Waverley Library (Quarto Edition) (no. 74) (1881 04 12)

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The or Sb it we areca A of winainaatestnes hi cents ier meeregt SS e ry” me a year. ———_—_— oe No. 74. VoL: iia — oe — —_——- er ee ewe ee ee oor ee eee ee ae ee ee ee —— A —— — - Wy wy DK ee Sal Ms lich \: ‘ NW 4 " ; D, ae PRIN aS r ‘' . GaN ii ; Se’ arin iN) Hay} sity | ati) tne Tt it NT ai nl it ART A iy — \ : - ih J) 7 ; ¢ : 4 Vi » - ea = — —— ee _—— a as om -- mM \ Entered at the Dost Office at New York, N. Y, at Second Class Mail Rates. “PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY BEADLE AND D ADAMS, 98 WILLIAM ST, N ¥. — but 5 cents each. Copyrighted i in 1881 — BEADLE AND ADAMS. ee -s april 12, 1881. oe _—_ — ee eee ee _- PRICE, 5 CENTS: ee —_—— o— —.- @—— — —_— —— : \ ) Ui \ NY \ : bali NH y aS ts Hy "i Hi men ii MRED me ga 7 C2, LES 2 LEZ ' - iii . . ee, lage ra ‘A 7a \ " , It ih i\ We - ih - 7 i 4 ] hh, , : ts ye ; - ; f : ; : is | : / : 4 ht Ope tNG UP BEHIND HER LOVER, CECIL GAZED OVER HIS SHOULDER AT THE LETTER. AE WAS READING.” Catil Castlomaine's Gage; 2: Story of a Broidered Shield. hE A A TK TTT i BY OUIDA. | CHAPTER, L. Cror, CASTLEMAINE was the beauty of her county and her )ine, the handsomest of all the bandsome women that had graced her race, when she moved a century and a half ago down the stately staircase, and through the gilded and tapestried halls of Lilliesford. The town had run mad after her, and ber face leveled politics, and was cited as admiringly by ‘the Whigs of St. James as by the Tories at the Cocoa- tree, by the beaux and Mohocks at Garraway’s as by the alumni at the Grecian, by the wits at Will’s as by the fops at Ozinda’s. Wherever she went, whether to the Haymarket or the Opera, to the Change for a fan or the palace for a State ball, to’ Drury ‘Lane’ to! seo Pastoral Philips’ dreary dilution of Racine, or to some ‘fair éhief 6f her faction for basset and ombre, she was surrounded. by ‘the’ best’ men of her time, and hated by Whig beauties with virulent Wrath, for she was a Tory to the backbone, indeed a Jacobite at heart; worshiped Bolingbroke, detested Marlborough and Eugene; believed’ in all ¢he horrors of the programme said to have been plotted by the Whigs for the anniversary show of 1711, and was thought to have prompted the satire on those fair politicians who are disguised as Rosalinda and Nigranilla in the eighty-first paper of the Spectator. Cecil Castlemaine was the greatest beauty of her day, lovelier still at four-and-twenty than she had been at seventeen, unwedded, though the highest coronets in the land had been offered to her; far above the ccquetteries and minauderies of her friends, far above imitation of the affectations of ‘Lady Betty Modley’s skuttle,” or need of practicing

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bcd -devoutest admirer of Oldfield or Mrs. Porter scarcel a ee “ ; CECIL CASTLEMAINE’S GAGE. * —— ED | ee ~— -- — ——_ oe a’ ee ne —— ——- = = —=g the Fan exercise; haughty, peerless, radiant, unwon—| the “ beau fullest of his own dear self” forgot his silver- nay, more—untouched; for the finest gentleman on the town could not flatter himself that he had ever stirred the slightest trace of interest in her, nor boast, as he stood in the inner circle at the Chocolate-house (unless, indeed, he lied more impudently than Tom Wharton himself), that he had ever been honored by a glance of encouragement from the Earl’s daughter. She was too proud to cheapen her- self with coqnetry, too fastidious to care for her conquests over those who whispered to her through Nicolini’s song, vied to have the privilege of carrying her fan, drove past her windows in Soho Square, crowded about her in St. James’s Park, paid court even to her little spaniel Indamara, and to catch but a glimpse of her brocaded train as it swept a ball-room floor, would leave even their play at the Groom Porter’s, Mrs. Oldfield in the green room, a night hunt with Mohun and their brother Mohocks, a circle of wits gathered “within the steam of the coffee-pot” at Will’s, a dinner at Halifax’s, a supper at Bolingbroke’s—whatever, according to their several tastes; made their best entertainment and was hardest to quit. The highest suitors of the day sought her smile and sued for her hand; men left the Court and the Mall to join the Flanders army before the lines at Bouchain less for loyal love of England than hopeless love of Cecil Castlemaine. Her father vainly urged her not to fling away offers that all the women at St. James’s envied her. She was tntouched and unwon, and when her friends, the court, beauties, the fine ladies, the coquettes of quality, ral- lied her on her coldness (envying her her conquests), she would smile her slight proud smile and bow her stately head. “Perhaps she was cold; she might be ; they were personnable men? Oh yes! she had nothing to say against them. His Grace of Belamour r—a_pretty wit, without doubt. Lord Millamont ?—Diverting, but a coxcomb. He had beautiful hands; it was a pity he was always thinking of them! Sir Gage Rivers ?—As obsequious a lover as the man in the ‘ Way of the World,’ but she had heard he was very boastful and facetious at 1 over his chocolate at Ozinda’s. The Earl of Argent? ant soldier, surely, but whatever he might protest, no ‘ess would ever rival with him the dice at the Groom Porter’s. Lord Philip Bellairs ? A proper gentleman ; no fault in him; a bel esprit and an elegant courtier; pleased many, no doubt, but he did not please her overmuch. Per- haps her taste was too ge or her character too cold, as they said. She preferred it should be so. When you were content it were folly to seek a change. For her part, she failed to comprehend how women could stoop to flutter their fans‘and choose their ribbons,and rack their tirewoman’s brains for new pulvillios, and lappets, and devices, and practice their curtsy and recovery before their pier-glass, for no better aim or stake than to draw the glance and win the praise of men for whom they cared nothing. A woman who had the elo- quence of beauty and a true pride should be above heed for such affectations, pleasure in such applause !” So she would put them all aside and turn the tables on her friends, and go on her own way, proud, peerless Cecil Castlemaine, conquering and unconquered; and Steele must have had her. name in his thoughts, and honored it heartily and sincerely, when he wrote one Tuesday, on the 21st. of October, under the domino of his Church Co- quette, “ I say. I do honor to those who can be coquettes and are, not. such, but. 1 despise all who would be so, and, in despair of arriving at it themselves, hate and vilify all those who. can.” A definition justly drawn by his keen, quick graver, though doubtless it only excited the ire of, and was entirely lost. upon, those who read the paper over their dish of bohea, or over their toilette, while they shifted a patch for.an hour before they could determine it, or regretted the loss of ten guineas at crimp. Cecil Castlemaine was the beauty of the Town: when she sat at Drury Lane on the Tory side of the house, ca hear d of the Heroic Daughter, or the Amorous Widow, and fringed gloves, his medallion snuff box, his knotted cravat, his clouded cane, the slaughter that he planned to do from gaz- ing at her where shesat as though she werereigning sovereign at St. James’s, the Castlemaine diamonds flashing crescent- like above her brow. At church and court, at park and assem- bly, there were none who could eclipse that haughty gentle- woman; therefore her fond women friends who hadcaressed her so warmly and so gracefully, and pulled her to pieces behind her back, if they could, so eagerly over their dainty cups of tea in an afternoon visit, were glad, one and all, when on “ Barnabybright,” Anglice, the 22d (then the 11th) of June, the great Castlemaine chariot, with its three herons blazoned on its coroneted panels, its laced liveries and gilded har- ness, rolled over. the heavy, ill-made roads down into. the country in almost princely pomp, the peasants pouring out from the wayside cottages to stare at my lord’s coach. : It was said in the town that a portly divine, who wore his scarf as one of the chaplains to the Earl of Castle- maine, had. prattled daiiieta it indisereetly at Child’s of his patron’s politics; that certain cipher letters had assed the Channel inclosed in chocolate cakes as soon as ‘rench goods were again imported after the peace of Utrecht; that gentlemen in high places were strongly sus- pected of mischievous designs against the tranquility of the country and government; that the Earl had, among others, received a friendly hint from a relative in power to absent himself for a while from the court where he was not best trusted, and the town where an incautious word might be picked up and lead to Tower Hill, and amuse himeelf at _ his goodly castle of Lilliesford, where the red deer would not spy upon him, and the dark beechwoods would tell no tales. And the ladies of quality, her dear friends and sisters, were glad when they heard it as they punted at basset and flut- tered their fans complacently. They would have the field for themselves, for a season, while Cecil Castlemaine was immured in her manor of Lilliesford; would be free of her beauty to eclipse them at the next birthday, be quit of their most dreaded rival, their most omnipotent leader of fashion ; and they rejoiced at the whisper of the cipher letter, the damaging gossipry of the Whig coffee-houses, the bad repute into which my Lord Earl had grown at St. James’s, at the misfortune of their friend—in a word, as human nature, mas- culine or feminine, will ever do—to its shame be it spoken— unless the fomes peccati be more completely wrung out of it than it ever has been since the angel Gabriel performed that work of purification on the infant Mahomet. | It was the June of the year ’15, and the coming disaffec- tion was seething and boiling secretly among the Tories; the impeachment of Ormond and Bolingbroke had strength- ened the distaste tothe new-come Hanoverian pack, their attainder had been the blast of air needed to excite the smoldering wood to flame, the gentlemen of that party in the South began to grow impatient of the intrusion of the distant German branch, to think lovingly of the old legiti- mate line, and to feel something of the chafing irritation of the gentlemen of the North, who were fretting like stag- hounds held in leash. Envoys passed to and fro between St. Germain, and Ja- cobite nobles, priests of the church who had fallen out of favor and were typified as the Scarlet Woman by 2@ rival who, though successful, was still bitter, plotted with ecclesi- astical relish in the task; letters were conveyed in rolls of innocent lace, plans were forwarded in frosted confections, messages were passed in invisible cipher that defied investi- gation. The times were dangerous; full of plot and coun- terplot, of risk and danger, of fomenting projects and hidden disaffection—times in which men, living habitually over mines, learned to like the uncertainty, and to think life fla- vorless without the chance of losing it any hour; and things being in this state, the Earl of Castlemaine deemed it pru- dent to take the counsel of his friend in power, and retire from. London for a while, perhaps for the safety of his own person, perhaps for the advancement of his cause, either of

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CECIL CASTLEMAINES GAGE. which were easier insured at his seat in the western counties than amidst the Whigs of the capital. The castle of Lilliesford was bowered in the thick woods of the western counties, a giant pile built by Norman ma- sons. Troops of deer herded under the gold-green beechen boughs, the sunlight glistened through the aisles of the trees, and quivered down on to the thick moss, and ferns, and tangled grass that grew under the park woodlands; the water-lilies clustered on the river, and the swans “ float- ed double; swan and shadow,” under the leaves that ewept into the water; then, when Cecil Castlemaine came down to share her father’s retirement, as now, when her name and titles on the gold plate of a coffin that lies with others of her race in the mausoleum across the park, where winter snows and summer sun-rays are alike to those who sleep within, is all that tells at Lilliesford of the loveliest woman of her time who once reigned there as mistress, The. country was in its glad green midsummer beauty, ani the musk-rosebuds bloomed in profuse luxuriance over the chill marble of the terraces, and scattered their delicate odorous petals in fragrant showers on the sward of the lawns, when Cecil Castlemaine came down to what she termed her exile. The morning was fair and cloudless, its sunbeams piercing through the darkest glades in the wood- lands, the thickest shroud of the ivy, the deepest-hued pane of the mullioned» windows, as she passed down the great staircase where lords and gentlewomen of her race gazed on her from the canvas of Lely and Jamesone, Bourdain and Vandyke, crossed the hall with her dainty step, so stately yet so light, and standing by the window of her own bower- room, was lured out on to the terrace overlooking the west side of the park. She made such a picture as Vandyke would have liked to paint, with her golden glow upon her, and the musk-roses clustering about her round the pilasters of marble—the white, chill marble to which Belamour and many other of her lovers of the court and town had often likened her. Van- dyke would have lingered lovingly on the hand that rested on her stag-hound’s head, wold: have caught her air of court-like grace.and dignity, would have painted with de- lighted fidelity:-her deep azure eyes, her proud brow, her delicate lips arched ‘haughtily like a cupid’s bow, would have ore out every fold of ‘her sweeping train, every play of ight on her silken skirts, every dainty tracery of her point- lace. Yet even painted by Sir Anthony, that perfect master of art and elegance, though more finished, it could have hardly been more faithful, more instinct with grace, and _. life, and dignity, than a sketch drawn of her shortly after that time by one who loved her well, which is still hanging in the gallery at Lilliesford, lighted up by the afternoon sun when it streams in through the western windows. Cecil Castlemaine stood on the terrace looking over the lawns and gardens through the opening vistas of meeting boughs and interlaced leaves to the woods and hills beyond, fused in a soft mist of green and purple with her hand lying carelessly on her hound’s fened head. She was a zealous Tory, @ skilled politician, and her thoughts were busy with the hopes and fears, the chances for and against, of a cause , that lay near her heart, but whose plans were yet immature, whose first blow was yet unstruck, and whose well-wishers were sanguine of a suceess they had not yet hazarded, though they hardly ventured.to whisper to each other their previous designs and desires. Her thoughts were far away, and she hardly heeded the beauty round her, musing on schemes and projects dear to her party, that would. imperil the Castlemaine coronet, but would serve the only royal pee the Castlemaine line had ever in their hearts acknowl- edged. © he had regretted leaving the Town, moreover; a leader of the mode, a wit, a woman of the world, she missed her ac- customed sphere; she was no pastoral Phyllis, no country- born Mistress Fiddy, to pass her time in provincial pleasures, in | cordial waters, in tending her beau-pots, in pre- serving her fallen rose-leaves, in inspecting the confections in the still-room ; as little was she able, like many fine ladies when in similar exile, to while it away by scolding her tire- woman, and sorting a suit of ribbons, in ordering a set of gilded leather hangings from Chelsea for the state chambers, and yawning over chocolate in her bed till mid-day. She regretted leaving the Town, not for Belamour, nor Argent, nor any of those who vainly hoped, as they glanced at the little mirror in the lids of their snuff-boxes, that they might have graven themselves were it ever so faintly, in her thoughts; but for the wits, the pleasures, the choice clique, the accustomed circle to which she was so used, the courtly, brilliant town-life where she was wont to reign. So she stood on the terrace the first morning of her exile, her thoughts far away, with the loyal gentlemen of the North, and the banished court at St. Germain, the lids drooping proudly over her haughty eyes, and her lips half roe witha faint smile of triumph in the visions lmned y ambition and imagination, while the wind softly stirred the rich lace of her bodice, and her fingers lay lightly, yet firmly, on the head of her stag-hound. She looked up at last as she heard the ring of a horse’s hoofs, and saw a sorrel, covered with dust and foam, spurred up the avenue, which, rounding past the terrace, swept on to the front entrance ; the sorrel looked wellnigh spent, and his rider somewhat worn and languid, as a man might do with justice who had been in boot and saddle twenty-four hours at the stretch, scarce stopping for a stoup of wine; but he lifted his hat, and bowed down to his saddle-bow as he passed her. ‘‘ Was it the long-looked-for messenger with definite news from St. Germain?” wondered Lady Cecil, as her hound gave out a deep-tongued bay of anger at the stranger. . She went back into her bower-room, and toyed absently with her flowered handkerchief, broidering a stalk toa violet- leaf, and wondering what additional hope the horseman might have brought to strengthen the good Cause, till her servants brought word that his Lordship prayed the plea- sure of her presence in the octagon-room. Whereat» she rose, and swept through the long corridors, entered the octagon-room, the sunbeams gathering about her rich dress as they passed through the stained-glass oriels, and saluted the new-comer, when her father presented him to her as their trusty and welcome friend and envoy, Sir Fulke Ravens- worth, with her careless dignity and queenly grace, that nameless air which was too highly bred to be condescention, but markedly and proudly repelled familiarity, and signed a pale of distance beyond which none must intrude. The new-comer was @ tall and handsome man, of noble presence, bronzed by foreign suns, pale and jaded just now with hard riding, while his dark silver-laced suit was splashed and covered with dust; but as he bowed low to her, critical Cecil Castlemaine saw that not Belamour him- self could have better grace, not my Lord Millamont court- lier mien or whiter hands, and listened with gracious air to what her father unfolded to her of his mission from St. Ger- main, whither he had. come, at great personal risk, in many disguises, and at breathless pees to place in their hands a recious letter in cypher from James Stuart to his well- beloved and loyal subject Herbert George, Earl of Castle- maine. A letter spoken of with closed doors and in low whispers, loyal as was the household, supreme as the Earl ruled over his domains of Lilliesford, for these were times when men mistrusted those of their own blood, and when the very figures on the tapestry seemed instinct with life to | spy and betray—when they almost feared the silk that tied a missive should babble of its contents, and the hound that slept beside them should read and tell their thoughts. o leave Lilliesford would be danger to the Envoy and danger to the Cause; to stay as guest was to disarm suspi- cion. ‘The messenger who had brought such priceless news must rest within the shelter of his roof; too much were risked by returning to the French coast yet a while, oreven _ by joining Mar or Derwentwater, so the Karl enforced his wil upon the Envoy, and the Envoy thanked him and accepted. _ Perchance the beauty, whose ae he had seen lighten and proud brow flush as she read the royal greeting and 7

