"Yes," retorted Aaltje, "and who is to blame but yourself? You must mew me up in this old tower, forsooth, like a mouse in a trap, and now the lad is ruined, I suppose you will leave him to shift for himself. If I had been at Brussels, you would have seen how very different every thing would have been. Then, indeed, you might have been proud of the fortunes of Huyp, but now it seems that even his life is in danger, and yet you sit there as quiet as an owl in a bush of ivy at noon-day."

The Burgomaster sat for some minutes in deep consideration. Aaltje watched the workings of his countenance attentively, and she was satisfied that his feelings were awakened. In fancy she was already transported to Brusselsin fancy she beheld herself the admiration of the courtly circle-the monarch at her feet, and honors at her command.

The delusion was too pleasing to be banished for a moment, and Aaltje now stood on the very pinnacle of expectation.

CHAPTER XVI.

Sweet are the thoughts that smother from conceit :
For when I come and sit me downe to reste,
My chaire presents a throne of majestie ;
And when I set my bonnet on my head,
Methinks I fit my forehead for a crowne;
And when I take my truncheon in my fist,
A sceptre then comes tumbling in my thoughts.
My dreams are princely, all of diadems.

GREENE.

Marriage is like a game of bowls: fortune indeed makes the match, and the two nearest, and sometimes the two farthest are together, but the game depends entirely upon judgment. Still it is a game, and consequently one must be a loser.

CONGREVE.

"WE must go to Brussels, Aaltje," said the Burgomaster, after he had duly cousidered the perilous situation of

Huyp, "the lad must not be left to the mercy of his enemies."

Aaltje smiled and simpered, like a maiden when she first listens to the declaration of her lover, though any one versed in the workings of the heart, might have doubted whether she was most alarmed for her son, or gratified at the prospect of being the admiration of the metropolis. The vexatious occurrences of the morning were now in a fair way of being forgotten, and Aaltje fondled and caressed the old magistrate, till he was half smothered with her fond embraces. He was not blessed with a great share of penetration, or he would have seen through the flimsy cobweb veil which shaded the secrets of Aaltje's heart from observation. At court she was aware that he would he a person of no personal consequence, though he was politically of some dignity at Amster

dam. He was not even qualified to filk the office of card-pointer, which at the English Court is the honorable situation. of a bishop. As a magistrate and a

* The Bishop of Ln, (Dr. P—m) though too pious to play at cards at court himself, has no objection to stand behind the chair of the King, and direct him how to play the rubber, which, on a late occasion he did with such success, that one of the party,, vexed at his interference, exclaimed, with courtly politeness, "Your Lordship had better pull off your laced gloves, and take his Majesty's hand." This the prelate declined, but still continued to direct the King. In fact the bishop is one of those jovial souls, who love a rubber, a bottle, and the ladies, as well as any layman in the kingdom, of which we can speak from proof positive; not that we think the worse of him for being gay at heart, though he is something like Crabbe's young divine, who thought his Sunday task—

"As much as God or man could fairly ask.”

Perhaps it is his misfortune to possess too great a fund of entertainment, and, therefore from being courted, the gravity of the prelate is lost in the gaiety of the courtier, as the following anecdote will evince. He had, if I recollect rightly, been.