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ROMANCE AND REALITY.
19

last; her uncle was still with her, the post-boys drove with exhilarating rapidity, and night found them seated by a cheerful fire, with a good supper and better appetite. The morning came again, and Mr. Arundel was now to leave his niece.

"O pleasure! you're indeed a pleasant thing;"

and our heroine was setting off in pursuit of it, as miserable as any young lady need be. The last sight of the panels of the old yellow coach was the signal for another burst of tears, which extended to three stages to-day, and perhaps would have reached to a fourth, had she not been roused to anger by her maid's laughter, whose gravity, though most exemplary in the outset, now gave way to the mirth excited by the rapidity with which a ponderous-looking person, outside a stage-coach, had lost hat, umbrella, and bundle, while the vehicle rolled rapidly over them. There is something very amusing in the misfortunes of others. However,—to borrow an established phrase from those worthy little volumes, entitled the Clergyman's, Officer's and Merchant's Widows, when the disconsolate relict is recalled from weeping over the dear departed,