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4 CECIL CASTLEMAINE’S GAGE. — Qe C—C--r—OSssi Ci injunction, made a sojourn near her presence not distaste- ful; perchance he cared little where he stayed till the drawing time of action and of rising should arrive, when he should take the field and fight till life or death for the “White Rose and the long heads of hair.” He was a sol- dier of fortune, a poor gentleman with no patrimony but his name, no chance of distinction save by his sword; sworn to a cause Whose star was set forever; for many years his life lad been of changing adventure and shifting chances, now tighting with Berwick at Almanza, now risking his life im some delicate and dangerous errand for James Stuart that could not have been trusted so well to any other officer about St. Germain; gallant to rashness, yet with much of the ac- umen of the diplomatist, he was invaluable to his Court and Cause, but, Stuart-like, men-like, they hastened to employ, but ever forgot to reward ! Lady Cecil missed her town-life, and did not over-favor her exile in the western counties. To note down on her Mother’s tablets the drowsy homilies droned out by the chaplain on a Sabbath noon, to play at crambo, to talk with her tirewomen of new washes for the skin, to pass her hours away in knotting ?—she, whom Steele might have writ of when he drew his character of Hudowia, could wile her ex- ile with none of these insanities; neither could she consort with gentry who seemed to her a little better than the boors ofa country wake, who had never heard of Mr. Spectator and knew nothing of Mr. Cowley, countrywomen whose ambition was in their cowslip wines, fox-hunters more ignor- ant and uncouth than the dumb brutes they followed. Who was there for miles around with whom she could stoop to associate, with whom she cared to exchange a word ? Madam from the vicarage, in her grogram, learned in syrups, slaves, and possets ? Country Lady Bountifals, with gossip of the village and the poultry-yard? Provincial Peeresses, who had never been to London since Queen Anne’s corona- tion? A squirearchy, who knew of no music save the con- cert of the stop-hounds, no court save the court of the coun- ty assize, no literature unless by miracle ’t were ‘Tarleton’s Jests? None such as these could cross the inlaid oak par- = of Lilliesford, and be ushered into the presence of Cecil astlemaine. | So the presence of the Chevalier’s messenger was not alto- gether unwelcome and distasteful to her. She saw him but lit- tle, merely st at table with him with that distant and dignified courtesy which marked her out from the light, free, inconsequent manners in voge with other women of quality of her time; the air which had chilled half the softest things even on Belamour’s lips, and kept the vainest coxcomb hesi- tating and abashed. But by degrees she observed that the Envoy was a man who had lived in many countries and in many courts, was well versed in the tongues of France and Italy and Spain— in their belles-lettres, too, moreover—and had served his apprenticeship to good company in the salons at Versailles, in the audience-room of the Vatican, at the receptions. of the Duchess du Maine, and with the banished tamily at St. Germain. He spoke with a high and sanguine spirit of the troublous times approaching and the beloved Cause whose crisis was at hand, which chimed in with her humor better than the flippancies of Belamour, the airy nothings of Millamont. e was but a soldier of fortune, @ poor gentleman who, named to her in the town, would have had never a word, and would have been unnoted amidst the crowding beaux who clustered round to hold her fan and hear how she had been pleasured with the drolleries of Grief a la Mode. But down in the western counties she deigned to listen to the Prince’s officer, to smile—a smile beautiful when it came on her proud lips, as the play of light on the opals,of her jeweled stomacher—nay, even to be amused when he spoke of the women of aie courts, to be interested when he told which was but reluctantly, of his own perils, escapes, and adventures, to discourse with him, riding home under the beech avenues from hawking, or standing on the western terrace at curfew to watch the sunset, of many things on which the nobles of the Mall and the gentlemen about St James’s had never been allowed to share her opinions, . For Lady Cecil was deeply read (unusually deeply tor her day, since fine ladies of her rank and fashion mostly contented themselves with skimming a romance of Scuderi’s,oran act of Aurungzebe); but she rarely spoke of those things, save perchance now and then to Mr. Addison. Fulke Ravensworth never flattered her, moreover, and flattery was a honeyed confection of which she had long been cloyed; he even praised bo dly before her other women of beauty and grace whom he had: seen at Versailles, at Sceaux, and at St. Germain; neither did he defer to her per- petually, but where he differed would combat her sentiments courteously but firmly. Though a soldier and a man of action, he had an admirable skill at the limner’s: art; could read to her the Divina Commedia, or the comedies of Lope. da’ Vega, and transfer crabbed Latin and abstruse Greek. into elegant English for her pleasures, and though a beggared . — of most precarious fortunes, he weuld speak of ife and its chances, of the Cause and its perils, with a daring which she found preferable to the lisped languor of the men of the town, who had no better campaigns than laying siege to a prude, cared tor no other weapons than their toilettes and snuff-boxes, and sought no: other excitement than a. coup @ eclat with the lion-tumblers.. . On the whole, through these long midsummer days, Lady Cecil found the Envoy from St. Germain: a companion that did not suit her ill, sought less the solitude of her bower- room, and listened graciously to him in the long twilight hours, while the evening dews gathered in the cups of the musk-roses, and the star-rays began to quiver on: the water- lilies floating on the river below, that murmured along, with endless song, under the beechen-boughs. A certain softness stole over her, relaxing the cold hauteur of which Belamourhad so often complaincd, giving a nameless charm, supplying @ nameless something, lacl:ing before,in the beauty of The Castlemaine. : She would stroke, half sadly, the smooth feathers of he tartaret falcon Gabrielle when Fulke Ravensworth brought her the bird from the ostreger’s wrist, with its azure velvet hood, and silver bells and jesses. She would wonder, as she glanced through Corneille or Congreve, Philips or Petrarca, what it was, this passion of love, of which they all treated, on which they all turned, no matter how different their strain. And now and then would come over her cheek and brow a faint fitful wavering flush, delicate and changing as the flush from the rose-hued reflections of western clouds on a statue of Pharos marble, and then she would start and rouse herself, and wonder what she ailed, and gor once more haughty, calm, stately, dazzling, but chill as the Castlemaine diamonds that she wore. So the summer-time: passed, and the autumn came, the | corn-lands brown with harvest, the hazel-copses strewn with fallen nuts, the beech-leaves turning into reddened gold. As the wheat ripened but to meet the sickle, as the nuts grew but to fall, as the leaves turned to gold but to wither, so the sanguine hopes, the fond ambitions of men, strengthened and matured only to fade into disappoint- ment and destruction! Four months had sped by since the Prince’s messenger had come to Lilliesford—months that had gone swiftly with him as some sweet delicious dream; and the time had come when he had orders to ride north, secretly and. swiftly, speak with Mr. Forster and other gentlemen concerned in the meditated rising, and convey despatches and instructions to the Karl of Mar; for Prince James was projecting soon to join his loyal adherents in Scotland, and the critical moment was close at hand, the moment when, to Fulke Ravensworth’s high and sanguine courage, victory seemed certain; fail- ure, if no treachery marred, no dissension weakened, im- possible; the moment to which he. looked for honor, suc- cess, distinction, that should. give him claim and title to aspire—ohere ? : shrank from drawing his fancied future out from the golden haze of immature hope, lest he should see it wither upom ' oO Strong man, cool soldier though he was, he = a

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-_—— ee — i — = = tl — _———— _in every line of her delicate face, and stoppe would have spoken. infinite daring, presumption that merits —— —— — room, the red light of the October sun. glittering on her gold-broidered. skirt and her corsage sewn with opals and emeralds; her hand was pressed hghtly on her bosom, as though some pain were throbbing there ; it wasnew this un- rest, this weariness, this vague weight that hung upon her; it was the perils of their Cause, she teld herself; the risks her father ran: it. was weak, childish, unworthy a Castle- maine! Still the pain throbbed there. _ Her. hound, asleep. beside her, raised his head with a low growl as.a step intruded. on the sanctity of the. bower-room, then composed himself again to slumber, satisfied it was no foe... His mistress turned slowly; she knew the. horses waited; . she had shunned this ceremony of farewell, and never thought any would be bold enough to venture here without, permission sought and gained. “Lady Cecil, [ could not go apen my way without one word of parting, Pardon me if Lhave been. too rash. to seek it here.” Why was, it that his brief frank words ever pleased her better than Belamour’s most honeyed phrases, ‘Millamont’s suavest periods? She searcely could have told, save that there were in them an earnestness and truth new and rare to her ear and to her heart. She pressed her hand closer on the opals—the jewels, of calamity—and smiled : . Assuredly I wish you God speed, Sir Fulke, and safe is- sue from all. perils.” ) He bowed low; then raised himselfto his. fullest height, and stood beside. her, watching the light. play upon the opals : ue That. is all you vouchsafe me ?” “ Au? It is as much as you would claim, sir, is it not? It. is more than I would say to many.” _* Your pardon—it 7s more than I should claim if prudence were ever by, if reason always ruled! I have .no right to ask for, seek for, even wish for, more; such, petitions. may only be adressed by men, of wealth and of high title ; aland- less. soldier should have no pride.to sting,’ no heart to wound ; they are the prerogative of a happier fortune.” der ups turned white,.but she answered haughtily; the crimson light flashing in her jewels, heirlooms priceless and __hereditary, like her beauty. and her pride : “ This. is. strange, language, sir ! I fail to apprehend you.” i “ You have neverthought that I ran a danger deadlier _ than that.which I have ever. risked on any field ?. You have _ mever guessed that I have had the madness, the presump- Pas he crime—it may be in your eyes—to love you.” ~The color flushed to her face, crimsoning even her_ brow, and. then fled back. Her first instinct was insulted pride—a beggared gentleman a landless soldier, spoke to:her of love! —of love !—which Belamour had barely had courage. to whisper of; which none had dared to sue of her in return. » He had ventured to fee) this for her! he had; ventured to speak of this to her! The Enyoy saw the rising resentment, the ree spoken er as.she You. think it know all you would reply. highest. re- « Wait ! proot- iA m Since you divined 80 justly, it were pity you subjected yourself and me to this most useless, most unexpected inter- view. Wh —”’ “ Why ? . Because, perchance, in this life you will see my face no more, and you will think gently, mercifully of my se (if offense it be to love you more than life, and only Oause, with your name in my heart, held only the dearer be- canse never on my lips! Sincere love can be no insult to a ee than honor), when you know that I have fallen for the CEGIL CASTLEMAINE’S GAGE. | 5 te EL A — tii heh TT i CL OC OC OT a A CE Cecil Castlemaine stood in the erimson glory of. the au- tumn sunset, her head erect, her pride unshaken, but her heart stirred strangely and unwontedly. It smote the one with bitter pain, to think a penniless exile should thus dare to speak of what princes and dukes had almost feared to whisper ; what had she done—what had she said, to give him Geanis for such liberty ? It stirred the other with a tremulous warmth, a vague, sweet pleasure, that were never visitants there before; but that she scouted instantly as weakness, folly, debasement, in the Last of the Castle- maines. He saw well enough what passed within her, what made her eyes so troubled, yet her brow and lips so proudly set, and he bent nearer toward her, the great love that Was in him trembling in his voice : | “Lady Cecil, hear me! If in the coming struggle Lwin distinction, honor, rank—if victory come to us, and the King we serve remember me in his prosperity as he does now in his adversity—if I ean meet you hereafter with, tid- ings of triumph and success, my name made one which Eng- land breathes with praise and pride, honors gained such, as even you will deem worthy of your line—then—then—will you let me speak of what you refuse to hearken to now— then may I come to you, and seek a gentler answer?” |. She looked for a moment upon his face, as it bent toward her in the radiance of the sunset light, the hope that hopes all things glistening in his eyes, the high-souled daring of a gallant oe sanguine spirit flushing his forehead, the loud throbs of his heart audible in the stillness around; and her proud eyes grew softer, her lips quivered for an instant... oe she turned toward him with queenly grace; 6< es Bis It was spoken with stately dignity, though searce above her A a the hue that aad in oe cheek was but the lovelier, for the pride that. would not let her eyes droo nor her tears rise, would. not let her utter one softer word. That one word cost her much. That. single utterance, was much from Cecil Castlemaine. | Her handkerchief lay at her feet, a delicate, costly toy, of lace, embroidered. with her shield and chiftre; he stooped and raised it, and thrust it in his breast to treasure it there. “ Tf I fail, I.send this back.in .token that I renounce all hope; if Lcan. come to you with honor and with. fame, this shall. be my gage;that. I may speak, that you will listen ?” She bowed her noble head. ever heldhaughtily, as though every crown of Kurope had a right to circle it; his hot lips lingered for a moment on. her hand; then Cecil Castlemaine stood alone in the window of her bower-room, her hand pressed again ;upon the .opals under which her heart was heating with a dull, weary pain, looking, out oyer the land- scape, where. the golden leaves were falling fast, and the river, tossing sadly.dead branches on its waves, was. be- moaning in plaintive language the summer days gone by.. Two months came and went, the beech boughs, black and sear, creaked in the bleak December winds. that gred through frozen. ferns and over the couches of shivering deer, the snow. drifted up on the marble terrace, and icedrops clung where the warm rosy petals of the musk rosebuds had nestled, Across the country came. terrible whispers that struck the. hearts .of men of loyal faith to the White Rose with a bolt of ice-cold terror and despair. | Messengers nid- ing in,hot, haste, open-mouthed peasants gossiping by the village forge, horsemen who tarried for a breathless rest at alehouse doors, Whig divines who returned thanks for God’s most pracions mercy.in vouchsafing victory to the strong, all told the tale, all spread the news of the drawn battle of Sheriff-Muir, of the surrender under Preston walls, of the flight of Prince James. The tidings came one by one to Lil- liesford, where my Lord Earl was holding himself in readi- ness. to co-operate with the gentlemen of the North to set up the royal standard, broidered by his daughter’s hands, in the western counties, and proclaim James TIL sovereign lord and king of the realms of Great Britan and Ireland.”

