reading of the baronet, he next started
the subject of novels and novel reading, taking care to insinuate that,
though Sir George might not read the trash of circulating libraries, he
might be acquainted with some of our best novels. To this at last the
baronet replied--"Oh, yes; I remember many years ago reading a novel
called Tom Jones, written by a Bow Street officer. I recollect something
about it--it was very low stuff--I forget the particulars, but it was
written in the manner of servants."

Hereupon Mr. Peter Kipperson set it down as an indisputable fact that
baronets and magistrates were the most ignorant creatures on the face of
the earth, and he congratulated himself that neither he nor Sir Isaac
Newton were baronets.

A scene between Lord Spoonbill and one of his victims, whom he meets in
his father's park, has some fine touches of remorse:--

Agitated by distracting thoughts, he stood at the park gate, gazing
alternately in different directions; and by the intensity of his feelings
was at last rivetted in an almost unconscious state of mind to the spot on
which he was standing. Suddenly his pulse beat quicker, and his heart
seemed to swell within him, when at a little distance he saw the dreaded
one approaching him. Had he seen her anywhere else his first impulse would
have been to avoid her; but here his truest and best policy was to submit
to an interview, however painful. Shall he meet her with kindness?--
Shall he meet her with reproaches?--Shall he meet her with coldness? These
were inquiries rapidly passing through his mind as she drew nearer and
nearer. It was difficult for him to decide between cruelty and hypocrisy;
but the last was the most natural to him, so far as custom is a second
nature.

The afflicted one moved slowly with her eyes fixed on the ground, and she
saw not her enemy till so near to him, that on lifting up her face and
recognising his well-known features, the sudden shock produced a slight
hysteric shriek.

Lord Spoonbill was not so lost to all feeling of humanity as to be
insensible to the anguish of mind which she now suffered, who had once
regarded him as a friend, and had loved him, "not wisely, but too well."
He held out his hand to her with an unpremeditated look of kindness and
affection; and which, being unpremeditated, bore the aspect of sincerity.
The stranger at first hesitated, and seemed not disposed to accept the
offered hand; but she looked up in his face, and t