"Whatever you give me, you know I'm thankful!" says Honeyman, in a sweet sad voice, to the two ladies, who were standing looking at him, the mother's hand clasped in the daughter's.

"Should you like that Mendelssohn for the Sunday after next? Julia sings it splendid!"

"No, I don't, ma."

"You do, dear! She's a good, good dear, Mr. H., that's what she is."

"You must not call—a—him, in that way. Don't say Mr. H., ma," says Julia.

"Call me what you please!" says Charles, with the most heart-rending simplicity; and Mrs. Sherrick straightway kisses her daughter. Sherrick meanwhile has been pointing out the improvement of the chapel to Clive (which now has indeed a look of the Gothic Hall at Rosherville), and has confided to him the sum for which he screwed the painted window out of old Moss. "When he come to see it up in this place, sir, the old man was mad, I give you my word! His son ain't no good: says he knows you. He's such a screw, that chap, that he'll overreach himself, mark my words. At least, he'll never die rich. Did you ever hear of me screwing? No, I spend my money like a man. How those girls are a-goin' on about their music with Honeyman! I don't let 'em sing in the evening, or him do duty more than once a day; and you can calc'late how the music draws, because in the evenin' there ain't half the number of people here. Rev. Mr. Journyman does the duty now—quiet Hogford man—ill, I suppose, this morning. H. sits in his pew, where we was; and coughs; that's to say, I told him to cough. The women like a consumptive parson, sir. Come, gals!"

Clive went to his uncle's lodgings, and was received by Mr. and Mrs. Ridley with great glee and kindness. Both of those good people had made it a point to pay their duty to Mr. Clive immediately on his return to England, and thank him over and over again for his kindness to John James. Never, never would they forget his goodness, and the Colonel's, they were sure. A cake, a heap of biscuits, a pyramid of jams, six frizzling mutton-chops, and four kinds of hot wine, came bustling up to Mr. Honeyman's room twenty minutes after Clive had entered it,—as a token of the Ridleys' affection for him.

Clive remarked, with a smile, the Pall Mall Gazette upon a side-table, and in the chimney-glass almost as many cards as in the time of Honeyman's early prosperity. That he and his uncle should be very intimate together, was impossible, from the nature of the two men; Clive being frank, clear-sighted, and imperious; Charles, timid, vain, and double-faced, conscious that he was a humbug, and that most people found him out, so that he would quiver and turn away, and be more afraid of young Clive and his direct straightforward way, than of many older men. Then there was the sense of the money transactions between him and the Colonel, which made Charles Honeyman doubly uneasy. In fine, they did not like each other; but, as he is a connection of the most respectable Newcome family, surely he is entitled to a page or two in these their memoirs.

Thursday came, and with it Mr. Sherrick's entertainment, to which also Mr. Binnie and his party had been invited to meet Colonel Newcome's son. Uncle James and Rosey brought Clive in their carriage; Mrs. Mackenzie sent a headache as an apology. She chose to treat Uncle James's landlord with a great deal of hauteur, and to be angry with her brother for visiting such a person. "In fact, you see how fond I must be of dear little Rosey, Clive, that I put up with all mamma's tantrums for her sake," remarks Mr. Binnie.

"Oh, uncle!" says little Rosey, and the old gentleman stopped her remonstrances with a kiss.

"Yes," says he, "your mother does have tantrums, miss; and though you never complain, there's no reason why I shouldn't. You will not tell on me" (it was "Oh, uncle!" again); "and Clive won't, I am sure.—This little thing, sir," James went on, holding Rosey's pretty little hand and looking fondly in her pretty little face, "is her old uncle's only comfort in life. I wish I had had her out to India to me, and never come back to this great dreary town of yours. But I was tempted home by Tom Newcome; and I'm too old to go back, sir. Where the stick falls let it lie. Rosey would have been whisked out of my house, in India, in a month after I had her there. Some young fellow would have taken her away from me; and now she has promised never to leave her old Uncle James, hasn't she?"

"No, never, uncle," said Rosey.

"We don't want to fall in love, do we, child? We don't want to be breaking our hearts like some young folks, and dancing attendance at balls night after night, and capering about in the Park to see if we can get a glimpse of the beloved object, eh, Rosey?"

Rosey blushed. It was evident that she and Uncle James both knew of Clive's love affair. In fact, the front seat and back seat of the carriage both blushed. And as for the secret, why Mrs. Mackenzie and Mrs. Hobson had talked it a hundred times over.

"This little Rosey, sir, has promised to take care of me on this side of Styx," continued Uncle James; "and if she could but be left alone and to do it without mamma—there, I won't say a word more against her—we should get on none the worse."

"Uncle James, I must make a picture of you, for Rosey," said Clive, good-humouredly. And Rosey said, "Oh, thank you, Clive," and held out that pretty little hand, and looked so sweet and kind and happy, that Clive could not but be charmed at the sight of so much innocence and candour.

"Quasty peecoly Rosiny," says James, in a fine Scotch Italian, "e la piu bella, la piu cara, ragazza ma la mawdry e il diav——"

"Don't, uncle!" cried Rosey, again; and Clive laughed at Uncle James's wonderful outbreak in a foreign tongue.

"Eh! I thought ye didn't know a word of the sweet language, Rosey! It's just the Lenguy Toscawny in Bocky Romawny that I thought to try in compliment to this young monkey who has seen the world." And by this time Saint John's Wood was reached, and Mr. Sherrick's handsome villa, at the door of which the three beheld the Rev. Charles Honeyman stepping out of a neat brougham.

The drawing-room contained several pictures of Mrs. Sherrick when she was in the theatrical line; Smee's portrait of her, which was never half handsome enough—for my Betsy, Sherrick said indignantly; the print of her in Artaxerxes, with her signature as Elizabeth Folthorpe (not in truth a fine specimen of calligraphy) the testimonial presented to her on the conclusion of the triumphal season of 18—, at Drury Lane, by her ever grateful friend Adolphus Smacker, Lessee, who, of course, went to law with her next year; and other Thespian emblems. But Clive remarked, with not a little amusement, that the drawing-room tables were now covered with a number of those books which he had seen at Madame de Moncontour's, and many French and German ecclesiastical gimcracks, such as are familiar to numberless readers of mine. These were the Lives of St. Botibol of Islington and St. Willibald of Bareacres, with pictures of those confessors. Then there was the Legend of Margery Dawe, Virgin and Martyr, with a sweet double frontispiece, representing (1) the sainted woman selling her feather-bed for the benefit of the poor; and (2) reclining upon straw, the leanest of invalids. There was Old Daddy Longlegs, and how he was brought to say his Prayers; a Tale for Children, by a Lady, with a preface dated St. Chad's Eve, and signed "C. H." The Rev. Charles Honeyman's Sermons, delivered at Lady Whittlesea's Chapel. Poems of Early Days, by Charles Honeyman, A.M. The Life of good Dame Whittlesea, by do, do. Yes, Charles had come out in the literary line; and there in a basket was a strip of Berlin work, of the very same Gothic pattern which Madame de Moncontour was weaving; and which you afterwards saw round the pulpit of Charles's chapel. Rosey was welcomed most kindly by the kind ladies; and as the gentlemen sat over their wine after dinner in the summer evening, Clive beheld Rosey and Julia pacing up and down the lawn, Miss Julia's arm around her little friend's waist: he thought they would make a pretty little picture.

"My girl ain't a bad one to look at, is she?" said the pleased father. "A fellow might look far enough, and see not prettier than them two."

Charles sighed out that there was a German print, the "Two Leonoras," which put him in mind of their various styles of beauty.

"I wish I could paint them," said Clive.

"And why not, sir?" asks his host. "Let me give you your first commission now, Mr Clive; I wouldn't mind paying a good bit for a picture of my Julia. I forget how much old Smee got for Betsy's, the old humbug!"

Clive said it was not the will, but the power that was deficient. He succeeded with men, but the ladies were too much for him as yet.

"Those you've done up at Albany Street Barracks are famous: I've seen 'em," said Mr. Sherrick; and remarking that his guest looked rather surprised at the idea of his being in such company, Sherrick said, "What, you think they are too great swells for me? Law bless you, I often go there. I've business with several of 'em; had with Captain Belsize, with the Earl of Kew, who's every inch the gentleman—one of nature's aristocracy, and paid up like a man. The Earl and me has had many dealings together:"

Honeyman smiled faintly, and nobody complying with Mr. Sherrick's boisterous entreaties to drink more, the gentlemen quitted the dinner-table, which had been served in a style of prodigious splendour, and went to the drawing-room for a little music.

This was all of the gravest and best kind; so grave indeed, that James Binnie might be heard in a corner giving an accompaniment of little snores to the singers and the piano. But Rosey was delighted with the performance, and Sherrick remarked to Clive, "That's a good gal, that is; I like that gal; she ain't jealous of Julia cutting her out in the music, but listens as pleased as any one. She's a sweet little pipe of her own, too. Miss Mackenzie, if ever you like to go to the opera, send a word either to my West End or my City office. I've boxes every week, and you're welcome to anything I can give you."

So all agreed that the evening had been a very pleasant one; and they of Fitzroy Square returned home talking in a most comfortable friendly way—that is, two of them, for Uncle James fell asleep again, taking possession of the back seat; and Clive and Rosey prattled together. He had offered to try and take all the young ladies' likenesses. "You know what a failure the last was, Rosey?"—he had very nearly said "dear Rosey."

"Yes, but Miss Sherrick is so handsome, that you will succeed better with her than with my round face, Mr. Newcome."

"Mr. What?" cries Clive.

"Well, Clive, then," says Rosey, in a little voice.

He sought for a little hand which was not very far away. "You know we are like brother and sister, dear Rosey?" he said this time.

"Yes," said she, and gave a little pressure of the hand. And then Uncle James woke up; and it seemed as if the whole drive didn't occupy a minute, and they shook hands very very kindly at the door of Fitzroy Square.