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6 CECIL CASTLEMAINE’S GAGE. en ee ee The tidings came to Lilliesford, and Cecil Castlemaine clenched her white jeweled hands in passionate anguish that a Stuart should have fled before the traitor of Argyll, instead of dying with his face toward the rebel crew; that men had lived who could choose surrender instead of heroic death ; that she had not been there, at Preston, to shame them with a woman’s reading of courage and of loyalty, and show them how to fall with a doomed city rather than yield captive to a foe ! Perhaps amidst her grief for her Prince and for his cause mingled—as the deadliest thought of all—a memory of a bright proud face, that had bent toward her with tender love nt touching grace a month before, and that might now be lying ale and cold, turned upward to the winter stars, on the field of Sheriff-Muir. A year rolled by. Twelve months had fled sinee the gild- ed carriage of the Castlemaines, with the lordly blazonment upon its panels, its princely retinue and stately pomp, had come down into the western counties. The bones were crumbling white in the coffins in the Tower, and the skulls over Temple Bar had bleached white in winter snows and springtide suns; Kenmuir had gone to a sleep that knew no wakening, and Derwentwater had laid his fair young head down for a thankless cause; the heather bloomed over the mounds of dead on the plains of Sheriff-Muir, and the yel- low gorse blossomed under the re walls of Preston. Another summer had dawned, bright and laughing, over England; none the less fair for human lives laid down, for human hopes crushed out; daisies powdering the turf sodden with human blood, birds carolling their song over graves of heaped up dead. The musk-roses tossed their delicate heads again amidst the marble pilasters, and the hawthorn boughs shook their fragraat buds into the river at Lilliesford, the purple hills lay wrapped in sunny mist, and hyacinth bells mingled with the tangled grass and fern under the woodland shadés, where the red deernestled happily. Herons plumed their silvery wings down by the water side, swallows circled in sultry air above the great bell tower, and wood pigeons cooed with soft love notes among the leafy branches. Yet the Countess of Castlemaine, last of her race, sole owner of the lands that spread around her, stood on the rose terrace, ‘finding no Joy in the sunlight about her, no melody in the ae of the birds. She was the last of her name; her father, broken-hearted -at the news from Dumblain and Preston, had died the very day after his lodgment in the Tower. There was no heir male of his line,and the title had passed to his daughter; there had been thoughts of confiscation and attainder, but others, unknown to her, solicited what she scorned to ask for herself, and the greed of the hungry “Hanoverian pack” spared the lands and the revenues of Lilliesford. In haughty pride, in lonely mourning, the fair- est beauty of the Court and Town withdrew again to the solitude of her western counties, and tarried there, dwelling amidst her women and her almost regal household, in the sacred golitude of grief, wherein none might intrude. ‘Proud Cecil Castlemaine was yet prouder than of yore; alone, sorrowing for her ruined Cause and exiled King, she would hold converse with none of those who had had a hand in drawing down the disastrous fate she mourned, and only her staghound could have seen the weariness upon her face when she bent down to him, or Gabrielle the falcon felt her hand tremble when it stroked her folded ee oo She stood on the terrace, looding over her spreading lands, not the water-lilies on the river below whiter than her lips, pressed painfully together. Perhaps she repented of certain words, spoken to one whom now she would never again behold—perhaps she thought of that delicate toy that was to have been brought back in victor and hope, that now might lie stained and stiffened wit blood nexé a lifeless heart, for never & word in the twelve months gone by had there come to Lilliesford as tidings of Falke Ravensworth. Her pride was dear to her, dearer than aught else; she “had spoken as was her right to speak, she had done what be- came & Castlemaine; it would have been weakness to have acted otherwise ; what was he—a landless soldier—that he should have dared as he had dared? Yet the sables she wore were not solely for the dead Earl, not solely for the lost Stuarts the hot mists that would blind the eyes of Cecil Castlemaine, as hours swelled to days, and days to months, and she—the flattered beauty of the Court and Town— stayed in self-chosen solitude in her halls of Lilhesford, still unwedded and unwon. The noon-hours chimed from the bell-tower, and the sunny beauty of the morning but weighed with heavier sad- ness on her heart; the song of the birds, the busy hum of the gnats, the joyous ring of the silver bell round her pet fawn’s neck, as it darted from her side under the drooping boughs—none touched an answering chord of gladness in her. She stood looking ever her stretching woodlands in deep thought, so deep that she heard no step over the lawn beneath, nor saw the frightened rush of the deer, as a boy, crouching among the tangled ferns, sprang up from his hid- ing-place under the beechen branches, and stood on the ter- race before her, craving her pardon in childish, yet fearless tones. She turned, bending on him that glance which had made the over-bold glance of princes fall abashed. ‘The boy was but a little tatterdemalion to have ventured thus ab- a into the presence of the Countess of Castlemaine ; still it was with some touch of a page’s grace that he bowed before her. “Lady, I crave your pardon, but my master bade me watch for you, though I watched till midnight.” “Your master ?” A flush, warm as that on the leaves of the musk-roses, rose to her face for an instant, then faded as suddenly. The boy did not notice her words, but went on in an eager whis- er, glancing anxiously round, as a hare would glance fear- ing the huuters. “ And told me when I saw you not to 8 his name, but only to give you this as his gage, that though all else is lost he has not forgot Ais honor nor your will.” Cecil Castlemaine spoke no word, but she stretched out her hand and took it—her own costly toy of cambrie and lace, with her broidered shield and coronet. | “Your master! Then—he lives?” “Lady, he bade me say no more. You have his mes- sage; I must tell no further.” ji She laid her hand upon his shoulder, a light, snow- white hand, yet one that held him now in a clasp of steel. “ Child! answer me at your peril! ‘Tell me of him whom you call your master. Tell me all—quick—quick !”- “ You are his friend ?” | | c “His friend? My Heaven! Speak on!’ ue “He bade me tell no more on peril of his heaviest anger ; but if you are his friend, I sure may speak what you shonld know without me. It is a poor friend, lady, who has need to ask whether another be dead or living!” The scarlet blood flamed in the Countess’ blanched fare, she signed him on with impetuous command; she was un- used oo disobedience, and the child’s words cut her to the uic * Sir Fulke sails for the French coast to-morrow night,” the boy went on, in tremulous haste. “He was left for dead—our men ran one way, and Argyll’s men the other— on the field of Sheriff-Muir; and sure if he had not been strong indeed, he would have died that awful night, untended, on the bleak moor, with the winds rearing round him, and his life ebbing away. He was not one of those who fled; you know that of him if you know aught. We got him away before dawn, Donald and I, and hid him in a shieling; he was in the fever then, and knew nothing that was done to him, only he kept that bit of lace in his hand for | weeks and weeks, and would not let us stir it from his grasp. What magic there was in it we wondered often, but t?was a magic, mayhap, that got him well at last; it was an even chance but that he’d died, God bless him! though we did what best we could. We’ve been wandering in the High- lands all the year, hiding here and tarrying there, Sir Fulke

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‘and wild hyacinths-were damp wit - * ee ee gi Cae - — LITTLE GRAND AND ‘sets no count upon his life. Sure I think he thanks us little fos ‘getting him through the fever of the wounds, but he could not have borne to be pinioned, you know, lady, like a thief, and hung up by the brutes of Whigs, as a butcher hangs sheep in the shambles! The worst of the danger’s over— +hey ve had their fill of the emit et but we sail to-mor- ..W night for the French coast—England’s no place for my master.” Cecil Castlemaine let up her hold upon the boy, and her hand closed convulsively upon the dainty handkerchief—her e sent so faithfully back to her! e child looked upon her face; perchance, in his master’s delirium, he had caught some knowledge of the story that hung that. broidered toy. “Tf you are his friend, madame, doubtless you have some last word to send him ?” Cecil Castlemaine, whom nothing moved, whom nothing softened, bowed her head at the simple question, her heart wrestling sorely, her lips set together in unswerving pride, a mist before her haughty eyes, the broidered shield upon her handkerchief—the. shield of her stately and unyielding race —pressed close against her breast. ‘You have no word for him, lady ?” Her lips parted; she signed him away. Was this child to see her yielding to such weakness? Had she, Countess of Castlemaine, no better pride, no better strength, no better power of resolve, than this ? The boy lingered. “JT will tell Sir Fulke then, lady, that the ruimed have no friends ?” . Whiter and prouder still grew the delicate beauty of her face; she raised her stately head, haughtily as she had used to glance over a glittering Court, where each voice murm praise of her loveliness and reproach of her cold- . ness; and placed the fragile toy of lace back in the boy’s hands. “Go, seek your master, and give him this in gage that their calamity makes friends more dear to us than their suc- cess. Go, he will know its meaning!” In place of the noon chimes the curfew was ringing from the bell-tower, the swallows were gone to roost amidst the ivy, and the herons slept with their heads under their silvery wings among the rushes by the riverside, the ferns evening dew, and the summer starlight glistened amidst the quivering woodland Jeaves. There was the silence of coming night over the vast forest glades, and no sound broke the stillness, save the song of the grasshopper stirring the tangled grasses, or the} sweet low sigh of the west wind fanning the bells of the flowers. Cecil Castlemaine stood once more on the rose- terrace, shrouded in the dense twilight shade flung from above by the beech-boughs, waiting, listening, catching every rustle of the leaves, every tremor of the heads of the ‘roses, yet hearing nothing in the stillness around but the quick, uncertain throbs of her heart beating like the wing of a oe bird under its costly lace. Pride was forgotten at length, and she only remembered—fear and love. In the silence and the solitude came a ms, “pay she knew, came a presence that she felt. She bowed her head upon her hands; it was new to her this weakness, this terror, this anguish of joy; she sought to calm herself, to steel herself, to summon back her brid: her strength ; she scorned herself for it all! His hand touched ros his voice fell on her ear once more, r, breathless, broken. ‘ Oe Cecil Cecil! is this true? Is my ruin thrice blessed, or am I mad and dream of heaven ?” ~ She lifted her head and looked at him with her old proud glance, her lips trembling with words that all her pride could not summon into speech; then her eyes filled with warm, bhnding tears, and softened to new beauty—scarce Jouder than the sigh of the wind among the flower-bells ame her words to Fulke Ravensworth’s ear, as her royal head bowed on his breast. THE MARCHIONESS. 6 “Stay, stay! Or, if _ fly, your exile shall be my exile, your danger my danger !” : The kerchief is a treasured heirloom to her descendants now, and fair women of her race who inherit from her her azure eyes and her queenly grace, will recall how the proudest Countess of their Line loved a ruined gentleman so well that she was wedded to him at even, in her private chapel, at the hour of his greatest peril, his lowest fortune, and went with him across the seas till friendly intercession in high places gained them royal permission ‘to dwell again at Lilhesford unmolested. And how it was ever noticeable to those who murmured at her coldness and her pride, that Cecil Castlemaine, cold and negligent as of yore to all the world beside, would seek her husband’s smile, and love to meet his eyes, and cherish her beauty for his ‘sake, and be restless in his absence, even for the short span of a day, with a softer and more clinging tenderness than was found in many weaker, many humbler women. ) They are gone now the men and women of that genera- tion, and their voices came only to us through the taint echo of their written words. In summer nights the old beech trees toss their leaves in the silvery light ofthe stars, and the river flows on unchanged, with the ceaseless, mournful bur- den of its mystic song, the same now as in mid-summer of a century and a half ago. The cobweb handkerchief lies be- fore me with its broidered shield; the same’ now as long years since, when it was treasured close in a soldier’s breast, and held by him dearer than all save his liquor and his word. So things pulseless and passionless endure, and hu- man life passes away as swiftly as a song dies off from the air—as quickly succeeded, and as quickly forgot ! Ronsard’s refrain is the refrain of our lives; y £8, Eo Le temps s’en va, le temps;s’en va, ma dame ! f, Las ! le temps, non ; mais nows nous, en allons ! Se er LITTLE GRAND AND THE MARCHIONESS; — OR, py OUR MALTESE PEERAGE. Att first things are voted the best; first kisses, first toga virilis, first hair of the first whisker ; first speeches are often so superior that menbers subside after making them, | of eclipsing themselves; first money won ° at play must al- ways be the best, as it is always the dearest bought; and first wives are always so super-excellent, that, if a man lose one, he is generally as fearful of hazarding the second as a trout of biting twice. ay ie But of all first things commend me to one’s first uniform. No matter that we get sick of harness, and get into mutti as soon as we can now; there is no more exquisite pleasure than the first sight of one’s self in’ shako and sabrestache How we survey ourselves in the glass, and ring for hot water, that the handsome housemaid may see us in all our glory, and lounge accidentally into our sister’s schoolroom, that the governess, who is nice looking and rather flirty, ma go down on the spot before us and our scarlet and old, chains and buttons! One’s first uniform! Oh! the exqui- site sensation locked up for us in that first box from Sagna- relli, or Bond street ! I remember my first uniform. I was eighteen—as raw a young cub as you could want to see. I had not been licked into shape by a public school, whose tongue may be rough, but cleans off grievances and nonsense better than anything else. I had been in that hotbed of effeminacy, Church principles and weak tea, a Private Tutor’s, where mamma’s darlings are wrapped up, and stuffed with 4 little Terence and Horace to show d at home ; and upon my life 1 do believe my sister Julia, aged thirteen, was more wide awake and up to life than I was, when the governor, an old rector, who always put me in mind of the Vicar of Wakefield, got me gazetted to as crack a corps as any in the Line. ads The —th (familiarly known in the Service as the “ Dare Devels,” from old Peninsular deeds) were just then at Malta, - Pee WO!” eo. Le ee ee eee SO ee. age as aa

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a ae | - Yl a Fotty “weer ‘ a i Poy: ~t ee J \e , 1 iE . | 7 ” ‘ . _ » 7 x a = “= = _ _— any a 1, , : 7 . d ce a , Pyar = Ti ate Ren bee "7? LITTLE a ee | -_-— —— — and, with, among other. trifles, a chest. protector from my father, and a recipe for milk-arrowroot, from/-my Aunt Ma- tilda who. lived in a.constant state of catarrh and of cure for .the-same,- tumbled: across the, Bay of Biscay, and found my- self-in/ Byron’s ;counfounded “little, military hot-house,”’ where most. military. men, some;timeor other, have roasted themselves to; death, climbing its hilly , streets, flirting with its, Valetta belles, drinking bassin its hot varandas, yawning with.ennui injits palace, cursing its. sirocco, and being done by its Jew sharpers. From.a-private tutor’s to a crack mess,at Malta!—from a convent to.a casino could hardly be a greater change. Just at first, l,.wasas much astray 45. ‘young pup takén into a stubble-field, and wondering .what the deuce he is to do there; buat.as it is a pup’s nature to sniff at birds and start ‘them, so is it a boy’s nature to snatch at. the champagne of life,as soon as he catches sight of it, though, you:may have brought him up on water,from his cradle. I. took to it, at leastlike aretriever to water-duck, though Iwas green enough to, be a first-rate butt for many a day, and the practical jokes i had passed on..me would have) furnished the, Ztmes with food, for, crushers, on “The Shocking State of the Army ” for a twelvemonth... .My chief, friend and ally, tormentor and. initiator, was a_little fellow, Cosmo Grandison; in Ours he was “ Little Grand ” to, everybody, from the Colonel .to the baggage-women... He was. seventeen, and) had joimed about a year... What.a. pretty boy he. was, too! All the fair, ones,in. Valetta, from. his Excellency’s wife to our wash- erwoman, admired that. boy, and,-spoilt him and petted him, and Ido not believe there was a, man. of Ours who would have had heart.to sit in, court-maftial,on Little Grand if he had broken every one of the, Queen’s regulations, and set every General Order at defiance. I think I see him now— he was new'to Malta as I, having just landed with the Dare Devils, én route from India to Portsmouth—as he sat one day on the table in the mess-room‘ascool asa cucumber, in spite of the broiling sunysmoking and swinging his legs, and’ settling, his forage-cap on one side of his head, as pretty-looking, sree impudent a young monkey as ever piqued himself on eing an old hand) and a kiiowing bird not to be caught by any chaff however ingeniously prepared. | ahs, Be an Little Grand ar “St. Johny” first. barba- ‘rized. by Mr. Pope for the convenience of his dactyles. and bi Pere, into Sinjin, being further, barbarized. by this lit- tle imp into Simon)—*“ Simon, do you want, to see the finest .womhan in this. confounded little pepper-box ?, You're no Judge of a woman, though, you. muff—taste been warped, +3 aps, yee constant contemplation of that. virgin Aunt ‘Minerva—Matilda, is it ? all the same.” ; “Hang your chaff,” said L; “you'd make one out a fool” ~. brecisely, my. dear Simon; just what you.are!” re | sponded Little Grand, . pleasantly. ..*‘ Bless. your. heart, Tyr been -engaged to half a, dozen.women since I joined, _A man ‘can hardly help it, you see;:they’ve. such a way re you on, you don’t like to disappoint them, of poor little dears, and so, you, compromise yourself out of sheer beneyolence.. There’s such a,run on a handsome man route! great bore. Sometimes I think I shall shave m head, or do something to disfigure myself, as Spurina did. Poor fellow, I feel for him ! ell, Simon, you. don’t seem curious to know who my beauty: is?” | roe ...fQne of those Mitchell girls of the Twenty-first? You Dhaai with ‘em all_ night; but they’re too tall, for you, MT > wee aalite | “The Mitchell’ irls !” ejaculated he, with supreme scorn, rh | S rkale . Great mappolnt they. go,about.with the Fusileers like)a D208) se yee: On eyery. ball-room, battle-field one’s safe to Bee them flaunting away, and.as everybody has a shot at ’em, their hearts must. be pretty well riddled into. holes by this time, Rae mine’s rather higher game than that,._My moth- er’s brother-in-law’s dunt’s sister’s cousin’s cousin once re- noyed _ was _ Viscount. Twaddle, and I don’t .go anything ‘ower than the eee UY AQP: _..“ What, is it somebody you’ve met.at his Excellency’s ?” _“ Wrong again, beloved Simon, . It’s nobody I’ve met at GRAND AND THE MARCHIONESS ee Qe ee ee —— Eee eee oo oe old: Stars, aud Garters’, though his lady-wife could.no, more do without. me than without. her sal volatile and flirtations. No, she don’t go there; she’s too high for that sort of thing —sick of it. After all the European Courts, Malta must be rather small and slow. I was introduced to her yesterday, and,” continued Little Grand, more solemnly than was_ his wont, “I do assure you she’s superb, divine; and I’m not very easy to please.” orFieg ‘© What’s her name ?” I asked, rather impressed with this view of alady too high for old Stars and Garters, as we ir- reverently termed her Majesty’s representative in her island of Malta... -. | Little Grand took his with more dignity. | “ Her ¢itle, my, dear Simon, is the Marchioness St. Julian.” “Ts that an Higlish peerage, Grand ?” re pipe out of his lips to correct me “Hum! What! Oh yes, of course! What else should it be, you owld” Not being in a condition to decide this point, I was silent, and he went on, growing more impréssive at each hrase ; “She is splendid, really! And Pma very difficile fellow, you know; but such hair, such eyes, one doesn’t see eve day in those sun-dried Mitchells or those little pink Bovil- liers. Well, yesterday, after that confounded ; lunclieon (how I hate all those complimentary « affairs !— one! can’t enjoy the truffle) for talking tothe ladies, nor. ‘enjoy the ladies for discussing the truffles), I ,went for amde with Conran out to Villa Neponte. I left him there, and went down’ to see the overland steamers come in. While I was waiting, I got into talk, somehow’ or ‘other, with a very agreeable, gentleman-liké | fellow, . who ‘asked me if P’d-only just come to: Malta, and. all. that, sort of thing—you know the introductory style of action—til we got quite good friends, and he told me he was livin outside the wretched little hole at: the Casa di ‘Fiori, ar said—wasn’t it civil of him?—said he should be) very happy to sée me if I’d call. any time. He gave me. his card—Lord Adolphus Fitzhervey—and a man with him called him ‘ Dolph.’ «As good luck, had it, my weed went out just. while we were talking, and Fitzhervey was mon- strously pleasant, searched; all over. him. for a. fusee, couldn’t.find'one, and”asked. me to give up with him to the Casa, di Fiori and get a light. .Of course I did, and, he and, 1, and, Guatamara had some..sherbet: and a smoke. together, and then he introduced me to the Marchioness St, Julian, his. sister—by Jove! such a magnificent woman, Simon, yow never, saw.one like her,, Ill wager. She was uncommonly agreeable, too, and such a smile, my boy! .She seemed to like me wonderfully—not rare that, though, you'll, say—and asked. me to, go and take coffe there tonight after. mess, and bring one of my chums wit me; and as I like to show you life, young one, and your taste, wants impreving after Aunt Minerva, you, may come, if, you like, Hallo! there’s Conran.,, I say, don’t tell Aim. I. don’t want any preaching on my manor.” tale Be Conran came inyat that minute ; he was then a Brevet- Major and Captain in Ours, and one of the older men | pe spoilt Little Grand in one way; a8 much as the women. in,another. . He was a fine, powerful fellow, with eyes like an eagle’s, and pluck like a lion’s; he had a ube’? ; and had been, of late more silent and self-reticent than the. other. roistering, debonnair, light hearted. “ Dare Devils ;” but though, perhaps, tired of the wild esca- pades which reputation had once aviributed to him, was always the most lenient to the boy’s monkey tricks, and always the one to whom he went if his larks had cost him too dear, or if he was in a scrape from which he saw no exit, Conran had recently come'in for a good deal of money, and there were few bright eyesin Malta that would not have smiled kindly on him; but he did not cate much for any.of them. There was some talk of a love-affiir before he went to India, that was the cause of his hard- heartedness, though I must say he did not look much like a victim to the grande passion, in my ideas, which were drawa

