WHERE is the mortal who has expatriated himself, without feeling a yearning after home? Home! magical word! bringing with it vivid recollections of the sweetest scenes of childhood, and those days of youth, when the mind, freed from care, bounds with joy at the slightest favorable event! Every man, in considering his home, looks only to the most pleasing events which occurred during his residence there, and is apt to consider all the disagreeable circumstances of his existence as receiving a still darker tinge from his stay abroad. Mitford was no exception to the general rule. He determined to return to London, at all hazards.
This resolve was confirmed by another motive. He had long loved--ardently loved. The life of dissipation, and even of riot, which he had led, had not been able to efface the holy passion from his soul. There it burned, at once a safeguard to, and a promoter of, other virtues. The fair Marguerite was lovely, rich, and constant in her attachment to him. Neither the sneers of friends, nor the ill reports of enemies, were able to efface his image from her mind. Friendship may be dissolved; fortune may desert us; but woman's love blossoms in eternal spring, and only blooms the more, amid the wintry blasts of adversity.
A late correspondence apprized him that her hand and fortune awaited him. This determined his movements, and he found himself in London. But the necessary preparatives for a marriage, however fortunate, require money--without which the wings of Cupid are clogged; and though Mitford might have relieved himself by an application to his lady-love, whose purse was at her own disposal, yet he could not bear to owe a favor before marriage.
He bethought himself of an expedient. Whenever a man wants money in London, the surest way to obtain it, is by offering to lend it, or by offering some great prospective advantage for the sum required. Many a man parts with what he has, to one whom he thinks will increase his store when he requires it; but no man parts with his money to one whom he thinks has none.
A dashing advertisement graced the pages of the 'Post' and 'Herald' newspapers:
'EXTRAORDINARY FACILITY.--The advertiser, possessing great influence in a certain high quarter, would feel disposed to promote the interest of any gentleman of standing and talent, who has a thousand pounds at his disposal. Address 'A. M.,' Standish's Rooms, Regent-street.