Clive made a famous likeness of Miss Sherrick, with which Mr. Sherrick was delighted, and so was Mr. Honeyman, who happened to call upon his nephew once or twice when the ladies happened to be sitting. Then Clive proposed to the Rev. Charles Honeyman to take his head off; and made an excellent likeness in chalk of his uncle—that one, in fact, from which the print was taken which you may see any day at Hogarth's, in the Haymarket, along with a whole regiment of British divines. Charles became so friendly, that he was constantly coming to Charlotte Street, once or twice a week.

Mr. and Mrs. Sherrick came to look at the drawing, were charmed with it; and when Rosey was sitting, they came to see her portrait, which again was not quite so successful. One Monday, the Sherricks and Honeyman too happened to call to see the picture of Rosey, who trotted over with her uncle to Clive's studio, and they all had a great laugh at a paragraph in the Pall Mall Gazette, evidently from F. B.'s hand, to the following effect:—

"Conversion In High Life.—A foreign nobleman of princely rank, who has married an English lady, and has resided among us for some time, is likely, we hear and trust, to join the English Church. The Prince de M-nc-nt-r has been a constant attendant at Lady Whittlesea's Chapel, of which the Rev. C. Honeyman is the eloquent incumbent; and it is said this sound and talented divine has been the means of awakening the prince to a sense of the erroneous doctrines in which he has been bred. His ancestors were Protestant, and fought by the side of Henry IV. at Ivry. In Louis XIV.'s time, they adopted the religion of that persecuting monarch. We sincerely trust that the present heir of the house of Ivry will see fit to return to the creed which his forefathers so unfortunately abjured."

The ladies received this news with perfect gravity; and Charles uttered a meek wish that it might prove true. As they went away, they offered more hospitalities to Clive and Mr. Binnie and his niece. They liked the music: would they not come and hear it again?

When they had departed with Mr. Honeyman, Clive could not help saying to Uncle James, "Why are those people always coming here; praising me; and asking me to dinner? Do you know, I can't help thinking that they rather want me as a pretender for Miss Sherrick?"

Binnie burst into a loud guffaw, and cried out, "O vanitas vanitawtum!" Rosa laughed too.

"I don't think it any joke at all," said Clive.

"Why, you stupid lad, don't you see it is Charles Honeyman the girl's in love with?" cried Uncle James. "Rosey saw it in the very first instant we entered their drawing-room three weeks ago."

"Indeed, and how?" asked Clive.

"By—by the way she looked at him," said little Rosey.



CHAPTER XLV. A Stag of Ten

The London season was very nearly come to an end, and Lord Farintosh had danced I don't know how many times with Miss Newcome, had drunk several bottles of the old Kew port, had been seen at numerous breakfasts, operas, races, and public places by the young lady's side, and had not as yet made any such proposal as Lady Kew expected for her granddaughter. Clive going to see his military friends in the Regent's Park once, and finish Captain Butts's portrait in barracks, heard two or three young men talking, and one say to another, "I bet you three to two Farintosh don't marry her, and I bet you even that he don't ask her." Then as he entered Mr. Butts's room, where these gentlemen were conversing, there was a silence and an awkwardness. The young fellows were making an "event" out of Ethel's marriage, and sporting their money freely on it.

To have an old countess hunting a young marquis so resolutely that all the world should be able to look on and speculate whether her game would be run down by that staunch toothless old pursuer—that is an amusing sport, isn't it? and affords plenty of fun and satisfaction to those who follow the hunt. But for a heroine of a story, be she ever so clever, handsome, and sarcastic, I don't think for my part, at this present stage of the tale, Miss Ethel Newcome occupies a very dignified position. To break her heart in silence for Tomkins who is in love with another; to suffer no end of poverty, starvation, capture by ruffians, ill-treatment by a bullying husband, loss of beauty by the small-pox, death even at the end of the volume; all these mishaps a young heroine must endure (and has endured in romances over and over again), without losing the least dignity, or suffering any diminution of the sentimental reader's esteem. But a girl of great beauty, high temper, and strong natural intellect, who submits to be dragged hither and thither in an old grandmother's leash, and in pursuit of a husband who will run away from the couple, such a person, I say, is in a very awkward position as a heroine; and I declare if I had another ready to my hand (and unless there were extenuating circumstances) Ethel should be deposed at this very sentence.

But a novelist must go on with his heroine, as a man with his wife, for better or worse, and to the end. For how many years have the Spaniards borne with their gracious queen, not because she was faultless, but because she was there? So Chambers and grandees cried, God save her. Alabarderos turned out: drums beat, cannons fired, and people saluted Isabella Segunda, who was no better than the humblest washerwoman of her subjects. Are we much better than our neighbours? Do we never yield to our peculiar temptation, our pride, or our avarice or our vanity, or what not? Ethel is very wrong certainly. But recollect, she is very young. She is in other people's hands. She has been bred up and governed by a very worldly family, and taught their traditions. We would hardly, for instance, the staunchest Protestant in England would hardly be angry with poor Isabella Segunda for being a Catholic. So if Ethel worships at a certain image which a great number of good folks in England bow to, let us not be too angry with her idolatry, and bear with our queen a little before we make our pronunciamiento.

No, Miss Newcome, yours is not a dignified position in life, however you may argue that hundreds of people in the world are doing like you. O me! what a confession it is, in the very outset of life and blushing brightness of youth's morning, to own that the aim with which a young girl sets out, and the object of her existence, is to marry a rich man; that she was endowed with beauty so that she might buy wealth, and a title with it; that as sure as she has a soul to be saved, her business here on earth is to try and get a rich husband. That is the career for which many a woman is bred and trained. A young man begins the world with some aspirations at least; he will try to be good and follow the truth; he will strive to win honours for himself, and never do a base action; he will pass nights over his books, and forgo ease and pleasure so that he may achieve a name. Many a poor wretch who is worn-out now and old, and bankrupt of fame and money too, has commenced life at any rate with noble views and generous schemes, from which weakness, idleness, passion, or overpowering hostile fortune have turned him away. But a girl of the world, bon Dieu! the doctrine with which she begins is that she is to have a wealthy husband: the article of faith in her catechism is, "I believe in elder sons, and a house in town, and a house in the country!" They are mercenary as they step fresh and blooming into the world out of the nursery. They have been schooled there to keep their bright eyes to look only on the prince and the duke, Croesus and Dives. By long cramping and careful process, their little natural hearts have been squeezed up, like the feet of their fashionable little sisters in China. As you see a pauper's child, with an awful premature knowledge of the pawnshop, able to haggle at market with her wretched halfpence, and battle bargains at hucksters' stalls, you shall find a young beauty, who was a child in the schoolroom a year since, as wise and knowing as the old practitioners on that exchange; as economical of her smiles, as dexterous in keeping back or producing her beautiful wares; as skilful in setting one bidder against another; as keen as the smartest merchant in Vanity Fair.

If the young gentlemen of the Life Guards Green who were talking about Miss Newcome and her suitors, were silent when Clive appeared amongst them, it was because they were aware not only of his relationship to the young lady, but his unhappy condition regarding her. Certain men there are who never tell their love, but let concealment, like a worm in the bud, feed on their damask cheeks; others again must be not always thinking, but talking, about the darling object. So it was not very long before Captain Crackthorpe was taken into Clive's confidence, and through Crackthorpe very likely the whole mess became acquainted with his passion. These young fellows, who had been early introduced into the world, gave Clive small hopes of success, putting to him, in their downright phraseology, the point of which he was already aware, that Miss Newcome was intended for his superiors, and that he had best not make his mind uneasy by sighing for those beautiful grapes which were beyond his reach.

But the good-natured Crackthorpe, who had a pity for the young painter's condition, helped him so far (and gained Clive's warmest thanks for his good offices), by asking admission for Clive to entertain evening parties of the beau-monde, where he had the gratification of meeting his charmer. Ethel was surprised and pleased, and Lady Kew surprised and angry, at meeting Clive Newcome at these fashionable houses; the girl herself was touched very likely at his pertinacity in following her. As there was no actual feud between them, she could not refuse now and again to dance with her cousin; and thus he picked up such small crumbs of consolation as a youth in his state can get; lived upon six words vouchsafed to him in a quadrille, or brought home a glance of the eyes which she had presented to him in a waltz, or the remembrance of a squeeze of the hand on parting or meeting. How eager he was to get a card to this party or that! how attentive to the givers of such entertainments! Some friends of his accused him of being a tuft-hunter and flatterer of the aristocracy, on account of his politeness to certain people; the truth was, he wanted to go wherever Miss Ethel was; and the ball was blank to him which she did not attend.

This business occupied not only one season, but two. By the time of the second season, Mr. Newcome had made so many acquaintances that he needed few more introductions into society. He was very well known as a good-natured handsome young man, and a very good waltzer, the only son of an Indian officer of large wealth, who chose to devote himself to painting, and who was supposed to entertain an unhappy fondness for his cousin the beautiful Miss Newcome. Kind folks who heard of this little tendre, and were sufficiently interested in Mr. Clive, asked him to their houses in consequence. I dare say those people who were good to him may have been themselves at one time unlucky in their own love-affairs.

When the first season ended without a declaration from my lord, Lady Kew carried off her young lady to Scotland, where it also so happened that Lord Farintosh was going to shoot, and people made what surmises they chose upon this coincidence. Surmises, why not? You who know the world, know very well that if you see Mrs. So-and-so's name in the list of people at an entertainment, on looking down the list you will presently be sure to come on Mr. What-d'-you-call-'em's. If Lord and Lady of Suchandsuch Castle, received a distinguished circle (including Lady Dash), for Christmas or Easter, without reading farther the names of the guests, you may venture on any wager that Captain Asterisk is one of the company. These coincidences happen every day; and some people are so anxious to meet other people, and so irresistible is the magnetic sympathy, I suppose, that they will travel hundreds of miles in the worst of weather to see their friends, and break your door open almost, provided the friend is inside it.