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LITTLE GRAND AND from valentines and odes in the “ Woman, thou fond and fair deceiver” style; in love that turned its collars down and let its hair go uncut and refused to eat, and recovered with a rapidity proportionate to its ostentation; and I did not know, that if a man has lost his treasure, he may mourn it 80 deeply that he may refuse to run about like Harpagon, cry- ing for his cassette to an audience that only laughs at his miseries. “ Well, young ones,” said Conran, as he came in and threw down his cap and whip, “here you are, spending your hours in pipes and bad wine. What a blessing it is to have a palate that isn’t blase, and that will swallow all wine just because it is wine! That South African goes down with better relish, Little Grand, than you’ll find in Chateau Margaux ten years hence. As soon as one begins to want touching up with olives, one’s real gusto is gone.” “ Hang olives, sir! they’re beastly,” said Little Grand ; “and I don’t care who pretends they’re not. Olives are like sermons and wives, everybody makes a wry face, and would rather be excused ’em, Major; but it’s the custom to call ‘em good things, and so men bolt ’em in complaisance, and while they hate the salt-water flavor, descant on the delli- cious rose taste !” “ Quite true, Little Grand ! but one takes olives to en- hance the wine; and so, perhaps, other men’s sermons make one enjoy one’s racier novel, and other men’s wives make one appreciate one’s liberty still better. Don’t abuse olives; you'll want them figuratively and literally before you’ve done either drinking or living !” “Oh! confound it, Major,” cried Little Grand,” “I do hope and trust aspent ball may have the kindness to double me up and finish me off before then,” “ You’re not philosophic, my boy,” “ Thank Heaven, no!” ejaculated Little Grand, piously. “T’ve an uncle, a véry great philosopher, beats all the sages hollow, from Bion to Buckle, and writes in the Metaphysi- cal Quarterly, but Ill be shot if he don’t spend so much time in trying to puzzle out what life is, that all his has slipped away without his having Uived one bit. When I was staying with him one Christmas, he began boring me with a frightful theory on the non-existence of matter. I couldn’t stand that, so I cut him short, and set him down to the luncheon-fable : and while he was fall swing With a Strasbourg pate and Comet hock, I stopped him and asked - him if, With them in his mouth, he believed in matter or not ? He was shut up, of course; bless your soul, those theorists always are, if you’re down upon ’em with a little fact |” “ Such as a Strasbourg pate?—that 7s an uianswerable argument with most men, [ believe,” said Conran, who liked to hear the boy chatter. ‘“ What are you going to do with yourself to-night, Grand ?” “Tam going to—ar—hum—toa friend of mine,” said Little Grand, less glibly than usual. “ Very well; I only asked, because] would have taken you to Mrs. Fortescue’s with me; they’re having some ty a dig (horrible exertion in this oven of a place, with the thermometer at a hundred and twenty degrees); but if you’ve better sport it’s no matter. Take care what friends you make, though, Grand; you'll findsome Maltese acquaintances very costly.” “Thank you. Ishould say I can take care of myself,” re- ied Little Grand, with immeasurable scorn and dignity. Conran langhed, struck him across the shoulders with his whip, stroked his own mustaches, and went out again whistling one of Verdi’s airs, “T don’t want him bothering, you know,” explained Little Grand; “she’s such a deuced magnificent woman !” She was a magnificent woman, this Rndoxia Adelaida, Marchioness St. Julian; and provd enough Little Grand and ‘I felt when we had that soft, jeweled hand held out to us, ‘and that bewitching smile beamed upon us, and that joyous ‘presence dazzling in our eyes, 48 we sat in the drawing-room of that Casa di Fiori. She was about thirty-five, I should py Soave always worship those who might have been school- ws of their mothers), tall and stately, and imposing, a a ee ee ee. — —i- THE MARCHIONESS. oe % —E— ee with the most beautful pink and white skin, with a fine set of teeth, raven hair, and eyes tinted most exquisitely. Oh! she was magnificent, our Marchioness St. Julian! Into what unutterable insignificance, what. miserable, washed-out shadows sank Stars and Garters’ lady, and the Mitchell girls, and all the belles of La Valetta, whom we hadn’t thought so very bad-looking before. : There was a young creature sitting a little out of the radiance of light, reading; but we had no eyes for anybod except the Marchioness St. Julian. We were in: such high society, too; there was her brother, Lord Adolphus, and his bosom Pylades, the Baron Guatamara; and there was a big fellow, with hooked nose and very curly hair, who was in- troduced to us as the Prince of Orangia Magnolia; and a little wiry fellow, with bits of red and blue ribbon, and a star or two in his button hole, who was M.:le Due de Saint: Jeu. We were quite dazzled with the coruscations of s0 much aristocracy, especially when they talked across to each other—so familiarly, too—of Johnnie (that was Lord Rus- sell), and Pam and “ old Buck” (my godfather Buckingham, Lord Adolphus explained to us), and’ Montpensier and old Joinville; and chatted of when they dined at the Tuileries, and stayed at Compiegne, and hunted at Belvoir, and spent Christmas at Holcombe or Longleat. We were in such high society! How contemptible appeared Mrs, Ma- berly’s and the Fortescue soirees ; how infinitesimally small grew Charlie Ruthven, and Harry Villiers, and Grey and Albany, and all the other young fellows who thought it such great guns to be au mieux with little Graziella, or invited to Sir George Dashaway’s. We were a cut above those things now—rather ! That splendid Marchioness! ‘There was a héad for a ali onet, if youlike! And how benign she was! Grand sat on the couch beside her, and I on an ottoman on her left, and she leaned back in her magnificent toilette, flirting her fan like a Castilian, and flashing upon us her superb eyes from behind it; not speaking very much, but showing her white teeth in scores of heavenly smiles, till Little Grand, the dlaz¢ man of seventeen, and I the raw Moses of private tutelage, both felt that we had never come across anything like this; never, in fact, seen 2 woman worth a glance before. She listened to us—or rather to him; I was too awe- struck to advance much beyond monosy]lables—and laughed at him, and smiled encouragingly on my gaucherie (and when a boy is gauche, how ready he is to worship such a helping hand !), and beamed upon us both with an effulgence compared with which the radiance of Helen, Galatea, ‘Ginone, Messalina, Lais, and all the legendary beauties one reads about, must have been what the railway night-lamps that never burn are to the prismatic luminaries of Cremorne. They were all uncommonly pleasant, all except the girl who was reading, whom they introduced as the Signorina da’ Guari, a Tuscan, and daughter to Orangia Magnolia, with one of those marvelously beautiful faces that one sees in the most splendid painters’ models of the Campagna, who never lifted her head scarcely, though Guatamara and Sauit-Jeu did their best to make her. But all the others were wonderfull: agreeable, and quite jfete’d Little Grand and me, at whic they being more than double our age, and seemingly a, home alike with Belgravia and Newmarket, the Faubourg and the Pytchley, we felt to grow at least a foot each in the aroma of this Casa di Fiori. “This is rather stupid, Doxie,” began Lord Adolphus, addressing his sister; ‘not much entertainment for, our “nine What do yousay toa game of vingt-et-un, eh, Mr. randison ?” Little Grand fixed his blue eyes on the Marchioness, and said he should be very happy, but as for entertainment—/e wanted no other. “No compliments, sit ami,” laughed the Marchioness, with a dainty blow of her fan. “Yes, Dolph, have vingt- et-un, or music, or anything you like. Sing us something Lucrezia.” oe The Italian girl thus addressed looked up with a passion- > ee a ee Pe eee a2 — Oe aa a ee »

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ate, haughty flush, and answered, with wonderfully little courtesy I considered, “ I shall not sing to-night.” ‘** Are you unwell, fairest friend ?” asked the Duc de Saint- Jeu, bending his little wiry figure over her. She shrank away from him, and drew back, a hot color in her cheeks. “Signore, I did not address you.’’ The Marchioness looked angry, if those devine eyes could look anything so mortal. However, she shrugged her shoulders. | “ Well, my dear Lucrezia, we can’t make you sing, of course, if you won't. I, for my. part, always do any little thing I can to amuse anybody ; if I fail, I fail; [have done my best, and my friends will appreciate the effort, if not the result. No, my dear Prince, do not tease her,” said the Marchioness to Orangia Magnolia, who was arguing, I thought, somewhat. imperatively for sucha well-bred and courtly man, with Lucrezia; ‘ we will have vingt-et-un, and Lucrezia will give us.the delight of her voice some. other ayening, I dare say.” We had vingt-et-un ; the Marchioness would not play, but she sat in her rose velvet arm-chair, just behind Little Grand, putting in pretty little speeches, and questions, and baga- telles, and calling attention to the gambols of her darling greyhound Cupidon, and tapping Little Grand with her fan, till, I. believe, he neither knew how the game went, nor what money he lost; and I, gazing at her, and cursing him for his facile tongue, never noticed my naturels, couldn’t have said what the maximum was if you had paid me for it, and might, for anything [knew to the contrary, have been seeing my life slip away with each card as Balzac’s hero with the Peau de Chagrin. . Then we had sherbet, and wine, and cognac for those who preferred it; and the Marchioness gave us per- mission to smoke, and took a dainty hookah with an amber mouth-piece for her own use (divine she did look, too, with that hookah between her ruby lips!); and the smoke, and the cognac, and the smiles unloosed onr tongues, and we spake like very great donkeys, I dare say, but I’m sure with nota tenth part of the wisdom that Balaam’s ass developed in his briet and pithy conversi:tion. However great the bosh we talked, though, we found very lement auditors. Fitzhervey and Guatamara laughed at ‘all our witticisms; the Prince of Orangia Magnolia joined in with a Per Baccho! and a Bravo! and little Saint-Jeu wheezed, and. gave a faint echo. of Mon Dieu! and Treis bien, tres bien, vraiment, and the Marchioness St. Julian laughed too,and joined in our nonsense, and, what was much: more, bent a, willing ear to our compliments, no matter how florid; and. Saint-Jeu told usa story or two, more amusing than comme il. faut, at which the Marchioness tried to look grave, and did look shocked, but laughed for all. that behind her fan; and Lucrezia da’ Guari sat in shadow, as still and as silent as the Parian Euphrosyne on the console, though her passionate eyes and expressive face looked the very anti- podes of silence and statuettism, as she flashed halfshy, half: scornful, looks upon us. b _ If the first part of the evening had been delightful, this was something like Paradise! It was such high society ! and with just dash enough of Mabi!le and coulisses laisseraller to give it piquancy. How. different was the pleasantry and freedom of these real aristus, after the humdrum _ > 7 ” > nd ’ - out Ye, te 2 wpe ~~ (= oe ew + ee ee .96F 600 ing ee ‘< ——————_ 0 LITTLE GRAND AND THE MARCHUIONESS. ES a ee ——— - - =" * a glorious, enchanting, divine, delicious, adorable creature Faugh! who could look at those Mitchell girls ‘after her ? Such eyes! such a smile! such a figure! Talk of a coronet ! no imperial crown would be half good enough for her! And how pleasant those fellows are! I like that little echaffy chap, the Duke; what a slap-up story that was about the bal de Opera, And) Fitzhervey, too; there’s something uncommonly thorough-bred about him, ain’t there? And Guatamara’s an immensely jolly fellow, Ah, my boy ! that’s something like society; all the ease and freedom of real rank; no nonsense about them, as there is about snobs. I say, what wouldn’t the other fellows give to be m our. duck? I[ think even Conran would warm up abont her) But, Simon, she’s deucedly taken with me—she is, upon my word ; and she knows how to show it you,too! By George! one could die fora woman like that—eh ?” “Die !” IT echoed, while my horse stumbled along up the hilly road, and 1. swayed. forward, pretty nearly over his head, while poetry rushed to my lips, and electric sparks danced before my eyes: ‘To die for those we love! oh, there is power In the true heart, and pride, and joy, for this It is to live without the vanished light That strength is needed!’ * But Pll be shot if it shall be vanished light,” returned Little Grand ; “it don’t look much like it yet. The light’s only just lit, ’tisn’t likely it’s going out again directly ; but she is a stunner! and—” ‘A stunner!” I shouted; “she’s mueh more than that —she’s an angel, and I'll be much obliged to you to call her by her right name, sir. She’s a beautiful, noble, loving woman; the most perfect of all Nature’s master-works. She is divine, sir, and you and I are not worthy merély to kiss the bem of her garment.” av “ Ain’t we, though? I don’t care much about kissing her dress; it’s silk, and [I don’t know that. I should derive much pleasure from’ pressing my lips on its texture; but her cheek ‘ ‘Her cheek is like the Catherine pear, The side that’s next the sun !’” I shouted, as my, horse went down in a’rut. She’s like Venus rising from the sea-shell; she’s like Aurora, when ‘she came down on the first ray of the dawn to Titonus; she’s like Briseis 1 rage Say | | - “Bother classics! she’s like herself, and beats *ém all hollow. ~She’s the finest creature ever seen on earth, and I should like to see the man who’d dare to say she wasn’t. And—I say, Simon—how much did you lose to-night ?” © From sublimest heights I tumbled straight to bathos. The.cold water of Grand’s query i ee 9 poetry, éx- tinguished my electrict lights, and sobered me like a douche bath. : oem “T don’t know,” I answered, with a sense of awe and horror stealing over me; “ but [ had a pony in my waistcoat pocket that the governor had just sent me; Guatamara changed it for me, and—TI’ve only sixpence left!” “Old boy,” said Little Grand to me the next morning, after early parade, “come in my room, and let’s make up some dispatches to the governors. You seé,” he con- tinned, five minutes after, “you see, we’re both of us dinners and horrid bores of dances that those snobs of| pretty well cleared out; P’ve only got lialf a pony, and Maberlys,; and Fortescues, and Mitchells; made believe to call Society! * What with. the wine,.and, the smoke, and the smiles, I wasn’t quite clear as to whether I saw twenty horses’ heads or oae when) I was. fairly into: saddle, and riding back to the town, just as the, frat dawn was. rising, Aphrodite- like, from the far blue waves of the Mediterranean. Little Grand was, better seasoned, but even he was dizzy with the parting words of the Marchioness, which had softly breathed the delicious passport, ‘Come to-morrow.” you haven’t a couple of fivers left. Now you know they evidently play rather high at the Casa di Fiori ; do every thing en prince, like nobs who’ve Barclays at their back ; and one ‘mustn’t hang fire; horrid shabby that would look, Besides, fancy seeming mean before her! So Pye ‘been thinking that, though governors are @ screwy lot gen- erally, if we put it to ’em sTekilty the sort of set we’ve got into, and show ’em that we can’t help, now that we are at tome, doing as the Romans do, I should say they could hardly help bleeding a little—eh ? Now, listen how [ve “By Jupiter!” swore Little Grand, obliged to give relief} put it. My old boy has a weakness for titles; he married _ his feelings —* by Jupiter, Simon | did you ever see such my mother on the relationship to Viscount Twaddles ~~ 2 4V70i oa eee

