The Express.
London, England, 1851-06-07 00:00:00

peace ytth him, she thought it well perhaps, to make
repraab on him for his doubting her.
" You showed true nobility of soul this morning, Cater,"
she said ; " nobility like that which made me first love
You."
There was a slight contraction of his brow as she spoke;
it was evident ho almost guessed what she was going to say.
The sinister line to which I have alluded showed, though
almost imperceptibly, and his lips closed a little firmer than
was wont. She went on, however, blindly.
" I mean in your plea for your prisoner," she said ; " in
your plea for Akan, Cater."
He leaped up from his seat.
" Great heavens, Anna!" he exclaimed—but, recovering
himself instantly, with great power of mind, he sat down
beside her again. Well ?" he said, but sternly.
She was alarmed. She saw her folly, and that she had
touched a very dangerous subject moat incautiously. But
she either did not know how to avoid proceeding, or was
too wilful to give up her determination. She went on,
therefore, recklessly, hoping no doubt that her intentions,
which, as far as they concerned Akau, were good, would
have their just reward, and carry her through.
" You must not be angry, Cater," she said, " if I some-
times ask things not often in the minds of lovers. The
favour I have to ask now does not concern love at all : it
concerns him and his liberty. I would have you use all
your power, not only to save Akan, but to set him free!"
" Great heavens, Anna!" exclaimed Cater again; " this
is too bold! But no—you cannot mean it. What, the man
—the very man that every one—" He sprang up once
more, and stamped passionutely on the ground : then, in a
a moment, " I believed you," lie added when you said—
when you asserted—l could not help believing you, you
looked so like what you were when I first loved you—Can
you, inspite of that—? By all that is ,good and true,
Anna!" he suddenly exclaimed, in a paroxysm of passion.
and turning full upon her—. by all that is good and true,
you dare nut ask that amain!"
Her spirit was roused. " Why not ?" she answered,
loftily. " What is it you have is your thoughts, Cater?
What suspicions are these? What abominable suspicions
are these, Cater? I dare, and I d ask it,agaiu. I ask it
in the name of whatever is good and pure.'
She rose, too, and advanced a step towards hint, her
splendid form drawn to its full height, and her eyes glow-
ing, and her bosom heating with her excitement. But he
would not trust himself to answer her. Ile covered his
. face for a moment with his hands: then, as she stepped Cor-
i ward and touched them with hers, as though she would
, have removed them, he uttered a low cry, and dashing her
t from him, rushed away.
With these extracts we must close the volume—
: half suspecting that we have already given too much
r space to it.

The Young Doctor. A Novel. By the author of 64 Lady
Granard's Nieces." 3 voh. Newby.
As we are quite assured when the curtain rises
upon a new Adelphi melodrama, that in spite of 0.
Smith, and other dark agencies, virtue will be re-
warded, and speak the tag, in the freshest white
muslin, at the close of the third act ; so in novels, we
are generally prepared for hard hearted fathers, cast
away sons, fraudulent possessors of titles, and other
terrible and dastardly personages in a nourish-
ing condition through two volumes and a
half, to lee set aside in the last hundred
pages in favour of the good folk of the story. Virtue
always begins the happy period of its career when
the novel closes. It ts the fate of the reader to sigh
over the troubles of faultless young gentlemen and
angelic young ladies ; and alas! when they are
about to bask in the world's sunshine, comes the
word " Finis." It is not generally fur the public to
know how happily they spend their lives. Occa-
sionally, after nine hundred pages of darkness, when
the sunshine comes, the novelist, like the owl, with
" they were happy ever afterwards," retires precipi-
tately to busy himself with sombre plans for his
next batch of puppets. And young ladies continuo
to follow the novelist through the evolutions of his
actors with breathless anxiety, to cry when
they are told that "an impassable gulph "
separates the lovers at the end of the se-
cond volume—to laugh happily when the demon
of the plot is vanquished, and the bridal pro-
cession may be seen, on a bright May day, winding
through the green lanes to the village church. If
these little excitements are nut very beneficial, at
least it has not yet been proved that, when mode-
rately indulged in, they do harm. Besides the novel-
ist of the orthodox three volume school is always a
most moral individual. Virtue vanquishes acts of
parliament at the critical moment, always comes in
for the estate at last, and has invariably a faultless
figure, the divinest eyes, and the most winning
smile. Therefore the example is good, though
perhaps recorded often in the prosiest of
styles. It the three volumes which issue
annually from the press will not bear philo-
aophieal investigation—if they cannot be tested
strictly as creations having some reference to nature,
they may generally be aceepted as harmless amuse-
ment for those readers who do not pursue any par-
ticular branch of study; who have no intellectual
hobby, but only a desire to be interested.
In many respects the " Young Doctor" is an ordi-
nary novel. As a literary performance, it can have
no lasting place in English literature—this is cer-
tain; but as an ingenious story, not ill put together,
it may claim considerable notice from the novel read-
ing public. The scenes aro sketched rapidly and
freely, and, when the author does not wander
into sentimental disquisitions, carry the reader for-
ward pleasantly enough. The personages repre-
sented in the drama include a hunchback (who
is the hero), a handsome dissipated lord, an eccentric
old gentleman of a mawkish cast of humility, and
various young ladies of more than average attrac-
tions. fhe following passage, extracted from the
first chapter of the novel, describes the hero when
stung by parental ill-treatment, consequent upon his
deformity, he has deserted the parental roof—that of
a marquis, given up his title and resolved to breast
the world unaided by his friends :