I am obliged to own the fact, that for many months Lady Kew hunted after Lord Farintosh. This rheumatic old woman went to Scotland, where, as he was pursuing the deer, she stalked his lordship: from Scotland she went to Paris, where he was taking lessons in dancing at the Chaumiere; from Paris to an English country-house, for Christmas, where he was expected, but didn't come—not being, his professor said, quite complete in the polka, and so on. If Ethel were privy to these manoeuvres, or anything more than an unwittingly consenting party, I say we would depose her from her place of heroine at once. But she was acting under her grandmother's orders, a most imperious, irresistible, managing old woman, who exacted everybody's obedience, and managed everybody's business in her family. Lady Anne Newcome being in attendance on her sick husband, Ethel was consigned to the Countess of Kew, her grandmother, who hinted that she should leave Ethel her property when dead, and whilst alive expected the girl should go about with her. She had and wrote as many letters as a Secretary of State almost. She was accustomed to set off without taking anybody's advice, or announcing her departure until within an hour or two of the event. In her train moved Ethel, against her own will, which would have led her to stay at home with her father, but at the special wish and order of her parents. Was such a sum as that of which Lady Kew had the disposal (Hobson Brothers knew the amount of it quite well) to be left out of the family? Forbid it, all ye powers! Barnes—who would have liked the money himself, and said truly that he would live with his grandmother anywhere she liked if he could get it,—Barnes joined most energetically with Sir Brian and Lady Anne in ordering Ethel's obedience to Lady Kew. You know how difficult it is for one young woman not to acquiesce when the family council strongly orders. In fine, I hope there was a good excuse for the queen of this history, and that it was her wicked domineering old prime minister who led her wrong. Otherwise I say, we would have another dynasty. Oh, to think of a generous nature, and the world, and nothing but the world, to occupy it!—of a brave intellect, and the milliner's bandboxes, and the scandal of the coteries, and the fiddle-faddle etiquette of the Court for its sole exercise! of the rush and hurry from entertainment to entertainment; of the constant smiles and cares of representation; of the prayerless rest at night, and the awaking to a godless morrow! This was the course of life to which Fate, and not her own fault altogether, had for awhile handed over Ethel Newcome. Let those pity her who can feel their own weakness and misgoing; let those punish her who are without fault themselves.

Clive did not offer to follow her to Scotland, he knew quite well that the encouragement he had had was only of the smallest; that as a relation she received him frankly and kindly enough; but checked him when he would have adopted another character. But it chanced that they met in Paris, whither he went in the Easter of the ensuing year, having worked to some good purpose through the winter, and despatched as on a former occasion his three or four pictures, to take their chance at the Exhibition.

Of these it is our pleasing duty to be able to corroborate to some extent, Mr. F. Bayham's favourable report. Fancy sketches and historical pieces our young man had eschewed; having convinced himself either that he had not an epic genius, or that to draw portraits of his friends, was a much easier task than that which he had set himself formerly. Whilst all the world was crowding round a pair of J. J,.'s little pictures, a couple of chalk heads were admitted into the Exhibition (his great picture of Captain Crackthorpe on horseback, in full uniform, I must admit was ignominiously rejected), and the friends of the parties had the pleasure of recognising in the miniature room, No. 1246, "Picture of an Officer,"—viz., Augustus Butts, Esq., of the Life Guards Green; and "Portrait of the Rev. Charles Honeyman," No. 1272. Miss Sherrick the hangers refused; Mr. Binnie, Clive had spoiled, as usual, in the painting; the heads, however, before-named, were voted to be faithful likenesses, and executed in a very agreeable and spirited manner. F. Bayham's criticism on these performances, it need not be said, was tremendous. "Since the days of Michael Angelo you would have thought there never had been such drawings." In fact, F. B., as some other critics do, clapped his friends so boisterously on the back, and trumpeted their merits with such prodigious energy, as to make his friends themselves sometimes uneasy.

Mr. Clive, whose good father was writing home more and more wonderful accounts of the Bundelcund Bank, in which he had engaged, and who was always pressing his son to draw for more money, treated himself to comfortable rooms at Paris, in the very same hotel where the young Marquis of Farintosh occupied lodgings much more splendid, and where he lived, no doubt, so as to be near the professor, who was still teaching his lordship the polka. Indeed, it must be said that Lord Farintosh made great progress under this artist, and that he danced very much better in his third season than in the first and second years after he had come upon the town. From the same instructor the Marquis learned the latest novelties in French conversation, the choicest oaths and phrases (for which he was famous), so that although his French grammar was naturally defective, he was enabled to order a dinner at Philippe's, and to bully a waiter, or curse a hackney-coachman with extreme volubility. A young nobleman of his rank was received with the distinction which was his due, by the French sovereign of that period; and at the Tuileries, and the houses of the French nobility, which he visited, Monsieur le Marquis de Farintosh excited considerable remark, by the use of some of the phrases which his young professor had taught to him. People even went so far as to say that the Marquis was an awkward and dull young man, of the very worst manners.

Whereas the young Clive Newcome—and it comforted the poor fellow's heart somewhat, and be sure pleased Ethel, who was looking on at his triumphs—was voted the most charming young Englishman who had been seen for a long time in our salons. Madame de Florac, who loved him as a son of her own, actually went once or twice into the world in order to see his debut. Madame de Moncontour inhabited a part of the Hotel de Florac, and received society there. The French people did not understand what bad English she talked, though they comprehended Lord Farintosh's French blunders. "Monsieur Newcome is an artist! What a noble career!" cries a great French lady, the wife of a Marshal to the astonished Miss Newcome. "This young man is the cousin, of the charming mees? You must be proud to possess such a nephew, madame!" says another French lady to the Countess of Kew (who, you may be sure, is delighted to have such a relative). And the French lady invites Clive to her receptions expressly in order to make herself agreeable to the old Comtesse. Before the cousins have been three minutes together in Madame de Florac's salon, she sees that Clive is in love with Ethel Newcome. She takes the boy's hand and says, "J'ai votre secret, mon ami;" and her eyes regard him for a moment as fondly, as tenderly, as ever they looked at his father. Oh, what tears have they shed, gentle eyes! Oh, what faith has it kept, tender heart! If love lives through all life; and survives through all sorrow; and remains steadfast with us through all changes; and in all darkness of spirit burns brightly; and, if we die, deplores us for ever, and loves still equally; and exists with the very last gasp and throb of the faithful bosom—whence it passes with the pure soul, beyond death; surely it shall be immortal? Though we who remain are separated from it, is it not ours in Heaven? If we love still those we lose, can we altogether lose those we love? Forty years have passed away. Youth and dearest memories revisit her, and Hope almost wakes up again out of its grave, as the constant lady holds the young man's hand, and looks at the son of Thomas Newcome.



CHAPTER XLVI. The Hotel de Florac

Since the death of the Duc d'Ivry, the husband of Mary Queen of Scots, the Comte de Florac, who is now the legitimate owner of the ducal title, does not choose to bear it, but continues to be known in the world by his old name. The old Count's world is very small. His doctor, and his director, who comes daily to play his game of piquet; his daughter's children, who amuse him by their laughter, and play round his chair in the garden of his hotel; his faithful wife, and one or two friends as old as himself, form his society. His son the Abbe is with them but seldom. The austerity of his manners frightens his old father, who can little comprehend the religionism of the new school. After going to hear his son preach through Lent at Notre-Dame, where the Abbe de Florac gathered a great congregation, the old Count came away quite puzzled at his son's declamations. "I do not understand your new priests," he says; "I knew my son had become a Cordelier; I went to hear him, and found he was a Jacobin. Let me make my salut in quiet, my good Leonore. My director answers for me, and plays a game at trictrac into the bargain with me." Our history has but little to do with this venerable nobleman. He has his chamber looking out into the garden of his hotel; his faithful old domestic to wait upon him; his House of Peers to attend when he is well enough, his few acquaintances to help him to pass the evening. The rest of the hotel he gives up to his son, the Vicomte de Florac, and Madame la Princesse de Moncontour, his daughter-in-law.

When Florac has told his friends of the Club why it is he has assumed a new title—as a means of reconciliation (a reconciliation all philosophical, my friends) with his wife nee Higg of Manchester, who adores titles like all Anglaises, and has recently made a great succession, everybody allows that the measure was dictated by prudence, and there is no more laughter at his change of name. The Princess takes the first floor of the hotel at the price paid for it by the American General, who has returned to his original pigs at Cincinnati. Had not Cincinnatus himself pigs on his farm, and was he not a general and member of Congress too? The honest Princess has a bedchamber, which, to her terror, she is obliged to open of reception-evenings, when gentlemen and ladies play cards there. It is fitted up in the style of Louis XVI. In her bed is an immense looking-glass, surmounted by stucco cupids: it is an alcove which some powdered Venus, before the Revolution, might have reposed in. Opposite that looking-glass, between the tall windows, at some forty feet distance, is another huge mirror, so that when the poor Princess is in bed, in her prim old curl-papers, she sees a vista of elderly princesses twinkling away into the dark perspective; and is so frightened that she and Betsy, her Lancashire maid, pin up the jonquil silk curtains over the bed-mirror after the first night; though the Princess never can get it out of her head that her image is still there, behind the jonquil hangings, turning as she turns, waking as she wakes, etc. The chamber is so vast and lonely that she has a bed made for Betsy in the room. It is, of course, whisked away into a closet on reception-evenings. A boudoir, rose-tendre, with more cupids and nymphs by Boucher, sporting over door-panels—nymphs who may well shock old Betsy and her old mistress—is the Pricess's morning-room. "Ah, mum, what would Mr. Humper at Manchester, Mr. Jowls of Newcome" (the minister whom, in early days, Miss Higg used to sit under) "say if they was browt into this room?" But there is no question of Jowls and Mr. Humper, excellent dissenting divines, who preached to Miss Higg, being brought into the Princesse de Moncontour's boudoir.