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and are now staying in Malta; they are all most kind to me; and I know you will appreciate the intellectual advan- tages that such contact must afford me; at the same time you will understand that I can hardly enter such circles as a snob, and you will wish your son to comport himself as a gentleman; but gentlemanizing comes uncommon dear, I can tell you, with all the care in the world; andif you could let. me have another couple of hundred, I should vote you ’— a what, Simon ?—‘ an out-and out brick’ is the sensible style, but I suppose ‘the best. and kindest of parents’ is the filial dodge, eh? There! ‘ With fond love to mamma and Florie, ever your affectionate son, CosMo GRANDISON.’ Bravo! that’s prime; that'll bring the yellows down, 1 take it. Here, old fellow, copy it to your pesos: you couldn’t have amore stunning effusion—short,and to the purpose, as cabinet councils ought to be, and ain’t. Fire away, my juvenile,” I did fire away: only I, ot a more impressionable and_ po- etic nature than Little Grand, gave a certain vent to my feelings in expatiating on the beauty, grace, condescension, ete., ete., of the Marchioness to my mother; I did not men- tion the grivois stories, the brandy, and the hookah; I was quite sure they were the sign of that delicious case and dis- regard of snobbish etiquette and convenances peculiar to the ¥ Oper Ten,” but I thought the poor people at home, in vi- carage seclusion, would be too out of the world to fully ap- preciate such revelations of our creme de la creme ; besides, my governor had James’s own detestation of the devine wedi and considered that men who “ made chimneys of their mouths ” might just. as well have the mark of the Beast at once. Little Grand and I were hard-up for cash. and en attend- ant the governors’ replies and remittances, we had recourse to the tender mercies and leather bags of napoleons, ducats, florins, doubloons of a certain Spanish Jew, one Balthazar Miraflores, a shriveled-skinned, weezing old cove, who was “most happy to lent anytink to his tear young shentlesmen, but, Ast ot ! he ~was as poor as Job, he was indeed!” Whether Job ever lent money out on interest or not, I can’t say; perhaps he did, as in the finish he ended with having quadrupled his cattle and lands, and all his goods—a knack usurers ve in full force to this day; but all I can say is, that if he was not poorer than Mr. Miraflores, he was not much to. be pitied, for he, miserly old shark, ved in his dark, dirty hole, like a crocodile embedded in Nile mud, and crushed the bones of all unwary adventurers who came within range of his great bristling jaws. Money, however, Little Grand and 1 got out of him in plenty, only for a little bit of paper in exchange; and at that time we didn’t know that though the paper tax would be repealed at last, there would remain, as long as youths are green and old birds cunning, a heavy and a bitter tax on certain bits of paper to which one’s hand is put, whic Mr, Gladstone, though he achieve the hereulean task of making draymen take kindly to vin ordinaire, and the pop- ping of champagne corks a familiar sound by cottage-hearths, will never be able to inelude in his budgets, to come among the Taxes that are Repealed ! Well,.we had our money from old Balthazar that morning, and we gh with it again that night up at the Casa di ior, this time, by way of change. Saint-Jeu said he always thonght it well to change your game as you change your love; comstaney, whether to cards or wo- L\ a ————— was no more hesitation; down we sat, and young Heavy- stone with us. The evening before we had happened to mention him, said he was a fellow of no end of tin, though as stupid an owl as ever spelt his own name wrong when he passed a military examination, and the Marchioness, recalling the name, said she remembered his. father, and asked us to bring him to see her; which we did, fearing no rival in “old Heavy.” So down we three sat, and had the evening before over again, with the cards, and the smiles, and wiles of our divinity, and Saint Jeu’s stories and Fitzhervey’s cognac and cigars, with this difference, that we found loo, more exciting than vigni-et-un.. They played it so fast, too, it was like a breathless heat for the Goodwood Cup, and the Marchioness watched it, leaning alternately over Grand’s, and Heavy’s, and my chair, and saying, with such naive delight, “‘ Oh, do take miss, Cosmo; 1 would risk it if I were you, Mr. Heavy- stone; pray don’t let my pengney brother win everything,” that I'd have defied the stiffest of the Stagyrites or the chil- liest of Calvinists to have kept their head cool with that syren voice in their ear. And La Lucrezia sat, as she had. sat. the night before, by the open window, still and. silent, the Cape jasmines and Southern creepers. framing her in a soft moonlight picture, contrast enough to the brilliantly lhghted room, echoing with laughter at Saint-Jeu’s stories, perfumed with Cubas and. narghiles, and shrining the magnificent, full-blown, jeweled beauty of our Marchioness St, Julian, with which we were as rapidly, as madly, as, unreason- ingly, and. as sentimentally. in love as any boys of seven- teen or eighteen ever could be. What greater latitude, you will exclaim, recalling certain buried-away episodes of your hobbedehoyism, when you addressed Latin dis- tichs to that) hazel-eyed Hebe who presided over oyster patties and water ices at the pastrycook’s in Eton; or, ruined your governor’s young plantations, cutting the name of Adeliza Mary, your cousin, at this day a portl person in velvet and point, whom yee can now call, wit a thanksgiving: in the stead: of the olden tremor, Mrs. Hector M’Cutchin? Yes, we were in love in a couple of. evenings, Little Grand vehemently and unpoetically, I shyly and sentimentally, according to our temperaments, and as the fair Emily stirred feud between the two Noble Kinsmen, so the Marchioness St. Julian began to sow seeds of jealousy and detestation between us, sworn allies as we were. But “le veritable amant ne connait point d@ amis” and as soon as we began to grow jealous of each other, Little Grand could have kicked me to the devil, and I could have kicked Aim with the greatest pleasure in life. But I was shy, Little Grand was blessed with all the auda- city imaginable ; the consequence was, that. when our horses came round, and the Maltese who acted as cherub was going to. close the gates of Paradise upon us, he managed to slip in- to the Marchioness’s boudoir to get a tete-a-tete farewell, while | I strode. up and down the veranda, not heeding Saint-Jeu, who was telling me a tale, to which, in any other saner moments, I | should have listened greedily, but longing to execute on Lit- tle Grand some fierce and terrible vengeance, to which the vendetta should be baby’s play. Saint-Jeu left me to put his arm over Harvey’s shoulder and tell him if ever he cameto Paris he should _be transperted to receive him at the Hotel de Millefleurs, and present him at the Tuileries; an‘. I stood swearing to myself, and breaking off sprays of tl»

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12 a LITTLE GRAND AND THE MARCHIONESS. —_—ee . el OS ee —_—_—_—_—_—__ — and low: “Signore, come here a moment.” It was that sweetly pretty mute whom we had barely no- ticed, absorbed as we were in the worship of our maturer idol, leaning out of the window, her cheeks flushed, her lips parted, her eyes sad and anxious. Of course I went to her, surprised at her waking up so suddenly to any interest in me. She put her hand on my coat sleeve and drew me down toward her. “Listen to meamoment. I hardly know how to warn you, and yet I must.. I cannot sit quietly by and see you and your young friends being deceived as so many have been before you. Do not come here again—do not—” “ Figlia mia! are you not afraid of the night-air?” said the Prince of Orangia Magnolia, just behind us. His. words were kind, but there was a nasty glitter in veranda creepers, when I heard somebody say, very softly | which ovyeérstep the bounds of time, and, ip at the chil! ties of ordinary custom, make strangers dearer than old friends——” The room revolved round me, the lights danced up and down, my heart beat like Thor’s hammer, and. my — pulse went as fast as a favorite saving the distance. She speak- ing so to me! My senses whirled round and round like fitty thousand witches on a Walpurgis Night, and down [ went on my knees before my magnificent idol, raving away I couldn’t tell you what now—the essence of everything I'd ever read, from Ovid to: Alexander Smith. It must have been something frightful to hear, though Heaven knows I meant it earnestly enough. Suddenly I was pulled up with a jerk, as one throws an unbroken colt back on his haunches in the middle of his first start. J thought I heard a laugh. She started up too. “Hush! another time! We may his eyes. Lucrezia answered him in passionate Italian—of| be overheard.” And drawing her dress from my hands, which I had no knowledge—with such fire in her eyes, such haughty gesticulation, and such a torrent of words, that I really began to think, pretty soft little dear as she looked, that she must positively be a trifle out of her mind, her si- lence before, and her queer speech to me, seemed such odd behavior fora young ladyin such high society. She was turning to me again when Little Grand came out into the ver- anda, lookin flushed, proud, and self-complaisant, as such a winner and slayer of women would do. My hand clenched on the jasmine, I thirsted to spring onhim as hestood there with his provoking, self-contented smile, and his confounded cox- combical air,and his cursed fair carls—my hair was dust- colored and as rebellious as porcupine quills—and wash out in his blood or mine—~A touch of a soft hand thrilled through my every nerve and fibre; the Marchioness was there, and signed me to her. Lucrezia, Little Grand, and all the rest of the universe vanished from my mind at the lightning of that angel smile and the rustle of that moire- antique dress. She beckoned me to her into the empty drawing-room. “ Angustus” (I never thought my name could sound 80 sweet before), “tell me what was my niece Lucrezia saying to you just now ?” N ow I had a sad habit of telling the truth; it was an ont- of-the-world custom taught me, among other old-fashioned things, at homé, though I soon found how inconvenient a betise modern ‘society considers it ; and I blurted the truth out here, not apa | or gracefully, though, as Little Grand would have done, for I was in that state of exaltation ordi- narily expréssed as not knowing whether one is standing in one’s Wellingtons or not. The Marchioness sighed. “Ah, did she say that ? Poor dear girl! She dislikes me so much, it is quite an hallucination, and yet, O Augustts, IT have been to her like an elder sister, like a mother. Imagine how it goeree me,” and the Marchioness shed some tears—p¢earls of price, thought I, worthy to drop from angels eyes—* It is a bitter sorrow to me, but, poor darling ! she is not responsible.” She touched her veiny temple significantly as she spoke, and I understood, and felt tremendously shocked at it, that the young, fair Italian girl was a fierce and cruel maniac, who had the heart (oh ! most extraordinary madness did it seem tome; if Zhad lost my senses I could never have harmed her ” to hate, absolutely hate, the noblest, tenderest, most beautiful of women ? “T never alluded to it to any one,” continued the Mar- chioness. ‘‘ Guatamara and Saint-Jeu, though such intimate friends, are ignorant of it. I would rather have any one think ever so badly of me, than reveal to them the cruel misfortune of my sweet Lucrezia——” How noble she looked as she spoke ! “But you, Augustus, you,” ahd she smiled upon me till I grew as dizzy as after my first taste of milk-punch, “I have not the courage to let you go off with any bad impression of me, I have known you a very little while, it is trne—but a few hours, indeed—yet there are affinities of heart and soul which grasped it as agonizingly as a cockney grasps his saddle-bow, holding on for dear life over the Burton or Tedworth country, she stooped kindly over me, and floated away before J was recovered from the exquisite delirium of my ecstatic trance. She loved me! This Superb creature loved me! There was not.a doubt of it; and how I got back to the: bar- racks that night in my heavenly state of mind I could never have told. AJl 1 know is, that Grand and I never spoke a word, by tacit consent, all the way back; that I felt a fiendish delight when I saw his proud Stes 5 ant air, and thought how little he guessed, poor fellow And that Dream of One Fair Woman was as superior in rapture to the “ Dream of Fair Women” as Turkey to the “Hine Fruity Port” that results from damsons and a decoc. tion of sloes ! The next day there was a grand affair in Malta to receive some foreizn Prince, whose name I do not remember now, who called on us en route to England. Of course all the troops turned out, and there was an inspection of us, and a grand luncheon and dinner, and ball, and all that sert of thing, which a month before I should have considered prime fun, but which now, as it kept me out of my paradise, I thought the most miserable bore that could possibly have chanced. “T say,” said Heavy to me as I was getting into harness— “T say,don’t you wonder Fitzhervey and the Marchioness ain’t. coming to the palace to-day ? One would have thought Old Stars and Garters would have been sure to ask them.” | “Ask them? Ishould say so,” I returned, with im- measurable disdain. “Of course he asked them; but she told me she shouldn’t come, last night. ‘She is so tired of such things.. She came yachting with Fitzhervey solely to try and have a little quiet. She says people never give hera mo- ment’s rest while in Paris or London. She was sorry to disappoint Stars and Garters, but I don’t think she likes his wife much: she don’t consider her good ton.” it On which information Heavy lapsed into a state of pro- foundest awe and wonderment, it having been one of his articles of faith, for the month that we had been in Malta, that the palace people were exalted demigods, whom it was only pabraideablé to worship from a distanee, and a very respectable distance too. Heavy had lost some twenty odd pounds the night before—ot course we lost, young hands as we were, unaccustomed to the sociét that entertaining gentleman, Pam—and had grumbled not a little at the loss of his gold bobs. But now I could see that such a ¢eontemptibly pecuniary matter was clean gone from his. memory, and that he would have thought the world well lost for the honor of playing cards with people who could afford to disappoint Old Stars and Garters. | The inspection was over at last; and if any other than Conran had been my senior officer, I should have come off badly, in all probability, for the abominable man- ner in which I went through my evolutions. The day came to an end somehow or other, though I began to think it

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LITTLE GRAND AND THE never would, the luncheon was ended, the bigwigs were taking their sieste, or otherwise occupied, and I, trusting to my absence not being noticed, tore off as hard as man can who has Oupid for his Pegasus. With a boquet as large as a drum-head, clasped round with a bracelet, about which I had many doubts as to the propriety of offering to the possessor of such jewelry as the Marchion- ess must have, yet on which I thought I might venture after the scene of last night, I was soon on the veranda of the Casa di Fiori, and my natural shyness being stimulated into 4 distant resemblance of Little Grand’s enviable brass, see- ing the windows of the di&wing-room open, I pushed aside . the green venetians and entered noiselessly. The room did not look a quarter so inviting as the night before, though it was left in precisely a similar state. i do not know how it was, but those eyed lying about on the floor, those sconces with the wax run down a dripping.over them, those emptied caraffes that had diffused an odor not yet dissipated, those tables and velvet couches all @ tort e¢ a travers, did not look so very inviting after all, and even to my unsophisticated senses, scarcely seemed fit for a Peeress, ~ There was nobody in the room, and I walked through it toward the boudoir; from the open door I saw Fitz- hervey, Guatamara, and my Marchioness—but oh! what horror unutterable! doing—gwe pensez-vous? Drinking bottled porter !—and drinking bottled porter in a peignoir not of the cleanliest, and with raven tresses not of the néatest ! Only fancy | she, that divine, spirituelle creature, who had talked but a few hours before of the affinity of souls, to have come down, like an ordinary woman, to Guinnese’s stout, and a checked dressing-gown and unbrushed locks ! To find your rophet without his silver veil, or your Eeila dead drowned in asack, or your Guinevere flown over with Sir Lancelot to Boulogne, or your long-esteemed Griselda gone off with your cockaded Jeames, is nothing to the torture, the unutterable anguish, of seeing your angel, your ivinity, your bright particular star, your hallowed Arabian rose, come down to—Bottled Porter! Do not talk to me of Dore, sir, or Mr. Martin’s pictures; their horrors dwindle into insignificance compared with the horror of finding an ne i liaison between one’s first love and Bottled Por ter {n my first dim, unutterable anguish, I should have turned and fied ; but my syren’s voice had not lost all its power, despite the stout and dirty dressing-gown, for she was @ very handsome woman, and could 4 such things as well as anybody. She came towards’ me, with her softest smile, ear. at the bracelet on the bouquet, apologizing slightly her neglige: “Iam so indolent. I only Grees for those I care to please—and I never hoped to see you to-day.” In short, magnetizing me over again, and smoothing down m d sensibilities, till I ended by becomin slasdet blind (quite I could not manage) to the checked vibe de chambre and the unbrushed bandeaux, by offering her my braceleted bouquet, which was very graciously accepted, and even by sharing the atrocious London porter, “that horrid stuff,” she called it,“ how I hate it! but it is the only thing Sir Benjamin Brodie allows me, I am so very delicate, you know, my sensibilities.so frightfully acute! ” [ had not twenty minutes to stay, having to be back at the barracks, or risk g reprimand, which, happily, the checked peiynoir had cooled me sufficiently to éuabhs me to recollect. So I took my farewell—one not unlike Medora’s and Conrad’s, Fitzhervey and Guatamara having kindly withdrawn as soon as the bottled porter was finished—and I'went out of the house in a very blissful state, despite Guinness and the unwelcome demi-toilette, which did not accord with Eugene Sue’s and the Parlor Library descrip- tion of the general getting up and stunning appearance of|dirty dressing-gown: heroines and peeresses, “reclining, in robes of cloud-like tissue and folds of the richest lace, ona eabriole couch of amber velvet, while the air was filled with the voluptuous perfume of the flower-children of the south, and music from stand it. MARCHIONESS. i NS ee LD i, unseen choristers lulled the senses with its divinest harmo- ny,” &c., &e., &e. Bottled porter and a checked dressing-gown! Say what you like, sirs, it takes a very strong passion to over- come those. I have heard men ascribe the waning of their affections after the honeymoon to the constant sight of their wives—whom before they had only seen making papa’s coffee with an angelic air and a toilette tiree a quatre epingles —everlastingly coming down too late for breakfast in a dressing-gown; and, upon my soul, if ever I marry, which Heaven in pitiful merey forfend | and my wife make her appearance in one of those confounded peignoirs, I will give that much-run. after and deeply-to-be-pitied public character, ne Divorce Judge, some more work to do—I will, upon my onor. However, the peignoir had not iced me enough that time to prevent my tumbling out of the house in as’ deli- cious. an ecstasy as if I had been eating some of Monte Cristo’s “hatchis,” As I went out, not looking before me, I came bang against the chest of somebody else, who, not admiring the rencontre, hit my cap over my eyes, and exclaimed, in not the. most. courtly manner, you will ac- knowledge, “ You. cursed owl, take that, then! What are you. doing here, I should like to know ?” “ Confound your impudence !” | retorted, as soon as my ocular powers were restored, and I saw the. blue eyes, fair curls, and smart figure of my ancient lolaus, now my bitter- est foe—‘‘ confound your impertinence ! what are you doing here ? you mean.” “Take care, and don’t ask questions about what doesn’t concern you,” returned Little Grand, with a laugh—a most irritating laugh... There are times when such cachinations sting one’s ears more than a volley of oaths. “Go home and mind your own business, my chicken. You are a green bird, and nobody minds you, but still you'll find it as well not to come poaching on other men’s manors,” | “Other men’s manors ! Mine, if you please,” I shouted, se mad with him I could have floored him where he stood. “Phew!” laughed Little Grand, screwing up his lips into a contemptuous whistle, “you’ve been drinking too much Bass, my daisy; ’tisn’t good for young heads—can’t Go home, innocent,” | | a The insult, the disdainful tone, froze my blood. My heart swelled with a sense of outraged dignity and injured man- hood. With a conviction of my immeasurable superiority of position, as the beloved of that divine creature, rind ated myself from the certain sort of slavery 1 was generally in to Little Grand, and spoke as I conceived it to be the habit of gentlemen whose honor had been wounded to speak. “Mr. Grandison, you will pay for this insult. I shall expect, satisfaction.” Little Grand laughed again—absolutely grinned, the Y| audacious young imp—and he twelve months younger than I, too ! “Certainly, sir. If you wish to be made ,a target of, I shall be delighted to oblige you. I can’t keep ladies wait- ing. It is always Place aux dames! with me; so, for the present, good amorning?” | aes “ay And off went the young coxcomb into the Casa di Fiori, and I, only consoled by the’ reflection of different reception he would receive to what mine had been (Ae had a braceleted bouquet,too, the young pretentious puppy!) started off again, assuaging my lacerated feelings wit the delicious word of Satisfaction. I felt myself immeasurably raised above the heads of every other man in Malta—a perfect hero of romance; in fact, fit to figure in my beloved Alexandre’s most og tL ee yellow-papered romen, with a duel on my hands, and the love of a magnificent creature like my Eu- coxia Adelaida. She had become Eudoxia Adelaida to me now, and I had forgiven, if not (forgotten, the the bottled porter lay, of course, at Brodie’s door. If he would condemn spiritual forms of life and light to the com- mon realistie aliments of horrible barmaids and dray- men, she could not help it, norI either. If angels eome

