the Higgins, or the Dempsters, or the Haigs send, or recommend another pupil to you? I put the case to yourself, Ma'am,-would you have sent your daughters to a school where a grocer's child was placed ?"

"That was in other days, Bella; and I—” | "Stay, Madam; has not the main cause of our success been that we are so very select,-known to be so particular about whom we receive,so rigid in our rule of excluding all suspicious characters,—that no taint of vulgarity, no pupil with improper local connexions is admitted within our doors. What else, pray, makes even this Mrs. Mark Luke besiege them? It is very possible that many useful branches, and even the accomplishments, may be taught in the common schools of Glasgow, almost as well as in our seminary; but here is our grand and marked distinction, from which if we deviate

"This child will be very rich," returned Mrs. Smith; who was, we fear, incapable of taking so comprehensive a view of any subject as her intellectual eldest daughter. She could squabble about pews and caps, but she failed to comprehend the grand resources which are afforded by the principles of Exclusivism in British society, throughout all its grades.

"Rich, my dear Mother!" retorted Bella, spitefully; "and what is her wealth to us? There are rich girls enough about Glasgow and Paisley, I daresay; but what is that to the purpose of vulgarizing the Establishment by admitting such a candidate as this?"

Mrs. Smith began to see the affair in the proper light; but she would not at once yield. "You are not always so very select, Miss Smith," she eturned. "There was the Belfast girl, not a whit more genteel than little Luke,-and the Campbelton girl, and that sallow creature from Manchester."

"Une batarde," put in Maria,—who, though she meant to vote with her sister for the exclusion of Mysie, chose to speak against her.

"No, you were not always so very select, Miss Smith," repeated the piqued Madame Mere.

There was so much at stake that Miss Smith resolved not to sacrifice the family interests, her own included, to her own temper, nor yet to her mother's silliness. Meanwhile, time was pressing, for the candidate waited below.

"I am astonished, mother, how you, with your excellent sense and knowledge of life, can take so narrow a view of this affair. I am certain your kind heart betrays your head :-poor Luke's attention to my father's affairs I am not disposed to forget any more than you,-and if there were any way of obliging the man save this. Have you

forgot the Kilmarnock carpet-maker's girl, who nearly ruined the school?"

"She was a very pretty, clever, sweet child: I have not forgot her," said Mrs. Smith, in a natural tone.

"Granted, Ma'am; but what is that to us? It is hard that we should suffer by other people's misfortunes. There are plenty of excellent schools for the children of the low rich." "Ten vacancies in my establishment at present, Miss Smith."

"Were there twenty, Madam, I will never depart from the principle. You know well the cause of your thin house this year. Those few drops of black blood which I detected at first glance in the Greenock girl, and warned you of

66

My gracious!" cried Mrs. Smith, in a very natural manner; "she was two removes from the Hindoo on the one side, and four on the other— an heiress and a lawful child !-And that malicious, prating woman

"No matter, Ma'am. It is quite superfluous to tell me of the babbling propensities, and the love of gossip and scandal, either among west country ladies or east country ladies. Since our success depends no little upon their tongues, we must keep out of their reach. The fewer Glasgow damsels we receive the better. I never desire to see a St. Mungo's Miss within our doors. The prying and tittle-tattle of the Betty Bogles and Penny Parlanes are absolutely ruinous to the low schools; and the more distant the townspeople are held, even by us, the better for the seminary. A small degree of mystery is necessary in every professional undertaking. Let the people of the small schools parade their reverend patrons and public examinations, and placard their marvellous systems: Exclusiveness, depend upon it, is the true foundation of our select society. If we once give way, if we deviate from the exact line of demarcation to be maintained between birth and fashion, and the mere mob dung-hill wealth lying at our door, depend upon it, Ma'am

Well, well, take your own way, Miss Smith," said Madame Mere, quite convinced, but far from satisfied; and the Swiss governess, Mademoiselle Curchod, whose department it was besides teaching the French language and embroidery, to tell lies polite for her board and her salary of £30, was deputed to dismiss Mrs. Mark Luke with all imaginable civility. This office, the young lady, (who, by the way, was said in Glasgow to be a cousin of Madame de Stael's, by the mother's side,) performed with such grace, that Mrs. Mark Luke invited her to tea, and half believed it must be impossible for Mrs. Smith, or her daughters, to see a visiter at this hour, and that they exceedingly regretted their inability to receive her. It was, however, with some failing of heart that Mrs. Luke seated herself in her chaise, musing on Mademoiselle's announcement of the applications, ten deep, for every vacancy occuring in the "Society."

The visit was not wholly thrown away. Mysie,