That paragraph, respecting a conversion in high life, which F. B. in his enthusiasm inserted in the Pall Mall Gazette, caused no small excitement in the Florac family. The Florac family read the Pall Mall Gazette, knowing that Clive's friends were engaged in that periodical. When Madame de Florac, who did not often read newspapers, happened to cast her eye upon that poetic paragraph of F. B.'s, you may fancy, with what a panic it filled the good and pious lady. Her son become a Protestant! After all the grief and trouble his wildness had occasioned to her, Paul forsake his religion! But that her husband was so ill and aged as not to be able to bear her absence, she would have hastened to London to rescue her son out of that perdition. She sent for her younger son, who undertook the embassy; and the Prince and Princesse de Moncontour, in their hotel at London, were one day surprised by the visit of the Abbe de Florac.

As Paul was quite innocent of any intention of abandoning his religion, the mother's kind heart was very speedily set at rest by her envoy. Far from Paul's conversion to Protestantism, the Abbe wrote home the most encouraging accounts of his sister-in-law's precious dispositions. He had communications with Madame de Moncontour's Anglican director, a man of not powerful mind, wrote M. l'Abbe, though of considerable repute for eloquence in his Sect. The good dispositions of his sister-in-law were improved by the French clergyman, who could be most captivating and agreeable when a work of conversion was in hand. The visit reconciled the family to their English relative, in whom good-nature and many other good qualities were to be seen now that there were hopes of reclaiming her. It was agreed that Madame de Moncontour should come and inhabit the Hotel de Florac at Paris: perhaps the Abbe tempted the worthy lady by pictures of the many pleasures and advantages she would enjoy in that capital. She was presented at her own court by the French ambassadress of that day: and was received at the Tuileries with a cordiality which flattered and pleased her.

Having been presented herself, Madame la Princesse in turn presented to her august sovereign Mrs. T. Higg and Miss Higg, of Manchester, Mrs. Samuel Higg, of Newcome; the husbands of those ladies (the Princess's brothers) also sporting a court-dress for the first time. Sam Higg's neighbour, the member for Newcome; Sir Brian Newcome, Bart., was too ill to act as Higg's sponsor before majesty; but Barnes Newcome was uncommonly civil to the two Lancashire gentlemen; though their politics were different to his, and Sam had voted against Sir Brian at his last election. Barnes took them to dine at a club—recommended his tailor—and sent Lady Clara Pulleyn to call on Mrs. Higg—who pronounced her to be a pretty young woman and most haffable. The Countess of Dorking would have been delighted to present these ladies had the Princess not luckily been in London to do that office. The Hobson Newcomes were very civil to the Lancashire party, and entertained them splendidly at dinner. I believe Mrs. and Mr. Hobson themselves went to court this year, the latter in a deputy-lieutenant's uniform.

If Barnes Newcome was so very civil to the Higg family we may suppose he had good reason. The Higgs were very strong in Newcome, and it was advisable to conciliate them. They were very rich, and their account would not be disagreeable at the bank. Madame de Moncontour's—a large easy private account—would be more pleasant still. And, Hobson Brothers having entered largely into the Anglo-Continental Railway, whereof mention has been made, it was a bright thought of Barnes to place the Prince of Moncontour, etc. etc., on the French Direction of the Railway; and to take the princely prodigal down to Newcome with his new title, and reconcile him to his wife and the Higg family. Barnes we may say invented the principality: rescued the Vicomte de Florac out of his dirty lodgings in Leicester Square, and sent the Prince of Moncontour back to his worthy middle-aged wife again. The disagreeable dissenting days were over. A brilliant young curate of Doctor Bulders, who also wore long hair, straight waistcoats, and no shirt-collars, had already reconciled the Vicomtesse de Florac to the persuasion, whereof the ministers are clad in that queer uniform. The landlord of their hotel at St. James's got his wine from Sherrick, and sent his families to Lady Whittlesea's Chapel. The Rev. Charles Honeyman's eloquence and amiability were appreciated by his new disciple—thus the historian has traced here step by step how all these people became acquainted.

Sam Higg, whose name was very good on 'Change in Manchester and London, joined the direction of the Anglo-Continental. A brother had died lately, leaving his money amongst them, and his wealth had added considerably to Madame de Florac's means; his sister invested a portion of her capital in the railway in her husband's name. The shares were at a premium, and gave a good dividend. The Prince de Moncontour took his place with great gravity at the Paris board, whither Barnes made frequent flying visits. The sense of capitalism sobered and dignified Paul de Florac: at the age of five-and-forty he was actually giving up being a young man, and was not ill pleased at having to enlarge his waistcoats, and to show a little grey in his moustache. His errors were forgotten: he was bien vu by the Government. He might have had the Embassy Extraordinary to Queen Pomare; but the health of Madame la Princesse was delicate. He paid his wife visits every morning: appeared at her parties and her opera box, and was seen constantly with her in public. He gave quiet little dinners still, at which Clive was present sometimes: and had a private door and key to his apartments, which were separated by all the dreary length of the reception-rooms from the mirrored chamber and jonquil couch where the Princess and Betsy reposed. When some of his London friends visited Paris he showed us these rooms and introduced us duly to Madame la Princesse. He was as simple and as much at home in the midst of these splendours, as in the dirty little lodgings in Leicester Square, where he painted his own boots, and cooked his herring over the tongs. As for Clive, he was the infant of the house: Madame la Princesse could not resist his kind face; and Paul was as fond of him in his way as Paul's mother in hers. Would he live at the Hotel de Florac? There was an excellent atelier in the pavilion, with a chamber for his servant. "No! you will be most at ease in apartments of your own. You will have here but the society of women. I do not rise till late: and my affairs, my board, call me away for the greater part of the day. Thou wilt but be ennuyd to play trictrac with my old father. My mother waits on him. My sister au second is given up entirely to her children, who always have the pituite. Madame la Princesse is not amusing for a young man. Come and go when thou wilt, Clive, my garcon, my son: thy cover is laid. Wilt thou take the portraits of all the family? Hast thou want of money? I had at thy age and almost ever since, mon ami: but now we swim in gold, and when there is a louis in my purse, there are ten francs for thee." To show his mother that he did not think of the Reformed Religion, Paul did not miss going to mass with her on Sunday. Sometimes Madame Paul went too, between whom and her mother-in-law there could not be any liking, but there was now great civility. They saw each other once a day: Madame Paul always paid her visit to the Comte de Florac: and Betsy, her maid, made the old gentleman laugh by her briskness and talk. She brought back to her mistress the most wonderful stories which the old man told her about his doings during the emigration—before he married Madame la Comtesse—when he gave lessons in dancing, parbleu! There was his fiddle still, a trophy of those old times. He chirped, and coughed, and sang, in his cracked old voice, as he talked about them. "Lor! bless you, mum," says Betsy, "he must have been a terrible old man!" He remembered the times well enough, but the stories he sometimes told over twice or thrice in an hour. I am afraid he had not repented sufficiently of those wicked old times: else why did he laugh and giggle so when he recalled them? He would laugh and giggle till he was choked with his old cough: and old S. Jean, his man, came and beat M. le Comte on the back, and made M. le Comte take a spoonful of his syrup.

Between two such women as Madame de Florac and Lady Kew, of course there could be little liking or sympathy. Religion, love, duty, the family, were the French lady's constant occupation,—duty and the family, perhaps, Lady Kew's aim too,—only the notions of duty were different in either person. Lady Kew's idea of duty to her relatives being to push them on in the world: Madame de Florac's to soothe, to pray, to attend them with constant watchfulness, to strive to mend them with pious counsel. I don't know that one lady was happier than the other. Madame de Florac's eldest son was a kindly prodigal: her second had given his whole heart to the Church: her daughter had centred hers on her own children, and was jealous if their grandmother laid a finger on them. So Leonore de Florac was quite alone. It seemed as if Heaven had turned away all her children's hearts from her. Her daily business in life was to nurse a selfish old man, into whose service she had been forced in early youth, by a paternal decree which she never questioned; giving him obedience, striving to give him respect,—everything but her heart, which had gone out of her keeping. Many a good woman's life is no more cheerful; a spring of beauty, a little warmth and sunshine of love, a bitter disappointment, followed by pangs and frantic tears, then a long monotonous story of submission. "Not here, my daughter, is to be your happiness," says the priest; "whom Heaven loves it afflicts." And he points out to her the agonies of suffering saints of her sex; assures her of their present beatitudes and glories; exhorts her to bear her pains with a faith like theirs; and is empowered to promise her a like reward.

The other matron is not less alone. Her husband and son are dead, without a tear for either,—to weep was not in Lady Kew's nature. Her grandson, whom she had loved perhaps more than any human being, is rebellious and estranged from her; her children, separated from her, save one whose sickness and bodily infirmity the mother resents as disgraces to herself. Her darling schemes fail somehow. She moves from town to town, and ball to ball, and hall to castle, for ever uneasy and always alone. She sees people scared at her coming; is received by sufferance and fear rather than by welcome; likes perhaps the terror which she inspires, and to enter over the breach rather than through the hospitable gate. She will try and command wherever she goes; and trample over dependants and society, with a grim consciousness that it dislikes her, a rage at its cowardice, and an unbending will to domineer. To be old, proud, lonely, and not have a friend in the world—that is her lot in it. As the French lady may be said to resemble the bird which the fables say feeds her young with her blood; this one, if she has a little natural liking for her brood, goes hunting hither and thither and robs meat for them; And so, I suppose, to make the simile good, we must compare the Marquis of Farintosh to a lamb for the nonce, and Miss Ethel Newcome to a young eaglet. Is it not a rare provision of nature (or fiction of poets, who have their own natural history) that the strong-winged bird can soar to the sun and gaze at it, and then come down from heaven and pounce on a piece of carrion?