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14 LITTLE GRAND AND THE MARCHIONESS. —— ee ee a i lie re —_—— Oo EE ee down,to earth, and are separated from their natural ,nour- ishment of manna and nectar, they must take what they can get, even neam it be so’ coarse. and sublunary a thing as Guinness’s XXX, must they not, sir? Yes, I felt very exalte with my affair of honor and my affair of the heart, Little Grand for my foe, and, my Marchioness for a love, I never stopped to remember that I might be smashing with fright- ful recklessness the Sixth and the Seventh Commandments. If Little Grand got shot, he must thank himself; he should not: have insulted me; and if there was a Marquis St. Julian, why—1I pitied, him, poor fellow ! that was all. Full of these sublime sensations—grown at least three feet in my varnished boots—I Jounged into the ball-room, feeling supreme pity for the ensigns who were chattering round the door, admiring those poor, pale garrison girls. They had not a duel anda Marchioness; they did not know what beauty meant—what life was! I did not dance—I was above that sort of thing now— there was not a woman worth the trouble in the room ; and about the second waltz I saw my would-be rival talking to Ruthyen, a fellow in Ours, Little Grand did not look glum or dispirited, as he ought to have done after the mterview he must have had; but probably that was the boy’s brass. He would never look beaten if you had hit him till he was black and’ blue, Presently Ruthven came up to me. He was not over-used to his business, for he began the opening chapter in rather school-boy fashion. “Hallo, Gus! so you and Little Grand have been falling out. Why,don’t you settle it with a little mill? A vast deal better than pistols. Duels always seem to me no fun. Two men. stand up like fools, and “Mr. Ruthven,” said I, very hanghtily, “if your princi- pal desires to apologize ¥ * spologin: { Bless your soul, no! But—” “Then,” said I, cutting him uncommonly short indeed, “vou can have no necessity to address yourself to me, and I beg ‘to refer you to my friend and second, Mr, Heavystone.” Wherewith I bowed, turned on my heel, and left him, I did not sleep that night, though I tried hard, because I reg. ty the correct thing for heroes to sleep sweetly till the clock strikes the hour of their duel, execution, &c., or whatever.it may, hap. Egmont slept, Argyle sleet Phil- lippe Egalite, scores of them, but I could not. ot that I funked it, thank heaven—TI never had a touch of that —but because I was in such a delicious state of ex- citement self - admiration, and heroism, which had not cooled when I found myself walking down to the ap- pointed place by the beach with poor old Heavy, who was intensely impressed by being charged with about five quires of the best cream-laid, to be given to the Marchioness in case I fell. Little Grand and Ruthven came on the ground at almost the same moment, Little Grand eminently jaunty and most confoundedly handsome. We took off our caps with distant ceremony ;, the Castilian hidalgos were never more stately; but, then, what Knights of the Round Table ever splintered spears for such a woman? The paces were measured, the pistols taken out of their case. We were just placed, and Ruthven, with a handker- chief in_ his. ede gash just enumerated, in awful accents, “One! two !”—the “ three !” yet hovered on his lips, when he heard.a laungh—the third laugh that had chilled my blood in twenty-four hours, Somebody’s hand was laid on Little Grand’s shoulder, and Conran’s voice interrupted the whole thing. of “Hallo, young ones ! what farce is this?” “ Farce, sir!” retorted Little Grand, hotly—‘ farce? It is no farce. It is an affair’of honor, and ” “ Don’t make’me laugh, my dear boy,” smiled Conran; “itis so much. too warm for such an exertion. Pray, why are you and your once sworn friend making popinjays of each other?” | ‘‘ Mr. Grandison has grossly insulted me,” I began, “and I demand satisfaction. I will not stir from the ground with- out it, and—” for “ You sha’7’t,” shouted Little Grand... “Do you dare te pretend I want to funk, you little contemptible—” | Though it was too warm, Conran went off intoa fit of laughter. 7 I dare say our sublimity had a comic touch in it of which we never dreamt. “My dear boys, pray don’t; itis too fa- tiguing. Come, Grand, what is it all about ?” ey _ ma your right to question me, Major,” retorted Little Grand, in a fury. ‘“ What have you to do with it? I mean to punish that young owl yonder—who didn’t know how to drink anything but miik-and-water, didn’t know how to say bo! to a goose, till I taught him—for very abominable impertinence, and Pll——” “6 My impertinence ! Llike that!’ I shouted. “ It is your ) unwarrantable, overbearing self-conceit, that makes you the laughing-stock of all the mess, which 5 “Silence !” said Conran’s still stern voice, which subdued us into involuntary. respect, ‘‘ No more of this nonsense! Put up those pistols, Ruthven, You are two hot-headed, silly hex who don’t know for what you are quarrelling. Live a few years longer, and you won’t be so eager to get into hot. water, and put cartridges. into .your best friends. No, I shall not hear any more about it. If you do not in- stantly give me your wordsof honor, not to attemptto re- peat this folly, as your senior officer I shall put’ you under arrest for six weeks, O Alexandre Dumas!—O Monte Cristo!—O heroes of yellow paper and pluck invincible! I ask pardon of your shades; I must record the fact, lowering and melan- choly a it is, that before our senior officer our herome melted like Vanille ice in the sun, our glories tumbled to the ground like twelfth-cake ornaments under children’s fingers, and before the threat of arrest the lions lay down like lambs. , Conran sent us back, humbled, sulky and crestfallen, and resumed his solitary patrol upon the beach, where, before the sun ‘was fairly up, he was having a shot at curlews. But if he was a little stern, he was no less kind-hearted ; and im the afternoon of that day, while he lay atter his siesta, smok- ing on his little bed, I unburdened myself tohim. “He did not laugh at me, though I saw’a quizzical smile under his) black mustaches. | ; “ What is your divinity’s name?” he asked, when I had finished. © “ Eudoxia Adelaida, Marchioness St; Julian.” “ The Marchioness St. Julian !, Oh!” h fae “ D@ you know her?” I inquired, somewhat perplexed by, his tone. me He smiled tiny 1 out this time. : “]T don’t know Her, but there are a good many -Peeresses in Malta and Gibralter, and along the I * ine of the Pacific, as my brother Ned, in the Belisarius, will tell you. I could count two. score such of my acquaintance off at this minute.” I wondered what he meant. I.dare say he knew all the Peerage; but that had nothing to do with ‘me, and 1 thought it strange that all the Duchesses, and Countesses, and Baronesses should quit their country-seats and town- houses to locate themselves along the line of the Pacific. “ She’s a fine woman, St, John ?” he went on. “Fine!” I reiterated, a into @ panegyric, with which I won’t bore you as I bored him. “ Well, you’re going there to-night, you say; take me with you, and welll see what I think of your Marchioness.” I looked at his fine figure and features, recalled certain. tales of his conquests, remembered that he knew French, Italian, German and Spanish, but, not being able to refuse, acquiesced with a reluctance I could not entirely conceal. Conran, however, did not perceive it, and after mess took his cap, and went with me to the Casa di Fiom. The rooms were all right.again, my Marchioness was en. grande tenue, amber silk, black lace, diamonds and all that. sort of style. Fitzhervey and the other men were in evening, dress, drinking coffee; there was not a trace of bottled por- ter anywhere, and it was all very brilliant and presentable, _ The Marchioness St, Julian rose with the warmest cffusion eo" ——— | 4 . - I

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\ — ee em ae ° Re ee . : en SS SE TT _- $$$ eee ee Ee it el a her dazzling white teeth showing in the sunniest of smiles, and both hands outstretched. | ‘ustus, bien aime, you are rather—” Late,” L suppose: she was going to say, but she stopped dead short, her teeth remained parted in a}stereotype smile, a blankness of dismay came over her luminous eyes, She caught sight of Conran, and I imagined I heard a, very low-breathed “Curse the fellow!” from courteous Lord Dolph. Conran came forward, however, as if he did not notice it; there was only that queer smile lurking under his mustaches. I introduced him to them and the Mar- chioness smiled again, and Fitzhervey almost at once re- sumed his wonted extreme urbanity, But they were some- how or other wonderfully ill at ease—wonderfully for people in such high society ; and I was ill at ease, too, from being only able to attribute Eudoxia Adelaide’s evident consterna- tion at the sight of Conran to his having been some time or other an old love of hers. “Ah!” thought I, grinding my teeth, “that comes of loving a woman older than one’s The Major, however, seemed the only one who enjoyed himself. 1e Marchioness was beaming on him graciously, though her ruffled feathers were not quite eeaion down, and he was sitting by her with an intense amusement. in his eyes, alternately talking to her about Stars and Gar- ters, whom, by her answers, she did not seem to know so very intimately after all, and chatting with Fitzhervey about hunting, who, for aman that had hunted overevery country, according to his own account, seemed to confuse ‘Tom Edge with Tom Smith, the Burton with the Tedworth, a bullfinch with an ox-rail, in queer style, under Conran’s cross-question- ing. We had been in the room about ten minutes, when a voice, rich, low, sweet, rang out from, some inner room, singing the glorious “ Inflammatus.” How strange it sounded in the Casa di Fiori! Conran started, the dark blood rose over the clear bronze of his cheek. He turned sharply on to the Marchioness. “Good Heaven !' whose voice is that ?” “ My niece’s,” she answered, staring at him, and touching a hand-bell. ..“‘ I will ask her to come and sing to,us nearer. She has really a lovely voice.” Conran grew pale again, and sat watching the door with the most extraordinary anxiety. Some minutes went by ; them Lucrezia entered, with the same haughty reserve which her soft young face always wore when with her aunt, It changed, though, when. her glance fell on Conran, into the wildest rapture Leyer.saw on any countenance. He fixed his eyes on her with the look Little Grand says he’s seen him wear in a battle—a contemptuous smile quivering on his a. Sing us something, Lucrezia dear, began the Marchioness, “You shouldn’t be like the nightingules, and. give your musie only to night. and solitude.” Lucrezia seemed not to hear her. She had never taken her eyes off Conran, and she went, as dreamily as that dear little Amina in the ‘“‘Sonnambula,” to-her. seat. under the jesmines in the window. For a few minutes Conran, who didn’t seem to case two straws. what the society in general thought of him, took his leave, to the relief, apparently, of _ Fitzhervey and Guatamara. s he went across the veranda—that memorable ve- randa —I sitting in dudgeon near the other window, while Fitzhervey was proposing ecarte to Heavy, whom we had found there on our entrance, and tne Marchioness had van- ished into her boudoir fora moment, I saw the Roman girl spring out after him, and catch hold of his arm: “Victor! Victor! for pity’s sake!—I never thought we}. should meet like this!” “ Nor did 1” — “Hush ! hush! you will kill me, In mercy, say some kinder words !”.. ..» yom) . 3 I can say nothing;that it would be courteous to you to gay.” . + od” Boe : geyids haye- been as inflexible, whatever her sins @ ave been, with her hands clasped on me, and her| Little Gra LITTLE GRAND AND THE MARCHIONESS. bey — —— <<. a ee ° = ——— = | a TT, face raised so close to mine. Lucrezia’s yoice changed to a piteous wail: slo’ ort: “ You love me no longer, then ?” 7 18: ‘* Love !” said Conran, fiercely—‘ love! How dare you speak to me of love? I held you to be fond, innocent, true as Heaven; as such, you were dearer to me than, lite—as dear as honor. Iloved you with as deep a passion as eyer a man knew—Heaven help me! 1 love you now!.. Howsam I rewarded? By finding you the companion of blackguards, the associate of swindlers, one of the arch-intrigantes who lead on youths to ruin with base smiles and devilish arts. Then you dare talk'to me of love!” With those passionate words he threw her off him. She fell at his feet with a low moan, He either did. not: hear, or did not heed it; and I, bewildered by what I heard, me- chanically went and lifted her from the ground. Luerezia had not fainted, but she looked so wild, that I believed the Marchioness, and set her down as mad; but then Conran must be mad as well, which seemed too ineredible a thing for me to swallow—our cool Major mad ! ‘““ Where does he live ?” asked Lucrezia of me,in a breath- less whisper, | “He? Who?” “ Vietor—your officer—Signor Conran.”’ ‘Why, he lives in Valetta, of course.” ‘¢ Can I find him.there ?” “| dare say, if you want him.” | “ Want him! Oh, Santa Maria !.is not his absence death ? Can I find bim ?” “Oh, yes, I dare say. Any body will show you Conran’s rooms,” “Thank you.” | With that, this mysterious young lady left me, and I turned in through the window again. Heavy and the men were playing at lansejuenet, that most perilous, rapid, and bewitching of all the resistless card circes. There was no Marchioness, and having done it once’ with impu- nity I thought I might do it again, and lifted the am- ber curtain that divided the boudoir from the drawing- room. What did I behold? Oh! torture unexampled! Oh! fiendish agony! There was Little Grand—self-conceited, in- sulting, impertinent, abominable, unendurable Little Grand —on the amber satin couch, with the Marchioness leaning her head on his shoulder, and looking up in his thrice-con- founded face with her most adorable smile, my smile, that had beamed, and, as I thought, beamed only upon me! | If Mephistopheles had been by to tempt me, I would have sold my soul to have wreaked vengeance on them both. Neither saw me, thank Heaven! and I had self-possession enough not to give them the cruel triumph of witnessing my anguish. I withdrew in silence, dropped the curtain, and rushed to bury my wrongs and sorrows in the friendly bosom of the gentle night. It was my first love, and I had made’a foolof myself. The two are synonymous. | How I reached the barracks I never knew. All the night long [ sat watching the stars out, raving’to them of Eudoxia Adelaida, and cursing in plentiful anathemas my late Orestes. How should [ bear his impudent grin every mortal night of my life across the mess-table ?. I tore up into shreds about a ream of paper, inscribed with tender sonnets to my faith- less idol. I trampled into fifty thousand shreds @ rosette off her dress, for which, fool-like, 1 had begged the day before. I smashed the looking-glass, which could only show me the image of a pitiful donkey. I called on Heaven to redress my wrongs. Oh! curse it! never was a fellow at once so utterly done for and so utterly done brown! | + Rog And in the vicarage, as 1 learnt afterwards, when my letter was received at home, there was great glorification and pleasure. My mother and the girls were enraptared at the high society darling Gussy was moving in; “but then, you know, mamma, dear Gussy’s manners’ are so gentle, so gentleman-like, they are sure to please wherever he goes! Wherewith my mother cried and dried’ her eyes, and cried again, over that abominable letter copied vag * s, and smelling of vilest tobacco..."

