You talk of Gaiety and Innocence¹!

The moment when the fatal fruit was eaten,

They parted ne’er to meet again; and Malice²

Has ever since been playmate to light Gaiety,

From the first moment when the smiling infant

Destroys the flower or butterfly he toys with,

To the last chuckle³ of the dying miser⁴,

Who on his deathbed laughs his last to hear

His wealthy neighbour has become a bankrupt.

OLD PLAY.

Sir Kenneth was left for some minutes alone and in darkness. Here was another interruption which must prolong his absence from his post, and he began almost to repent⁵ the facility with which he had been induced to quit it. But to return without seeing the Lady Edith was now not to be thought of. He had committed a breach⁶ of military discipline, and was determined⁷ at least to prove the reality of the seductive expectations which had tempted⁸ him to do so. Meanwhile his situation was unpleasant. There was no light to show him into what sort of apartment he had been led — the Lady Edith was in immediate⁹ attendance on the Queen of England — and the discovery of his having introduced himself thus furtively¹⁰ into the royal pavilion might, were it discovered; lead to much and dangerous suspicion. While he gave way to these unpleasant reflections, and began almost to wish that he could achieve his retreat unobserved, he heard a noise of female voices, laughing, whispering, and speaking, in an adjoining apartment, from which, as the sounds gave him reason to judge, he could only be separated by a canvas partition. Lamps were burning, as he might perceive by the shadowy light which extended itself even to his side of the veil which divided the tent, and he could see shades of several figures sitting and moving in the adjoining apartment. It cannot be termed discourtesy in Sir Kenneth that,

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