After she became acquainted with certain circumstances, Madame de Florac was very interested about Ethel Newcome, and strove in her modest way to become intimate with her. Miss Newcome and Lady Kew attended Madame de Moncontour's Wednesday evenings. "It is as well, my dear, for the interests of the family that we should be particularly civil to these people," Lady Kew said; and accordingly she came to the Hotel de Florac, and was perfectly insolent to Madame la Princesse every Thursday evening. Towards Madame de Florac, even Lady Kew could not be rude. She was so gentle as to give no excuse for assault: Lady Kew vouchsafed you to pronounce that Madame de Florac was "tres grande dame;"—"of the sort which is almost impossible to find nowadays," Lady Kew said, who thought she possessed this dignity in her own person. When Madame de Florac, blushing, asked Ethel to come and see her, Ethel's grandmother consented with the utmost willingness. "She is very devote, I have heard, and will try and convert you. Of course you will hold your own about that sort of thing; and have the good sense to keep off theology. There is no Roman Catholic parti in England or Scotland that is to be thought for a moment. You will see they will marry young Lord Derwenwater to an Italian princess; but he is only seventeen, and his directors never lose sight of him. Sir Bartholomew Bawkes will have a fine property when Lord Campion dies, unless Lord Campion leaves the money to the convent where his daughter is—and, of the other families, who is there? I made every inquiry purposely—that is, of course, one is anxious to know about the Catholics as about one's own people: and little Mr. Rood, who was one of my poor brother Steyne's lawyers, told me there is not one young man of that party at this moment who can be called a desirable person. Be very civil to Madame de Florac; she sees some of the old legitimists, and you know I am brouillee with that party of late years."

"There is the Marquis de Montluc, who has a large fortune for France," said Ethel, gravely; "he has a humpback, but he is very spiritual. Monsieur de Cadillan paid me some compliments the other night, and even asked George Barnes what my dot was, He is a widower, and has a wig and two daughters. Which do you think would be the greatest encumbrance, grandmamma,—a humpback, or a wig and two daughters? I like Madame de Florac; for the sake of the borough, I must try and like poor Madame de Moncontour, and I will go and see them whenever you please."

So Ethel went to see Madame de Florac. She was very kind to Madame de Preville's children, Madame de Florac's grandchildren; she was gay and gracious with Madame de Moncontour. She went again and again to the Hotel de Florac, not caring for Lady Kew's own circle of statesmen and diplomatists, Russian, and Spanish, and French, whose talk about the courts of Europe,—who was in favour at St. Petersburg, and who was in disgrace at Schoenbrunn,—naturally did not amuse the lively young person. The goodness of Madame de Florac's life, the tranquil grace and melancholy kindness with which the French lady received her, soothed and pleased Miss Ethel. She came and reposed in Madame de Florac's quiet chamber, or sate in the shade in the sober old garden of her hotel; away from all the trouble and chatter of the salons, the gossip of the embassies, the fluttering ceremonial of the Parisian ladies' visits in their fine toilettes, the fadaises of the dancing dandies, and the pompous mysteries of the old statesmen who frequented her grandmother's apartment. The world began for her at night; when she went in the train of the old Countess from hotel to hotel, and danced waltz after waltz with Prussian and Neapolitan secretaries, with princes' officers of ordonnance,—with personages even more lofty very likely,—for the court of the Citizen King was then in its splendour; and there must surely have been a number of nimble young royal highnesses who would like to dance with such a beauty as Miss Newcome. The Marquis of Farintosh had a share in these polite amusements. His English conversation was not brilliant as yet, although his French was eccentric; but at the court balls, whether he appeared in his uniform of the Scotch Archers, or in his native Glenlivat tartar there certainly was not in his own or the public estimation a handsomer young nobleman in Paris that season. It has been said that he was greatly improved in dancing; and, for a young man of his age, his whiskers were really extraordinarily large and curly.

Miss Newcome, out of consideration for her grandmother's strange antipathy to him, did not inform Lady Kew that a young gentleman by the name of Clive occasionally came to visit the Hotel de Florac. At first, with her French education, Madame de Florac never would have thought of allowing the cousins to meet in her house; but with the English it was different. Paul assured her that in the English chateaux, les meess walked for entire hours with the young men, made parties of the fish, mounted to horse with them, the whole with the permission of the mothers. "When I was at Newcome, Miss Ethel rode with me several times," Paul said; "a preuve that we went to visit an old relation of the family, who adores Clive and his father." When Madame de Florac questioned her son about the young Marquis to whom it was said Ethel was engaged, Florac flouted the idea. "Engaged! This young Marquis is engaged to the Theatre des Varietes, my mother. He laughs at the notion of an engagement." When one charged him with it of late at the club; and asked how Mademoiselle Louqsor—she is so tall, that they call her the Louqsor—she is an Odalisque Obelisque, ma mere; when one asked how the Louqsor would pardon his pursuit of Miss Newcome, my Ecossois permitted himself to say in full club, that it was Miss Newcome pursued him,—that nymph, that Diane, that charming and peerless young creature! On which, as the others laughed, and his friend Monsieur Walleye applauded, I dared to say in my turn, "Monsieur le Marquis, as a young man, not familiar with our language, you have said what is not true, milor, and therefore luckily not mischievous. I have the honour to count of my friends the parents of the young lady of whom you have spoken. You never could have intended to say that a young miss who lives under the guardianship of her parents, and is obedient to them, whom you meet in society all the nights, and at whose door your carriage is to be seen every day, is capable of that with which you charge her so gaily. These things say themselves, monsieur, in the coulisses of the theatre, of women from whom you learn our language; not of young persons pure and chaste, Monsieur de Farintosh! Learn to respect your compatriots; to honour youth and innocence everywhere, monsieur! and when you forget yourself, permit one who might be your father to point where you are wrong."

"And what did he answer?" asked the Countess.

"I attended myself to a soufflet," replied Florac; "but his reply was much more agreeable. The young insulary, with many blushes and a gros juron, as his polite way is, said he had not wished to say a word against that person. 'Of whom the name,' cried I, 'ought never to be spoken in these places.' Herewith our little dispute ended."

So, occasionally, Mr. Clive had the good luck to meet with his cousin at the Hotel de Florac, where, I dare say, all the inhabitants wished he should have his desire regarding this young lady. The Colonel had talked early to Madame de Florac about this wish of his life, impossible then to gratify, because Ethel was engaged to Lord Kew. Clive, in the fulness of his heart, imparted his passion to Florac, and in answer to Paul's offer to himself, had shown the Frenchman that kind letter in which his father bade him carry aid to "Leonore de Florac's son," in case he should need it. The case was all clear to the lively Paul. "Between my mother and your good Colonel there must have been an affair of the heart in the early days during the emigration." Clive owned his father had told him as much, at least that he himself had been attached to Mademoiselle de Blois. "It is for that that her heart yearns towards thee, that I have felt myself entrained toward thee since I saw thee"—Clive momentarily expected to be kissed again. "Tell thy father that I feel—am touched by his goodness with an eternal gratitude, and love every one that loves my mother." As far as wishes went, these two were eager promoters of Clive's little love-affair; and Madame la Princesse became equally not less willing. Clive's good looks and good-nature had had their effects upon that good-natured woman, and he was as great a favourite with her as with her husband. And thus it happened that when Miss Ethel came to pay her visit, and sate with Madame de Florac and her grandchildren in the garden, Mr. Newcome would sometimes walk up the avenue there, and salute the ladies.

If Ethel had not wanted to see him, would she have come? Yes; she used to say she was going to Madame de Preville's, not Madame de Florac's, and would insist, I have no doubt, that it was Madame de Preville whom she went to see (whose husband was a member of the Chamber of Deputies, a Conseiller d'etat; or other French bigwig), and that she had no idea of going to meet Clive, or that he was more than a casual acquaintance at the Hotel de Florac. There was no part of her conduct in all her life, which this lady, when it was impugned, would defend more strongly than this intimacy at the Hotel de Florac. It is not with this I quarrel especially. My fair young readers, who have seen a half-dozen of seasons, can you call to mind the time when you had such a friendship for Emma Tomkins, that you were always at the Tomkins's, and notes were constantly passing between your house and hers? When her brother, Paget Tomkins, returned to India, did not your intimacy with Emma fall off? If your younger sister is not in the room, I know you will own as much to me. I think you are always deceiving yourselves and other people. I think the motive you put forward is very often not the real one; though you will confess, neither to yourself, nor to any human being, what the real motive is. I think that what you desire you pursue, and are as selfish in your way as your bearded fellow-creatures are. And as for the truth being in you, of all the women in a great acquaintance, I protest there are but—never mind. A perfectly honest woman, a woman who never flatters, who never manages, who never cajoles, who never conceals, who never uses her eyes, who never speculates on the effect which she produces, who never is conscious of unspoken admiration, what a monster, I say, would such a female be! Miss Hopkins, you have been a coquette since you were a year old; you worked on your papa's friends in the nurse's arms by the fascination of your lace frock and pretty new sash and shoes; when you could just toddle, you practised your arts upon other children in the square, poor little lambkins sporting among the daisies; and nunc in ovilia, mox in reluctantes dracones, proceeding from the lambs to reluctant dragoons, you tried your arts upon Captain Paget Tomkins, who behaved so ill, and went to India without—without making those proposals which of course you never expected. Your intimacy was with Emma. It has cooled. Your sets are different. The Tomkins's are not quite etc. etc. You believe Captain Tomkins married a Miss O'Grady, etc. etc. Ah, my pretty, my sprightly Miss Hopkins, be gentle in your judgment of your neighbours!