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+f LITTLE GRAND AND ~-* - 7 — a Pe Oe oT eee eee Then entered a rectoress of a neighboring parish, to whom ny mother and the girls related with innocent exultation of my grand friends at Malta; how Lord A. Fitzhervey was my ‘sworn ally, and the Marchioness St. Julian had quite taken me under her wing. And the rectoress, having a son of her own, who was not doing anything so grand at Cam- bridge, but principally sotting beer at a Cherryhinton public, smiled and was wrathful, and said to her lord at dinner : * My dear, did you ever hear of a Marchioness St. Julian?” “ No, my love, I believe not—never.” “Js there one in the peerage ?” “Oan’t say, my dear. Look in Burke.” So the rectoress got Burke and closed it after deliberate inspection, with malignant satisfaction. ‘‘] thought not. How ridiculous those St. Johns are about that ugly boy Augustus. As if Tom were not worth « hundred of him! i was too occupied with my own miseries then to think about Conran and Lucrezia, though sometime after I heard all about it. It seems, that, a year before, Conran was on leave in Rome, and at Rome, loitering about the Campagna one day, he made a chance acquaintance with an Italian girl, by getting some flowers for her she had tried to reach and could not. She was young, enthusi- astic, intensely interesting, and had only an old Roman nurse, deaf as a post and parblind, with her. The girl was Lucrezia da Guari, and Lucrezia was lovely as one of her own myrtle er orange flowers. Somehow or other Conran went there the next day, and the next, and the next, amd so on for a good many days, and always found Luecrezia. Now, Conran had at bottom a teuch of un- stirred romance, and, moreover, his own idea of what sort of woman he could Jove. Something in this untrained yet winning Campagna flewer answered to: both. He was old enough to trust his own discernment, and, after a month or two’e walks and talks, Conran, one of the proudest men go- ing, offered himself and his name to a Roma girl of whom he knew nothing, except that she seemed to ¥ gave an involuntary shriek. Sarah Briggs finished THE MARCHIONESS. me, It was the death-stroke that could never be get over, “She was a ballet-girl in London,” continued Conran ; “then, when she was sixteen, married that Fitzhervey, alias Briggs, alias Smith, alias what you please, and set up in her present more lucrative employment with her three or four confederates. Saint-Jeu was oe from Paris for keeping a hell in the Chaussee d’Antin, Pitz- hervey was a leg at Newmarket, Orangia Magnolia a lawyer’s clerk who was had up for forgery, Guatamara “is —by another name—a scoundrel of Rome. : There is the history of your Maltese Peerage, Gussy! Well, you'll be wider awake next time. Wait, there is somebody at my door, Stay here a moment, I'll come back to you.” Accordingly, I stayed in his bedroom, where I had found him writing, and he went. into his sitting room, of which, from the diminutiveness of his domicile, I commanded a full view, sit where I would. What was my astonishment to see Luerezia! I went to his bedroom door; it was locked from the outside, so I perforce remained where I was, to, nolens volens, witness the finish of last night’s interview. Stern to the last extent and deadly pale, Conran stood, too surprised to speak, and most probably at a loss for words. | Luerezia came up to him nevertheless with the abandon- ment of youth and southern blood. (798 “Victor! Victor! let me speak to-you. You shall listem; yon shall not judge me unheard.” if “Signorina, I have judged you by only too ample evi- dence.” He had recovered himself now, and was as cool as needs be. — ‘ius “T deny it. But you love me still ?” “Love you? More shame on me? A laugh, a compli- ment, a carcass, a cashmere, is as much as such women as you are worth. Love becomes rediculous named in th same breath with you.” | She caught hold of hishand and crushed it in both her own. “ Kill me if you will. Death would have no sting from your hand, but never speak such words to me.” Her voice trembled. “How can I choose but speak them ? I believed you in Italy, and how on that belief I offered you my name—a name never yet stained, never yet held un- worthy. IL lost you, to find you in society which stamped you forever. A lovely fiend, holding raw boys enchained, that your associates ws rifle their purses with marked. cards and cogged dice. hoped to have found a diamond, without spot or flaw. Idiscovered my error too late ; was only glass, which all men were free to pick up and trample on at their pleasure.” | . He tried to wrench his hand away, but she would not et it go. Rae “Hush! hush! listen to me first. If you once thought me ghee of your love, you may, surely, now accord me pity. I shall not trouble you long. After this, you need. see me no more. | am going back to my old convent. You and the world will soon forget me, but I shall re- member you, and pray for you, a8 dearer than ‘my own. soul.” Conran’s head was bent down now, and his voice was: thick, as he answered briefly : “Go on.” This scene half consoled me for Endoxia Adelaida—(T mean, O Heavens, Sarah Briggs !)—it was so ex uisitely” romantic, and Conran and Lucrezia wouldn’t have done at all badly for Monte Cristo and that dear little Haidee. I wag: fearfully poetic in those days, “When I met you in Rome,” Luerezia went on, in obe. dience to his injunction, “two years ago, you remember I had only left a convent and hved with my father but a month ortwo. told you he was an officer. I only said what I had been told, ané Iknew-no more than you that be was the keeper ofa gambling-house.”) aor You know that

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‘in Italy no longer. ’ I was so interested. in my etl) I went She shuddered as she paused, and leaned her forehead on LITTLE. GRAND AND. 'THE . MARCHIONESS. | 17 having been loved and wronged, whereas. 1, had only been Conran’sshand. He did not repulse her, and she continued, | playing the very common rode of pigeon, I could not ..resist in her broken, simple English: “The evenit needed to have been an angel to be cr of—your love and your name—that very evening, when I reached home, my father bade me-dress for a soiree he was going to give. I obeyed him, of course. I knew nothing. but what he told me, and I went down, to find a dozen young nobles and a few Englishmen drinking and playing on a table covered with green cloth. Some few of them came up to me, but I feltfrightened ; their looks, their tones, their florid compli- ments, were so different to yours. But 5 py? kept his eye on me, and would not let me leave. hile they were leaning over my chair, and whispering in my ear, you came to the door of the salon, and I went toward you, and you looked cold and harsh, as 1 had never seen you before, and put me aside, and turned away witheut a word. Oh, Victor! why did you not kill me then? Death would have been kind- ness. Your Othello was kinder to Desdemona; he slew her —he did not eave her. From that hour I never ’saw you, and from that hour my father persecuted me because I would never join in his schemes, nor enter his vile gaming-rooms. Yet 1 have lived with him, because I could not getaway. I have been too ¢arefully watched. “We Italians are not free, like your happy English girls. A few weeks ago we were compelled to leave Rome, the young Contino di Firenze had been stilettoed leaving my father’s rooms, and he could stay Wecame here and joined that hate- ful woman, who calls herself Marchioness St. Julian ; and, because she could not bend me to her will, gives out that I am her niece, and mad! I wonder Iam not mad, Victor. I wish hearts would break as the romancers- ‘make them ; ‘but‘how long one suffers and lives on ! Oh, my love, my soul, my life, only say that you believe me, and look kindly at me once again, then I will never trouble you again, I will only pray for you. “But believe me, Victor. | The 7 men one pe ofmy convent will tell you it is thetruth that , for the love of Heaven, believe me! Believe me or'I shall die!” It was not in the nature of man to resist hers there was truth in the girl’s voice and face,if ever truth walked abroad on earth, And Conran did believe her, and told her so in a few unconnected words, lifting her up in his arms, and vow- ing, with most unrighteous oaths, that her father should never have power to persecute her again as long as he him- self lived to shelter and take care of Thee | was so like a chapter out of a book), that I entirely forgot my) durance vile, and my novel and excessively disgrace- ful, though enforced, occupation of spy; and there | stayed, alternating between my interest in them and m -agonies at the revelations concerning my Eudoxia Adel. aida—oh,; hang it! I mean Sarah Briggs—till, after a “most confounded long time, Conran saw fit to take Lu- _erezia off, to get’asylum for her with the Colonel’s wife for a ‘day or two, that “those fools might not misconstrue her.” By which comprehensive epithet he, I suppose, politely de- A “Ours” « >. | y ways to my own room, and there I found a scented, manve-hued, creamy billet doux, in uncommon bad ‘handwriting, though, from my miserable Eudoxia Adelaida to the “friend’and lover of her soul.” Confound the-woman ! “how I swore at that daintily perfumed and most. vilely- -gerawled letter. ture stretched from one side to the other—“ Kudoxia de- To think that where that beautiful siena- Jaida St. Julian” —there ought to have been that short, vile, low-bred, hideous, billingsgate cognomen of “Sarah Briggs!” In the note. she reproached me—the wretched hypo- crite — for my departure the previous night, “ without «ne farewell to your Eudoxia, O cruel ‘Augustus !” and ask me to give her a rendezvous at some vineyards ag way off the Casa di Fiori, on the road to lita, Now, being a foolish boy, and regarding myself as Monte Cristo and Haidee (it the temptation of going, just to take one last look of that _you. promised. me what.I should have) fair, cruel face, and EphraMa her with being the first. to sow the fatal seeds of lifelong mistrust and; misery in my only too fond and fatal, &c., d&c,, &e. So, at the appointed. hour, just when the sun was set- ting, over. the far-away Spanish shore; and the hush,of night was, sinking over,the. little, rocky, peppery, mili- tary-thick, Mediterranean isle, 1 found myselt,en. route to the vineyards; which, till [came to Malta, :had,,been.one of my delusions, Idea pictbring them in,.wreaths, and avenues, Reality proving them. hop-sticks,. and. parched earth. I drew nears. it was quite dark now, the, sun had gone to sleep. under the blue. waves, and the -moon..was not yet up. Though I knew she was Sarah Briggs,and an adventuress who had made game of me, two facts that one would fancy might chill the passion out of anybody, so mad was I about that woman, that, if I had met her then and:there, I should have let her wheedle me over, and gone back to the Casa di Fiori with her and been fleeced again: I am sure I should, sir, and so would you, if, at eighteen, new to life, you had fallen in with Eudox pshaw !—with Sarah Briggs, my Marchioness St. Julian. | I drew near the vineyards: my heart beat thick, I could not see, but I certainly heard the rustle of her dress, caught the perfume of her hair. All ‘her sins vanished: how sould T upbraid her, though she were three times over Sarah Briggs? Yes, she was coming; I felé her near; an electric thrill rushed through me as soul met soul. I heard a mur- mured “ Dearest, sweetest!” I felt the warm clasp of two arms, but—-a cold row of undress waistcoat-buttons came against my face, anda voice I knew too well cried out, as I rebounded from him, impelled thereto by a not gentle’ kick ** The devil? get out? Who the deuceare you?” > We both stopped for breath. At that minute up rose ‘the silver’ moon, and in its tell-tale rays we glared on ‘one another, I and Little Grand. M That silence was sublime: the pause between Beethoven’s andante allegro—the second before the Spanish bull rushes upon the terreador. Oe ee a “You “ae miserable wretch !” burst out Serre tatt and terribly ;: “you little mean, sneaking, spying, co mpti- ble milksop ! i should like to srs rth va mean by bringing out your ugly phiz at this hour, when you used to be afta of stirrmg out for fear of nurse’s bogies’? And to dare to come lurking afterme!” nile A elas “ After you, Mr. Grandison!” I repeated, with grandil il- oquence. ‘* Really you put too much tapi Ta tie on your own movements. I came b appointment to meet the Mar- Chioness St. Julian, whom, I presume, as you are well ac- gaattives with her, you know in her real name of Sarah riggs, and to—— | Se ee sind ai “Sarah Briggs !—you come by appointment ?” stammered Little Grand. Fant yy Soe estes win “ Yes, sir; if you disbelieve my word of honor, T will con- descend to show you.my invitation.” Le war “ You little ape !” swore Grand, coming back’ to ‘his pre- vious wrath; “1¢ is a lie, a most abominable unwarrantable lie! Lcame by appoimtment, sir; you did no sach thing. Look there !” | Mot LSes And he flaunted before my eyes in the moonlight the fac- simile of my letter, verbatim copy, save that in his : was put in the stead of Augustus. sine. “ Look there!” said I, giving him mine. Little Grand snatched it, read it over once, twice, thrice, then drooped his head, with a burning color in his face, and was silent. | The “ knowing hand ” was done ! o We were both of us uncommonly quiet for ten minutes; neither of us liked to be the first to give in. ae | At last Little Grand looked up and held out his hand, ne more nonsense about him now. | LIOR 0" “Simon, you and I have been two great fools; we can’t “" °

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18 LADY MARABOUT’S TROUBLES. chaff one another. She’s a cursed actress, and—let’s make it up, old boy.” We made it up accordingly—when Little Grand was not conceited he was a very jolly fellow—and then I gave him my whole key to the mysteries, intricacies and charms of our Casa di Fiori. We could not chaff one another, but poor Littie Grand was pitiably sore then, and for long after- wards. He, the “old bird,” the cool hand, the sharp one of Ours, to have been done brown, to be the joke of the mess, the laugh of all the men, down to the weest drummer-boy ! Poor Little Grand! He was too done up to swagger, too thoroughly angry with himself to swear at anybody else. He only whispered to me, “Why the dickens could she want you and me to meet ourselves ?” “'To give us a finishing hoax, I suppose,” I suggested. Little Grand drew his cap over his eyes, and hung his head down in abject humiliation. “TI suppose so... What fools we have been, Simon! And, I say, ve borrowed three hundred of old Miraflores, and it’s all gone up at that devilish Casa; and how I shall get it from the governor, Heaven knows, for J don’t.” ‘I’m in the same pickle, Grand,” I groaned. ‘I’ve given that old rascal notes of hand for two hundred pounds, and, if it don’t drop from the clouds, I shall never pay it. Qh, I say, Grand, love comes deucedly expensive.” * Ah !” said he, with a sympathetic. shiver, “ think what a pair of hunters we might have had for the money!” With which dismal and remorseful remembrance the old bird, who had been trapped like a young pigeon, swore mightily, and withdrew into humbled and disgusted silence. Next morning we heard, to our comfort—what lots of ree there always are to tell us how to lock our stable- r when our solitary mare has been stolen—that, with a gentle hint from the police, the Marchioness St. Julian, with her conjreres, had taken wing to the Ionian isles where at Corfu or Cephalonia, they will re-erect the Casa di Fiori, and glide gently on again from vingt-et-un to loo, and from loo to lasquenet, under eyes as young and blinded as our own. They went without Lucrezia. Conran took her into hie own hands. Any other man in the. regi- ment would have been pretty well ridiculed at taking a bride out of the Cara di Fiori; but the statements made ~~ Ang high-born. Abbess of her Roman convert were .so ¢ , and so to the girl’s honor, and he had’ such a wa of holding his own, of keeping off liberties from himself and anything ver, a to him, and was, moreover, known to be of such. fastidious honor, that his young wife was received as if she had been a Princess in her own. right. “With her respected parent Conran had a brief interview previous to his fligh from Malta, in which, with a few gen- tle hints, he showed that worthy that it would be wiser to leave his daughter unmolested for the future, and I doubt if Mr. ae agnolia, alias Pepe Guari, would know his own child in the joyous, graceful, daintily-dressed mistress ef Conran’s handsome Parisian establishment. Little Grand and I suffered cruelly. We were the butts of the mess for many a long month afterwards, when every idiot’s tongue asked us on every side after the health of the lioness St. Julian ? when we were going to teach them lansquenet? how often we heard from the aristocratic members of the Maltese Peerage? with like delightful pleasantries, which the questioners deemed high wit. We paid for it, too, to that arch old screw, Baltha- zar; but I doubt very much if the money were not well lost, and the experience well gained. It cured me of my rawness and Little Grand of his self-conceit, the only thing that had before spoilt that good-hearted, quick-tem- pered, and clever-brained little fellow. Oh, Pater and Ma- terfamitias, disturb not yourself so unnecessarily about the crop of wild oats which your young ones are sowing broad- cast. ‘Those wild oats often spring from a good field of high Spirit, hot courage, and thoughtless generosity, that are the and basis of nobler virtues to come, and from them very sl often rise two goodly plants—Experience and Discernment. a TT ———_—_——— as eee .—_— ee Oe LADY MARABOUT’S TROUBLES; | OR, THE WORRIES OF A CHAPERONE, IN THREE SEASONS. SEASON THE FIRST.—THE ELIGIBLE. Onz of the kindest-natured persons that I ever knew on this earth, where kind people are as rare as black eagles or red deer, is Helena, Countess of Marabout, nee De Bonceur. She has foibles, she has weaknesses—who amongst us has not ?—she will wear her dresses decolletees, though she’s sixty, if Burke tells us truth; she vill rouge and practice a thousand other little toilette tr’sks; but they are surel innocent, since they deceive nobody; and if you wait for a woman who has no artifices, 1 am afraid you shall have to forswear the sex im toto, my friends, and come growling back to your Diogenes’ tub in the Albany, with your lantern still lit every day of your lives. | Lady Marabout is a very charming person. . As for her weaknesses, she is all the nicer for them, to my taste. I like people with weaknesses myself; those without them do look so dreadfully scornfully and unsympathizingly upon one from the altitude of. their superiority, de torze la hauteur de sa betise, a8 a witty Frenchman says. Hu- manity was born with weaknesses. If I were a beggar, I might hope for a coin from. a man with some; a man without any, I know, would shut up his porte-monnaie, with an intensified click, to make me feel trebly envious, and consign me to D 15 and his truncheon, on the score of vagrancy. ger | aay Marabout is a very charming person, despite her little foibles, and she gives very pleasant little dinners, both at her house in Lowndes mga and in. her jointure villa at Twickenham, where the bad odors of Thames are drowned in the fragrance of the geraniums, piled in great heaps of red, white, and variegated blossom in the flower- beds on the lawn. She has been married twice, but has only one. son, by her first . union—Carruthers, of the Guards—a very good fellow, whom his mother thinks perfection, though if she did know certain scenes in her adored Philip’s life, the good lady might hesitate. before she endowed her son with all the cardinal virtues as she does at the foeent moment. She has no daughters, there- fore you will wonder to hear that the prime. misery, bur- den, discomfort and worry of her lifeis chaperonage. But so it is. Hh OR Lady Marabout is the essence of good nature; shé can’t say No; that unpleasant negative monosyllable was never heard to issue from her full, smiling, kind-looking lips; she is in a high position, she has an extensive circle, thanks to her own family and those of the baronet and peer she suc- cessively espoused ; and some sister or cousin, or friend, is incessantly hunting her up to bring out their girls, and sell them well off out of hand, young ladies being goods ex- tremely likely to hang on hand nowadays. “Of all troubles the troubles of a chaperone are the reatest,” said Lady Marabout to me at the wedding ejeuner of one of her proteges. “In the first place, one looks on at others’ campaigns instead of conducting them one’s self; secondly, it brings back one’s own ht days to see the young things’ smiles and blushes, like that girl’s just now (I do hope she'll be happy !); and thirdly, one has all the responsibility, and gets all uhe blame if anything goes wrong. I'll never chaperone anybody again now I have got rid of Leila.” ; So does Lady Marabout say twenty times; yet has she in- variably some young lady under her wing, se relatives are defunct, or invalided, or in India, or out of society some- how; and we allof uscall her house The Yard, and her among ourselves) not Lady Marabout but Lady Tattersall. he worries she has in her chaperone’s office would fill a folio, specially as her heart inclmes to the encourage- ment of romance, but her reason to the banishment thereof.