Tilt. TIttiANT FltOM 110111 E.
The air was chill, and although he felt breathless with
fatigue, he could not long remain there in perfect inactivity,
so he walked on, wrapping his light cloak around him, and
still following the track the carriage had taken, but not with
the hopes of overtaking it. lle did not meet many people
as he passed through the deserted streets; some, indeed,
were loitering about, but they did not notice him ; and on
Kaden he walked, till he left the town behind, and found
himself in the high road again. Hero he turned aside to-
wards the north, for the day was breaking, suit he imagined
that if his parents sent in pursuit of him, any persons whom
he might meet there would easily be able to recognise his
description by the marked deformity of his person, and
would at once tell the route he bud taken. Soon after ho
entered a lune, whose situation completely shut from his
view the glimmering lights of the distant town, and in
partial obsturiry he still walked on, till, from actual weari-
nisei, he looked about for some place where he could rest
awhile. Glancing round him through the dim twilight then
spreading over the heavens, he discerned an old shed on the
right-hand side of the road, which scented to belong to some
outhouses :Mailed to a small white cottuge,and climbing cis r
a wooden fence that was raised before it, he crept into this
pour shelter through a half-open window, and sat down to
decide what further stops he should take to escape detec-
tion and pursuit.
Not many minutes, however, elapsed before the train of
thought entering his mind was disturbed by the suspicion
that there was some one else in the shed besides himself,
and groping about in the yet imperfect daylight, he per-
ceived, at the farther end, the figure of a boy lying asleep
upon some straw. To be certain that he slept—and if he
did not, to ask permission to remain, fur a littlo while,
beneath the shelter he had found—Horace approached the
lad, and, in doing so, stumbled over something lying near
the rude bed ou which he reclined. Stooping down to
examine what it was, with some difficulty, he discerned it
to lie u bundle of coarse, outer garments, that no doubt
belonged to the sleeper, and, atter a few minutes' silent
consideration of a scheme, which suddenly ruse to his mind,
he arrayed himself in them, placed • piece of money, taken
Item his own slender purse, by the side of the slumbering
boy, then made his exit from the shed, by the same way in
which he entered it, and tired though he was, again walked
on. His east of clothes, with a sagacious precaution un-
usual to his years, ho meanwhile tied together and sunk, by
means of a large stone attached to them, in a pond, that ho
soon afterwards passed.
But the exertions of the night at length overcome the
strength of the wanderer, and, towards morning, being
utterly spent with fatigue, ho climbed up • soft! green
hedge, bordering the wayside, lay down to rest his tired
limbs in the field it enclosed, and a few minutes after,

fell asleep.
And thus broke the first day since his flight upon tho
humpback—the rich man's heir, bat the unloved and jea-
lous one—for child though he was, he had deeply felt tho
want of a mother's and a father's love. Slighted, fur the
sake of a younger brother, whose beauty cruelly contrasted
with his deformity, and whose quick parts shamed his less
apprehensive ones, during years be bore the jealous tor-
ments, which this preference of his parents towards their
second child raised within his heart; and the apparent dul-
ness of his understanding, that, in reality, veiled a strong
though indolent mind, was never shaken off. lie was ono
who needed enonuragement to pursue any object with
activity, and this incentive to industry he never received.
Prejudiced against their unfortunate offspring, by his
miserable deformity, his father and mother easily believed
his mind to be the counterpart of his person, and that the
dull, quiet boy had no abilities to compensate for his na-
tural defects. This was not the case, however ; a strength
of character, unknown to them, and a susceptibility of
feeling that few would hare supposed him to possess, lay
hidden beneath all his indolence and listnessitess but his
ignorance of his real capacity, and the constant ssalowiy