CHAPTER XLVII. Contains two or three Acts of a Little Comedy

All this story is told by one, who, if he was not actually present at the circumstances here narrated, yet had information concerning them, and could supply such a narrative of facts and conversations as is, indeed, not less authentic than the details we have of other histories. How can I tell the feelings in a young lady's mind; the thoughts in a young gentleman's bosom?—As Professor Owen or Professor Agassiz takes a fragment of a bone, and builds an enormous forgotten monster out of it, wallowing in primeval quagmires, tearing down leaves and branches of plants that flourished thousands of years ago, and perhaps may be coal by this time—so the novelist puts this and that together: from the footprint finds the foot; from the foot, the brute who trod on it; from the brute, the plant he browsed on, the marsh in which he swam—and thus in his humble way a physiologist too, depicts the habits, size, appearance of the beings whereof he has to treat;—traces this slimy reptile through the mud, and describes his habits filthy and rapacious; prods down this butterfly with a pin, and depicts his beautiful coat and embroidered waistcoat; points out the singular structure of yonder more important animal, the megatherium of his history.

Suppose then, in the quaint old garden of the Hotel de Florac, two young people are walking up and down in an avenue of lime-trees, which are still permitted to grow in that ancient place. In the centre of that avenue is a fountain, surmounted by a Triton so grey and moss-eaten, that though he holds his conch to his swelling lips, curling his tail in the arid basin, his instrument has had a sinecure for at least fifty years; and did not think fit even to play when the Bourbons, in whose time he was erected, came back from their exile. At the end of the lime-tree avenue is a broken-nosed damp Faun, with a marble panpipe, who pipes to the spirit ditties which I believe never had any tune. The perron of the hotel is at the other end of the avenue; a couple of Caesars on either side of the door-window, from which the inhabitants of the hotel issue into the garden—Caracalla frowning over his mouldy shoulder at Nerva, on to whose clipped hair the roofs of the grey chateau have been dribbling for ever so many long years. There are more statues gracing this noble place. There is Cupid, who has been at the point of kissing Psyche this half-century at least, though the delicious event has never come off, through all those blazing summers and dreary winters: there is Venus and her Boy under the damp little dome of a cracked old temple. Through the alley of this old garden, in which their ancestors have disported in hoops and powder, Monsieur de Florac's chair is wheeled by St. Jean, his attendant; Madame de Preville's children trot about, and skip, and play at cache-cache. The R. P. de Florac (when at home) paces up and down and meditates his sermons; Madame de Florac sadly walks sometimes to look at her roses; and Clive and Ethel Newcome are marching up and down; the children, and their bonne of course being there, jumping to and fro; and Madame de Florac, having just been called away to Monsieur le Comte, whose physician has come to see him.

Ethel says, "How charming and odd this solitude is: and how pleasant to hear the voices of the children playing in the neighbouring Convent garden," of which they can see the new chapel rising over the trees.

Clive remarks that "the neighbouring hotel has curiously changed its destination. One of the members of the Directory had it; and, no doubt, in the groves of its garden, Madame Tallien, and Madame Recamier, and Madame Beauharnais have danced under the lamps. Then a Marshal of the Empire inhabited it. Then it was restored to its legitimate owner, Monsieur le Marquis de Bricquabracque, whose descendants, having a lawsuit about the Bricquabracque succession, sold the hotel to the Convent."

After some talk about nuns, Ethel says, "There were convents in England. She often thinks she would like to retire to one;" and she sighs as if her heart were in that scheme.

Clive, with a laugh, says, "Yes. If you could retire after the season, when you were very weary of the balls, a convent would be very nice. At Rome he had seen San Pietro in Montorio and Sant Onofrio, that delightful old place where Tasso died: people go and make a retreat there. In the ladies' convents, the ladies do the same thing—and he doubts whether they are much more or less wicked after their retreat, than gentlemen and ladies in England or France."

Ethel. Why do you sneer at all faith? Why should not a retreat do people good? Do you suppose the world is so satisfactory, that those who are in it never wish for a while to leave it'd (She heaves a sigh and looks down towards a beautiful new dress of many flounces, which Madame de Flouncival, the great milliner, has sent her home that very day.)

Clive. I do not know what the world is, except from afar off. I am like the Peri who looks into Paradise and sees angels within it. I live in Charlotte Street, Fitzroy Square: which is not within the gates of Paradise. I take the gate to be somewhere in Davies Street, leading out of Oxford Street into Grosvenor Square. There's another gate in Hay Hill: and another in Bruton Street, Bond——

Ethel. Don't be a goose.

Clive. Why not? It is as good to be a goose, as to be a lady—no, a gentleman of fashion. Suppose I were a Viscount, an Earl, a Marquis, a Duke, would you say Goose? No, you would say Swan.

Ethel. Unkind and unjust!—ungenerous to make taunts which common people make: and to repeat to me those silly sarcasms which your low Radical literary friends are always putting in their books! Have I ever made any difference to you? Would I not sooner see you than the fine people? Would I talk with you, or with the young dandies most willingly? Are we not of the same blood, Clive; and of all the grandees I see about, can there be a grander gentleman than your dear old father? You need not squeeze my hand so.—Those little imps are look—that has nothing to do with the question. Viens, Leonore! Tu connois bien, monsieur, n'est-ce pas? qui te fait de si jolis dessins?

Leonore. Ah, oui! Vous m'en ferez toujours, n'est-ce pas Monsieur Clive? des chevaux, et puis des petites filles avec leurs gouvernantes, et puis des maisons—et puis—et puis des maisons encore—ou est bonne maman?

[Exit little LEONORE down an alley.

Ethel. Do you remember when we were children, and you used to make drawings for us? I have some now that you did—in my geography book, which I used to read and read with Miss Quigley.

Clive. I remember all about our youth, Ethel.

Ethel. Tell me what you remember?

Clive. I remember one of the days, when I first saw you, I had been reading the Arabian Nights at school—and you came in in a bright dress of shot silk, amber, and blue—and I thought you were like that fairy-princess who came out of the crystal box—because——

Ethel. Because why?

Clive. Because I always thought that fairy somehow must be the most beautiful creature in all the world—that is "why and because." Do not make me Mayfair curtsies. You know whether you are good-looking or not: and how long I have thought you so. I remember when I thought I would like to be Ethel's knight, and that if there was anything she would have me do, I would try and achieve it in order to please her. I remember when I was so ignorant I did not know there was any difference in rank between us.

Ethel. Ah, Clive!

Clive. Now it is altered. Now I know the difference between a poor painter and a young lady of the world. Why haven't I a title and a great fortune? Why did I ever see you, Ethel; or, knowing the distance which it seems fate has placed between us, why have I seen you again?

Ethel (innocently). Have I ever made any difference between us? Whenever I may see you, am I not too glad? Don't I see you sometimes when I should not—no—I do not say when I should not; but when others, whom I am bound to obey, forbid me? What harm is there in my remembering old days? Why should I be ashamed of our relationship?—no, not ashamed—shy should I forget it? Don't do that, sir; we have shaken hands twice already. Leonore! Xavier!

Clive. At one moment you like me: and at the next you seem to repent it. One day you seem happy when I come; and another day you are ashamed of me. Last Tuesday, when you came with those fine ladies to the Louvre, you seemed to blush when you saw me copying at my picture; and that stupid young lord looked quite alarmed because you spoke to me. My lot in life is not very brilliant; but I would not change it against that young man's—no, not with all his chances.

Ethel. What do you mean with all his chances?

Clive. You know very well. I mean I would not be as selfish or as dull, or as ill educated—I won't say worse of him—not to be as handsome, or as wealthy, or as noble as he is. I swear I would not now change my place against his, or give up being Clive Newcome to be my Lord Marquis of Farintosh, with all his acres and titles of nobility.

Ethel. Why are you for ever harping about Lord Farintosh and his titles? I thought it was only women who were jealous—you gentlemen say so.—(Hurriedly.) I am going to-night with grandmamma to the Minister of the Interior, and then to the Russian ball; and to-morrow to the Tuileries. We dine at the Embassy first; and on Sunday, I suppose, we shall go to the Rue d'Aguesseau. I can hardly come here before Mon—-. Madam de Florac! Little Leonore is very like you—resembles you very much. My cousin says he longs to make a drawing of her.

Madame de Florac. My husband always likes that I should be present at his dinner. Pardon me, young people, that I have been away from you for a moment.

[Exeunt CLIVE, ETHEL, and Madame DE F. into the house.

CONVERSATION II.-SCENE I. Miss Newcome arrives in Lady Kew's carriage, which enters the court of the Hotel de Florac.

Saint Jean. Mademoiselle—Madame la Comtesse is gone out but madame has charged me to say, that she will be at home to the dinner of M. le Comte, as to the ordinary.

Miss Newcome. Madame de Preville is at home?

Saint Jean. Pardon me, madame is gone out with M. le Baron, and M. Xavier, and Mademoiselle de Preville. They are gone, miss, I believe, to visit the parents of Monsieur le Baron; of whom it is probably to-day the fete: for Mademoiselle Leonore carried a bouquet—no doubt for her grandpapa. Will it please mademoiselle to enter? I think Monsieur the Count sounds me. (Bell rings.)

Miss Newcome. Madame la Prince—Madame la Vicomtesse is at home, Monsieur St. Jean?

Saint Jean. I go to call the people of Madame la Vicomtesse.

[Exit Old SAINT JEAN to the carriage: a Lackey comes presently in a gorgeous livery, with buttons like little cheese plates.

The Lackey. The Princess is at home, miss, and will be most appy to see you, miss. (Miss trips up the great stair: a gentleman out of livery has come forth to the landing, and introduces her to the apartments of Madame la Princesse.)

The Lackey to the Servants on the box. Good morning, Thomas. How dy' do, old Backystopper?

Backystopper. How de do, Jim? I say, you couldn't give a feller a drink of beer, could yer, Muncontour? It was precious wet last night, I can tell you. 'Ad to stop for three hours at the Napolitum Embassy, when we was a dancing. Me and some chaps went into Bob Parsom's and had a drain. Old Cat came out and couldn't find her carriage, not by no means, could she, Tommy? Blest if I didn't nearly drive her into a wegetable-cart. I was so uncommon scruey! Who's this a-hentering at your pot-coshare? Billy, my fine feller!

Clive Newcome (by the most singular coincidence). Madame la Princesse?

Lackey. We, munseer. (He rings a bell: the gentleman in black appears as before on the landing-place up the stair.)

[Exit Clive.

Backystopper. I say, Bill: is that young chap often a-coming about here? They'd run pretty in a curricle, wouldn't they? Miss N. and Master N. Quiet, old woman! Jest look to that mare's ead, will you, Billy? He's a fine young feller, that is. He gave me a covering the other night. Whenever I sor him in the Park, he was always riding an ansum hanimal. What is he? They said in our 'all he was a hartis. I can 'ardly think that. Why, there used to be a hartis come to our club, and painted two or three of my 'osses, and my old woman too.

Lackey. There's hartises and hartises, Backystopper. Why, there's some on 'em comes here with more stars on their coats than Dukes has got. Have you never 'eard of Mossyer Verny, or Mossyer Gudang?

Backystopper. They say this young gent is sweet on Miss N.; which, I guess, I wish he may git it.

Tommy. He! he! he!

Backystopper. Brayvo, Tommy. Tom ain't much of a man for conversation, but he's a precious one to drink. Do you think the young gent is sweet on her, Tommy? I sor him often prowling about our 'ouse in Queen Street, when we was in London.

Tommy. I guess he wasn't let in in Queen Street. I guess hour little Buttons was very near turned away for saying we was at home to him—I guess a footman's place is to keep his mouth hopen—no, his heyes hopen—and his mouth shut. (He lapses into silence.)

Lackey. I think Thomis is in love, Thomis is. Who was that young woman I saw you a-dancing of at the Showmier, Thomis? How the young Marquis was a-cuttin' of it about there! The pleace was obliged to come up and stop him dancing. His man told old Buzfuz upstairs, that the Marquis's goings on is hawful. Up till four or five every morning; blind hookey, shampaign, the dooce's own delight. That party have had I don't know how much in diamonds—and they quarrel and swear at each other, and fling plates: it's tremendous.

Tommy. Why doesn't the Marquis man mind his own affairs? He's a supersellious beast: and will no more speak to a man, except he's out-a-livery, than he would to a chimbly-swip. He! Cuss him, I'd fight 'im for 'alf-a-crown.

Lackey. And we'd back you, Tommy. Buzfuz upstairs ain't supersellious; nor is the Prince's walet nether. That old Sangjang's a rum old guvnor. He was in England with the Count, fifty years ago—in the hemigration—in Queen Hann's time, you know. He used to support the old Count. He says he remembers a young Musseer Newcome then, that used to take lessons from the Shevallier, the Countess' father—there's my bell.

[Exit Lackey.

Backystopper. Not a bad chap that. Sports his money very free—sings an uncommon good song.

Thomas. Pretty voice, but no cultiwation.

Lackey (who re-enters). Be here at two o'clock for Miss N. Take anything? Come round the corner.—There's a capital shop round the corner.

[Exeunt Servants.

SCENE II. Ethel. I can't think where Madame de Moncontour has gone. How very odd it was that you should come here—that we should both come here to-day! How surprised I was to see you at the Minister's! Grandmamma was so angry! "That boy pursues us wherever we go," she said. I am sure I don't know why we shouldn't meet, Clive. It seems to be wrong even my seeing you by chance here. Do you know, sir, what a scolding I had about—about going to Brighton with you? My grandmother did not hear of it till we were in Scotland, when that foolish maid of mine talked of it to her maid; and, there was oh, such a tempest! If there were a Bastile here, she would like to lock you into it. She says that you are always upon our way—I don't know how, I am sure. She says, but for you I should have been—you know what I should have been: but I am thankful that I wasn't, and Kew has got a much nicer wife in Henrietta Pulleyn, than I could ever have been to him. She will be happier than Clara, Clive. Kew is one of the kindest creatures in the world—not very wise; not very strong: but he is just such a kind, easy, generous little man, as will make a girl like Henrietta quite happy.

Clive. But not you, Ethel?

Ethel. No, nor I him. My temper is difficult, Clive, and I fear few men would bear with me. I feel, somehow, always very lonely. How old am I? Twenty—I feel sometimes as if I was a hundred; and in the midst of all these admirations and fetes and flatteries, so tired, oh, so tired! And yet if I don't have them, I miss them. How I wish I was religious like Madame de Florac: there is no day that she does not go to church. She is for ever busy with charities, clergymen, conversions; I think the Princess will be brought over ere long—that dear old Madame de Florac! and yet she is no happier than the rest of us. Hortense is an empty little thing, who thinks of her prosy fat Camille with spectacles, and of her two children, and of nothing else in the world besides. Who is happy? Clive!

Clive. You say Barnes's wife is not.

Ethel. We are like brother and sister, so I may talk to you. Barnes is very cruel to her. At Newcome, last winter, poor Clara used to come into my room with tears in her eyes morning after morning. He calls her a fool; and seems to take a pride in humiliating her before company. My poor father has luckily taken a great liking to her: and before him, for he has grown very very hot-tempered since his illness, Barnes leaves poor Clara alone. We were in hopes that the baby might make matters better, but as it is a little girl, Barnes chooses to be very much disappointed. He wants papa to give up his seat in Parliament, but he clings to that more than anything. Oh, dear me! who is happy in the world? What a pity Lord Highgate's father had not died sooner! He and Barnes have been reconciled. I wonder my brother's spirit did not revolt against it. The old lord used to keep a great sum of money at the bank, I believe: and the present one does so still: he has paid all his debts off: and Barnes is actually friends with him. He is always abusing the Dorkings, who want to borrow money from the bank, he says. This eagerness for money is horrible. If I had been Barnes I would never have been reconciled with Mr. Belsize, never, never! And yet they say he was quite right: and grandmamma is even pleased that Lord Highgate should be asked to dine in Park Lane. Poor papa is there: come to attend his parliamentary duties as he thinks. He went to a division the other night; and was actually lifted out of his carriage and wheeled into the lobby in a chair. The ministers thanked him for coming. I believe he thinks he will have his peerage yet. Oh, what a life of vanity ours is!

Enter Madame de Moncontour. What are you young folks a-talkin' about—balls and operas? When first I was took to the opera I did not like it—and fell asleep. But now, oh, it's 'eavenly to hear Grisi sing!

The Clock. Ting, ting!

Ethel. Two o'clock already! I must run back to grandmamma. Good-bye, Madame de Moncontour; I am so sorry I have not been able to see dear Madame de Florac. I will try and come to her on Thursday—please tell her. Shall we meet you at the American minister's to-night, or at Madame de Brie's to-morrow? Friday is your own night—I hope grandmamma will bring me. How charming your last music was! Good-bye, mon cousin! You shall not come downstairs with me, I insist upon it, sir: and had much best remain here, and finish your drawing of Madame de Moncontour.

Princess. I've put on the velvet, you see, Clive—though it's very 'ot in May. Good-bye, my dear.

[Exit ETHEL. As far as we can judge from the above conversation, which we need not prolong—as the talk between Madame de Moncontour and Monsieur Clive, after a few complimentary remarks about Ethel, had nothing to do with the history of the Newcomes—as far as we can judge, the above little colloquy took place on Monday: and about Wednesday, Madame la Comtesse de Florac received a little note from Clive, in which he said, that one day when she came to the Louvre, where he was copying, she had admired a picture of a Virgin and Child, by Sasso Ferrato, since when he had been occupied in making a water-colour drawing after the picture, and hoped she would be pleased to accept the copy from her affectionate and grateful servant, Clive Newcome. The drawing would be done the next day, when he would call with it in his hand. Of course Madame de Florac received this announcement very kindly; and sent back by Clive's servant a note of thanks to that young gentleman.

Now on Thursday morning, about one o'clock, by one of those singular coincidences which, etc. etc., who should come to the Hotel de Florac but Miss Ethel Newcome? Madame la Comtesse was at home, waiting to receive Clive and his picture: but Miss Ethel's appearance frightened the good lady, so much so that she felt quite guilty at seeing the girl, whose parents might think—I don't know what they might not think—that Madame de Florac was trying to make a match between the young people. Hence arose the words uttered by the Countess, after a while, in—

CONVERSATION III. Madame de Florac (at work). And so you like to quit the world and to come to our triste old hotel. After to-day you will find it still more melancholy, my poor child.

Ethel. And why?

Madame de F. Some one who has been here to egager our little meetings will come no more.

Ethel. Is the Abbe de Florac going to quit Paris, madam?

Madame de F. It is not of him that I speak, thou knowest it very well, my daughter. Thou hast seen my poor Clive twice here. He will come once again, and then no more. My conscience reproaches me that I have admitted him at all. But he is like a son to me, and was so confided to me by his father. Five years ago, when we met, after an absence—of how many years!—Colonel Newcome told me what hopes he had cherished for his boy. You know well, my daughter, with whom those hopes were connected. Then he wrote me that family arrangements rendered his plans impossible—that the hand of Miss Newcome was promised elsewhere. When I heard from my son Paul how these negotiations were broken, my heart rejoiced, Ethel, for my friend's sake. I am an old woman now, who have seen the world, and all sorts of men. Men more brilliant no doubt I have known, but such a heart as his, such a faith as his, such a generosity and simplicity as Thomas Newcome's—never!

Ethel (smiling). Indeed, dear lady, I think with you.

Madame de F. I understand thy smile, my daughter. I can say to thee, that when we were children almost, I knew thy good uncle. My poor father took the pride of his family into exile with him. Our poverty only made his pride the greater. Even before the emigration a contract had been passed between our family and the Count de Florac. I could not be wanting to the word given by my father. For how many long years have I kept it? But when I see a young girl who may be made the victim—the subject of a marriage of convenience, as I was—my heart pities her. And if I love her, as I love you, I tell her my thoughts. Better poverty, Ethel: better a cell in a convent: than a union without love. Is it written eternally that men are to make slaves of us? Here in France, above all, our fathers sell us every day. And what a society ours is! Thou wilt know this when thou art married. There are some laws so cruel that nature revolts against theme, and breaks them—or we die in keeping them. You smile. I have been nearly fifty years dying—n'est-ce pas?—and am here an old woman, complaining to a young girl. It is because our recollections of youth are always young: and because I have suffered so, that I would spare those I love a like grief. Do you know that the children of those who do not love in marriage seem to bear an hereditary coldness, and do not love their parents as other children do? They witness our differences and our indifferences, hear our recriminations, take one side or the other in our disputes, and are partisans for father or mother. We force ourselves to be hypocrites, and hide our wrongs from them; we speak of a bad father with false praises; we wear feint smiles over our tears, and deceive our children—deceive them, do we? Even from the exercise of that pious deceit there is no woman but suffers in the estimation of her sons. They may shield her as champions against their father's selfishness or cruelty. In this case, what a war! What a home, where the son sees a tyrant in the father, and in the mother but a trembling victim! I speak not for myself—whatever may have been the course of our long wedded life, I have not to complain of these ignoble storms. But when the family chief neglects his wife, or prefers another to her, the children too, courtiers as we are, will desert her. You look incredulous about domestic love. Tenez, my child, if I may so surmise, I think you cannot have seen it.

Ethel (blushing, and thinking, perhaps, how she esteems her father, how her mother, and how much they esteem each other). My father and mother have been most kind to all their children, madame; and no one can say that their marriage has been otherwise than happy. My mother is the kindest and most affectionate mother, and—(Here a vision of Sir Brian alone in his room, and nobody really caring for him so much as his valet, who loves him to the extent of fifty pounds a year and perquisites; or, perhaps, Miss Cann, who reads to him, and plays a good deal of evenings, much to Sir Brian's liking—here this vision, we say, comes, and stops Miss Ethel's sentence.)

Madame de F. Your father, in his infirmity—and yet he is five years younger than Colonel Newcome—is happy to have such a wife and such children. They comfort his age; they cheer his sickness; they confide their griefs and pleasures to him—is it not so? His closing days are soothed by their affection.

Ethel. Oh, no, no! And yet it is not his fault or ours that he is a stranger to us. He used to be all day at the bank, or at night in the House of Commons, or he and mamma went to parties, and we young ones remained with the governess. Mamma is very kind. I have never, almost, known her angry; never with us; about us, sometimes, with the servants. As children, we used to see papa and mamma at breakfast; and then when she was dressing to go out. Since he has been ill, she has given up all parties. I wanted to do so too. I feel ashamed in the world, sometimes, when I think of my poor father at home, alone. I wanted to stay, but my mother and my grandmother forbade me. Grandmamma has a fortune, which she says I am to have: since then they have insisted on my being with her. She is very clever you know: she is kind too in her way; but she cannot live out of society. And I, who pretend to revolt, I like it too; and I, who rail and scorn flatterers—oh, I like admiration! I am pleased when the women hate me, and the young men leave them for me. Though I despise many of these, yet I can't help drawing them towards me. One or two of them I have seen unhappy about me, and I like it; and if they are indifferent I am angry, and never tire till they come back. I love beautiful dresses; I love jewels; I love a great name and a fine house—oh, I despise myself, when I think of these things! When I lie in bed and say I have been heartless and a coquette, I cry with humiliation; and then rebel and say, Why not?—and to-night—yes, to-night—after leaving you, I shall be wicked, I know I shall.

Madame de F. (sadly). One will pray for thee, my child.

Ethel (sadly). I thought I might be good once. I used to say my own prayers then. Now I speak them but by rote, and feel ashamed—yes, ashamed to speak them. Is it not horrid to say them, and next morning to be no better than you were last night? Often I revolt at these as at other things, and am dumb. The Vicar comes to see us at Newcome, and eats so much dinner, and pays us such court, and "Sir Brians" papa, and "Your Ladyship's" mamma. With grandmamma I go to hear a fashionable preacher—Clive's uncle, whose sister lets lodgings at Brighton; such a queer, bustling, pompous, honest old lady. Do you know that Clive's aunt lets lodgings at Brighton?

Madame de F. My father was an usher in a school. Monsieur de Florac gave lessons in the emigration. Do you know in what?

Ethel. Oh, the old nobility! that is different, you know. That Mr. Honeyman is so affected that I have no patience with him!

Madame de F. (with a sigh). I wish you could attend the services of a better church. And when was it you thought you might be good, Ethel?

Ethel. When I was a girl. Before I came out. When I used to take long rides with my dear Uncle Newcome; and he used to talk to me in his sweet simple way; and he said I reminded him of some one he once knew.

Madame de F. Who—who was that, Ethel?

Ethel (looking up at Gerard's picture of the Countess de Florac). What odd dresses you wore in the time of the Empire, Madame de Florac! How could you ever have such high waists, and such wonderful fraises! (MADAME DE FLORAC kisses ETHEL. Tableau.)

Enter SAINT JEAN, preceding a gentleman with a drawing-board under his arm.

Saint Jean. Monsieur Claive! [Exit SAINT JEAN.

Clive. How do you do, Madame la Comtesse? Mademoiselle, j'ai l'honneur de vous souhaiter le bon jour.

Madame de F. Do you come from the Louvre? Have you finished that beautiful copy, mon ami?

Clive. I have brought it for you. It is not very good. There are always so many petites demoiselles copying that Sasso Ferrato; and they chatter about it so, and hop from one easel to another; and the young artists are always coming to give them advice—so that there is no getting a good look at the picture. But I have brought you the sketch; and am so pleased that you asked for it.

Madame de F. (surveying the sketch). It is charming—charming! What shall we give to our painter for his chef-d'oeuvre?

Clive (kisses her hand). There is my pay! And you will be glad to hear that two of my portraits have been received at the Exhibition. My uncle, the clergyman, and Mr. Butts, of the Life Guards.

Ethel. Mr. Butts—quel nom! Je ne connois aucun M. Butts!

Clive. He has a famous head to draw. They refused Crackthorpe and—and one or two other heads I sent in.

Ethel (tossing up hers). Miss Mackenzie's, I suppose!

Clive. Yes, Miss Mackenzie's. It is a sweet little face; too delicate for my hand, though.

Ethel. So is a wax-doll's a pretty face. Pink cheeks; china-blue eyes; and hair the colour of old Madame Hempenfeld's—not her last hair—her last but one. (She goes to a window that looks into the court.)

Clive (to the Countess). Miss Mackenzie speaks more respectfully of other people's eyes and hair. She thinks there is nobody in the world to compare to Miss Newcome.

Madame de F. (aside). And you, mon ami? This is the last time, entendez-vous? You must never come here again. If M. le Comte knew it he never would pardon me. Encore? (He kisses her ladyship's hand again.)

Clive. A good action gains to be repeated. Miss Newcome, does the view of the courtyard please you? The old trees and the garden are better. That dear old Faun without a nose! I must have a sketch of him: the creepers round the base are beautiful.

Miss N. I was looking to see if the carriage had come for me. It is time that I return home.

Clive. That is my brougham. May I carry you anywhere? I hire him by the hour: and I will carry you to the end of the world.

Miss N. Where are you going, Madame de Floras?—to show that sketch to M. le Comte? Dear me! I don't fancy that M. de Florac can care for such things! I am sure I have seen many as pretty on the quays for twenty-five sous. I wonder the carriage is not come for me.

Clive. You can take mine without my company, as that seems not to please you.

Miss N. Your company is sometimes very pleasant—when you please. Sometimes, as last night, for instance, when you particularly lively.

Clive. Last night, after moving heaven and earth to get an invitation to Madame de Brie—I say, heaven and earth, that is a French phrase—I arrive there; I find Miss Newcome engaged for almost every dance, waltzing with M. de Klingenspohr, galloping with Count de Capri, galloping and waltzing with the most noble the Marquis of Farintosh. She will scarce speak to me during the evening; and when I wait till midnight, her grandmamma whisks her home, and I am left alone for my pains. Lady Kew is in one of her high moods, and the only words she condescends to say to me are, "Oh, I thought you had returned to London," with which she turns her venerable back upon me.

Miss N. A fortnight ago you said you were going to London. You said the copies you were about here would not take you another week, and that was three weeks since.

Clive. It were best I had gone.

Miss N. If you think so, I cannot but think so.

Clive. Why do I stay and hover about you, and follow you know—I follow you? Can I live on a smile vouchsafed twice a week, and no brighter than you give to all the world? What I do I get, but to hear your beauty praised, and to see you, night after night, happy and smiling and triumphant, the partner of other men? Does it add zest to your triumph, to think that I behold it? I believe you would like a crowd of us to pursue you.

Miss N. To pursue me; and if they find me alone, by chance to compliment me with such speeches as you make? That would be pleasure indeed! Answer me here in return, Clive. Have I ever disguised from any of my friends the regard I have for you? Why should I? Have not I taken your part when you were maligned? In former days, when—when Lord Kew asked me, as he had a right to do then—I said it was as a brother I held you; and always would. If I have been wrong, it has been for two or three times in seeing you at all—or seeing you thus; in letting you speak to me as you do—injure me as you do. Do you think I have not hard enough words said to me about you, but that you must attack me too in turn? Last night only, because you were at the ball,—it was very, very wrong of me to tell you I was going there,—as we went home, Lady Kew—Go, sir. I never thought you would have seen in me this humiliation.