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‘would but be on _ But. LADY MARABOUT’S TROUBLES. i9 and while her tenderness suffers ifshe thwarts her proteges’ leanings, her conscience gives her neuralgic twinges if she abets them to unwise matches while under her drag- onnage. “What's the matter, mother?” asked Carruthers, one morning. He’s very fond of his mother, and will never let any oné laugh at her in his hearing. “Matter? Everything!” replied Lady Marabout, con- cisely and sihairdticnalvety: as ihe sat on the sofa in her bou- doir, with her white-ringed hands and her bzen conserve look, and her kindly pleasant eyes, and her rich dress; one could see what a pretty woman she has been, and that Carruthers may thank her for his good looks. “ ‘To begin with, Felicie has been so stupid as to marry—married the green grocer (whom she will ruin in a week !)—and has left me to the mercies of a stupid woman who puts pink with cerise, mauve with magenta, and sky-blue with azureline, and has no rec- ommendation except that she is as ugly as the Medusa, and 80 will not tempt you to—” “Make love to her, as I did to Marie,” laughed Car- ruthers. “Marie was a pretty little dear; it was very severe in you to send her away.” Lady Marabout tried hard to look severe and condemna- tory, but failed signally, nature had formed the smooth brow and the kindly eyes in far too soft a mould. “Don’t jest about it, Philip; you know it was a great pain, annoyance, and scandal to me. Well! Felicie is gone, and Oakes was seen pawning some of my Mechlin the other day, so I have been obliged to discharge her; and they both of them suited me so well! Then Bijou is ill, poor little pet—” “With repletion of chicken panada ?” _ “No; Bijou isn’t such a gourmet. You judge him by yourself, I suppose; men alwaysdo! Then Lady Hautton told me last night that you were the wildest man on town, and at forty—” “You. think I ought to ranger! So I will, my dear mother, some day; but at present I am—so very com- fortable ; it would be a pity to alter! What pains one’s friends are raphe b at to tell unpalatable things; if they y half so eager to tell ns the pleasant ones! I shall expect you to cut Lady Hautton if she speak badly of me. I can’t afford to lose your worship, mother !” By i worship How conceited you are, Phillip! As for Lady Hautton, I believe she does dislike you, because you did not engage yourself to Adelina, and were selected aide- de-camp to Her Majesty instead of Hautton; still,.I am afraid she spoke too nearly the truth.” “Perhaps Marie has entered her service and told tales,” ady Marabout wouldn’t laugh, she always looks very grave about Marie. | “My worst trouble,” she began hastily, “is that your aunt Honiton is too ill to come to town; nochance of her ing well enough to come at all this season; and of course the charge of Valencia has devolved on me. You know how I hate chaperoning, and I did go hope I should be free this year; besides, Valencia is a great responsi- bility, Sey. great; a girl of so much beauty always is; there will be sure to be so many men about her at once, and your aunt will expect’ me to marry her 80 very well. It is excessively annoying.” “My poor, dear mother!” cried Carruthers. “I grant you are an object of pity. You are everlastingly having young fillies sent you to break in, and they want such a tight hand on the ribbons.” _ And a tight hand as you call it, I never had, and never shall have,” sighed Lady ey “Valencia will be no trouble to me on that score, however; she has been admira- bly educated, knows all that is due to her position, and will never give me a moment’s anxiety by any imprudence or in- advertence, But she is excessively handsome, and a beauty is a great responsibility when she first comes out.” “Val. was always a handsome child, if I remember. I dare say she is a beauty now. When is she coming up ? be- cause I'l] tell the men to mark the house and keep clear of it,’’ laughed Carruthers, “ You're a dreadfully dangerous person, mother; you have always the best looking girl in town with you. Fulke Nugent says if he should ever want such a thing as a wife when he comes into the title, he shall take a look at the Marabout Yearlings Sale.” “ Abominably rude of you and your friends to talk to me in your turfslang! I wish you would come and bid at the sale, Philip ; I should like to see you married—well married, of course.’ ‘“* My beloved mother!” cried Carruthers. ‘“ Leave me in peace, if you please, and catch the others if yow ean. ‘There’s Goodey, now; every chaperone and debutante in London has set traps for him for the last I don’t know how many years; wouldn’t he do for Valencia ?” “Goodwood ? Of course he would; he would do for an one; the Dukedom is the oldest in the peerage. Good- wood is highly eligible. Thank you for reminding me, Philip. Since Valencia is coming, I must do my best for her.” . Which phrase meant with Lady Marabout that she must be very lynx-eyed as to settlements, and a perfect dragon to all detrimental connections, must frown with Me- dusa severity on all horrors of younger sons, and advocate with all the weight of personal experience the pict cn and agremens of a good position, in all of which practicali- ties she generaMy broke down, with humiliation unspeaka- ble, immediately her heart was enlisted and her frm Hp appealed to on the enemy’s side. She sighed, played with her bracelets thoughtfully, and then, heroically resigning herself to her impending fate, brightened up a little, and asked her son to go and choose a new pair of carriage-horses for her. “Valencia will give me little trouble, I hope, So ad- mirably brought-up a girl, and so handsome as she is, will be sure to marry soon, and marry well,” thought Lady Marabout, self-congratulatory, as she dressed for dinner the day of her niece’s wivivel in town, running over men- tally the qualifications and attractions of Valencia Valle- tort, while Felicie’s successor, Mademoiselle Despreaux, whose crime was then to put pink with cerise, mauve with magenta, and sky-blue with azureline, gave the finishing touches to her toilette Valencia will give me no trouble ; she has all the De Bonceur beauty, with the Valletort dig- nity. Who would do for her? Let me see; eligible men are not abundant, and those that are eligible are shy of be- ing marked as Philip would say—perhaps from being hunt- ed so much, poor things! ‘There is Fulke Nugent, heir to a barony, and his father is ninety—very rich, too—he would do; and Philip’s friend, Caradoc, poor, I know, but their Earldom’s the oldest peerage patent. There is Eyre Lee, too; I don’t much like the man, supercilious ont empty- headed; still he’s an unobjectionable alliance. Ai there is Goodwood, Every one has tried for Good- wood, and failed. I should like Valencia to Win him; he is decidedly the most eligible man in town. I will invite him to dinner. If. he is not attracted by Valencia’s beauty, nothing can attract him Despreaux, comme vous etes bete. Otex ces panaches, de grace” Sige Mey ee , : “Valencia will give me no trouble; she will marry at once,” thought Lady Marabout again, looking across the dinner-table at her niece. If any young patrician might be likely to marry at once, it was the Hon. Watensha Valletort ; - was, to the most critical, a beauty; her figure was perfect, her features were perfect, and if you cémplained that her large glorious eyes were a trifle too changeless in expression, that her cheek, exquisitely independent of Marrchale powder, Blane de Perle, and liquid rouge, though it was rarely varied with her thoughts and feelings, why you were very exacting, my good fellow, and should remember that nothing is quite perfect on the face of the easthk—not even @ racer or @ woman—and that whether you bid at the Marabout yearling sales or the Baweliffe, if you wish to be pleased yon’d better leave a hypercritical spirit behind you, and not expect to get all points to your

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20 LADY .MARABOUT'S. TROUBLES. —— eee — ——$—$—$_—— —_ — —_ =— _ — _ -_ oe ee ee ae - TT —— ee — liking. The. best. filly. will have something faulty in temper or breeding, symmetry or, pace, for your,,friend Jack Mart- -ingale to bave the fun.of pointing out to you when your money is,paid and the filly in your stall; and your wife will have the same, only Martingale will pomt her flaws out be- hind your. back, and.only hint them to you with an all-ex-| and spread nets for your young clerical victims, Give hera pressive “Not allowed to smoke in the dining room now!”) triumph at last, and let her haye glory for once, as a ‘A. little..bit ofa. flirt, madame—n’est-ce pas, Charlie ?”) chaperone, In catching you!” | powder, or. would go off. too. quick in the wrong direc- tion, like a volunteer’s rifle charge ; married ignominiously, or married obstinately, or never excited pity in the breast of any man, but had to retire to single-blessedness in the country, console themselves with piety and an harmonium, , eS, © a elle meee _ “Reins kept rather tight, eh, old fellow?” orsomething) Goodwood gave a little shiver, and tried to light a Manilla, | -equally ambiguous, significant, and unpleasant. which utterly refused to take light, for the twelfth time in ..§I-must consider, Philip, I have brought out the beauty) half a minute, ise of the season,” said, Lady .Marabout. to Carruthers, eyeing} “ Hold, your tongue ! If the Templars’ Order were ex- ~her-niece .as. she danced. at. her first. ball. at the Dowager-| tant, wouldn’t T take the vows and bless them?t What an Duchess of Amandine’s, and beginning to brighten up a| unspeakable comfort and protection that white cross would little under the weight of ber responsibilities. be to us, Phil, if we sould. stick it on our coats and know 1 think you haye, mother. Val’s indisputably hand-| it would say to every woman that looked at us, “No ‘go. some. You must tell her to. make play with Goodwood or| my pretty little dears—not to be caught!’ Marriage! I Nugent.” can’t remember any time that that word wasn’t my btig- | -/» Lady Marabout unfurled her fan, and indignantly. inter-| bear. When I was*but a little chicken, some four years old, le rupted him; I distinctly remember, when, I was playing with little Ida Keane on the terrace, hearing her ‘mother. simper to mine, ‘Perhaps darling Goodwood may marry my little Ida some | day, who knows?’ I never would play with Ida afterwards ; | instinct preserved me; she’s six or seyen-and-thirty now, and weighs ten stone, Pm positive. Why won’t they, let “us alone? The way journalists and dowagers, the fellows who want to write, a taking article, and the women who want to, get rid of a taking daughter, all badger «us, in public HY private, about marriage just now, is abominable, on my life; the affair’s ours, I should say, not theirs, and to | marry isn’t the ultimatum of a man’s existence, nor. any- | thing like it.” i eee T aren not | It’s more like the extinguisher, Goodnight, | | cia, or any, girl under my charge, to lay herself out for any man, whoever or whatever it. might be ? 1 trust your cousin would. not stoop to such. maneuvers, did I even stoop to counsel them. Seoand upon it, Philip, it. is precisely those women who try to “make. play,’ as you call it, with your sex that fail most to charm them., It.is.abominable the way in which you men. talk, as if we all hunted you down, and would drive you to St. George’s nolens wolens.” -- So you. would, mother,” laughed.Carruthers, _“ We ‘eligible men’ have a harder life of it than rabbits in a “warren, with a dozen beagles after them. From the minute we're of age.we’re. beset) with traps for the unwary, and . the spring-guns are so dexterously covered with an inyiting, . innocent-looking turf of courtesies and hospitalities that, it’s next to.a-moral impossibility to escape them, let one retire into one’s self, keep to monosyllables through all the courses _of all.the dinners. and all. the. turns of all the valses, and avoid everything ‘compromising,’.as one may. .. ye: sut- fered, and can tell you... I suffer still, though I believe and - hope they are beginning to. look on me as an incurable, giy- _-@n.over.to .the clubs,.the coulisses, and. the cover-side, --There’s. a fellow that’s known:still more of the peines fortes _@t dares. than.1,...Goodwood’s .coming to ask for an. intro- -duction to Val, I would bet.” | wha .. Goodwood was no uncouth Bruin, and.he had hl at? § pleaves. in_his. gift; nor, of. your lacquered, or ormolu, or sil- . yer-gilt coronets, such as are cast. about nowadays with a r sean “oo ge reminds. one of flinging a handful of half- pence from. a balcony,.where the nimblest beggar is first ct “ek ‘,t0 get.the prize; but of the.purest and best gold; and} “Valencia will do me credit : I shall see her engaged Goodwood: had beer tried. for; accordingly by every wo-| before the .end .of June; she will only have to choosé,” : ~man-he came across for the last; dozen years. Lady Marabout would say to herself some twenty times | . ce old fellow.” - And Carruthers drove away in ‘his hansom, while Goodwood got into his night-brougham, thinking that for the sake of the title, the evil (nuptial) day must come, sooner, or latter, but, dashed, off to forget the disagreeable obligation over the supper-table of the most sparkling empress of the demi-monde. Be ae Lady Marabout hid her wish; she brought out the belle of the season, and when a little time had.slip ham the Hon. Val had been presented at the rat awing- room,.and shone there despite the worry, muddle, and “My dear Philip! Do you suppose I would teach Vale squeeze incidental to that royal and fashionable ‘ceremony, and she had gathered second-hand from. her son what said. in the ‘clubs relative to his new specimen of the Valle. tort beauty, she began to be happier under her duties t she had ‘ever been before, and wrote letters to “ dear Adeliza,” .brimful of superlative adjectives and genuine watmth | $. | ate) .. “Goodwood is certainly struck with her,” thought. Lady| in the pauses of the morning concerts, the morning patties, ..Marabout, as Despreaux disrobed her that night, running) the bazaar committees, the toilette consultations, the ‘audi- over with a retrogressive, glance: Valencia Valletort’s suc; ences. to religious beggars, whose name ‘was Legion and + @e8ses. hor fuck ball...“« Very much struck, indeed, I should|-rapacity unmeasured. ’ ; 1 Se oe WOM 5 say. I will issue. cards for another ‘At Home.’ As for} “She will do me great credit,” the semi-eonsoled eha- ‘making play,’ with him, .as Philip terms, it, of course,that) perone would say to herself with self-congratulatory relief; is only... man’s nonsense. Valencia willneed none of those; and if Lady Marabout thought now and then, “I wish she ~ trickeries, I trust; still, it is one’s duty to make the best| were a trifle—a trifle more—demonstrative,” she instantly alliance possible for such a girl, and —dear Adeliza would] checked such an ungrateful and hypocritical ‘wish, and © re- - be 2 pleased.” | , membered that a heart is as highly treacherous and unad- ..... * That’s a decidedly handsome girl, that cousin of yours,| visable possession for any young lady, and a most nappy Phil,” said ol itot on the pavement, before her Grace of omission in her anatomy, though Lady Marabout had, s) Amandine’s, in. Grosvenor Place, at the same hour that) would confess to herself on occasions with great self-re- night, . 3 oe 3 proach, an unworthy and lingering weakness for that con- “T think she is counted like me?”, said Carruthers. ‘“Of| traband article, for which she scorned and sco:ded herself course she’s handsome, hasn't she De Bonceur blood in her,| with the very worst success. 13 my good tellow? We 200 re all of us good-looking, always have}, “Goodwood’s attentions are serious, Philip, say what been, thank God! If you’re inclined to sacrifice Good-| you like,” said the Countess ‘to her son, as ninedly wood, .now’s your time,and my mother "ll be delighted.| as a theologian states his pet points with wool in his ears, | She's brought out about half a million of debutantes, I| that, he may not hear any Satan-inspired, ‘rational and | should say, in her. time, and all of. ’em have, gone| mathematical disproval of them, with which you may wrong, somehow ; wouldn’t go off at all, like damp gun-| rashly seek to soil his tympana and smash his arguments—~

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LADY MARABOUT’S TROUBLES. 21 _———— _ === _—=_—=———_—__— etl >= 5 gE eee ew ee ara ee eee eee ee “Goodwin’s attentions are serious, Philip, say what you like,” said her ladyship, at a morning party at Kew, eating her N itan ice, complacently glancing at the “most eligible alliance of the season,”” who was throwing the balls at’ lawn-billiards, and talking between whiles to the Hon: Val with praiseworthy and promising animation. “Serious indeed, mother, if they tend matrimony-wards !” smiled Oarrtithers. “It’s a very serious time indeed for unwary sparrows when they lend an ear to the eall-bird, and think “about hopping on to the lime twigs. I should think it’s from a sense of compunetion for the net you've led us into, that you ail particularize our attentions, when- 1, point near St. George’s, 7 that very suggestive little adjective ‘serious!’ Yes, 1 am -half afraid’ poor Goodey is a little touched. He threw over our Derby sweepstakes up at Hornsey Wood yesterday to go and stifle himself in Willis’s rooms at your bazaar, and buy a guinea of Souchong from Valencia; and, considering he’s one of the best: shots in England, | don’t think you could have a more conclusive, if you could have a more poetic proof of devoted renunciation. I'd fifty times rather get a spear in my side, @ Ja Ivanhoe, for a woman, than give up a Pigeon-match, a Cup-day or a Field- night |” “You'll never do either!” laughed Lady Marabout, who made it one of her chief troubles that her son would ‘not marry, chiefly, probably, because if he had married she would have been miserable, and thought. no woman good enough for him, would have been jealous of his wife’s share of his heart, and supremely wretched, I have no doubt at/ his throwing himself away, as she would have thought it, had his ‘handkerchief lighted on a Princess born, lovely as Galatea, and blessed with Venus’ cestus. * Never, plaise a Dieu ,” responded her son, piously over, his ice ; “ but if Goodwood’s serious, what’s Cardonnel? He lost his head, if you like, after the Valletort beauty.” “ Major Cardonnel!” said Lady Marabout, hastily. “ Oh no, I don’t think so. I hope not—I trust not.” “Why so? He’s one of the finest fellows in the service.” “T dare say; but you see, my dear Philip, he’s not—not— desirable.” Carruthers stroked his mustaches and laughed: “ Fie, fie, mother ! if all other Belgraviennes are Mammon- worshipers, I thought you kept clear of the paganism. I thought your freedom from it was the only touch by which you wern’t dete’) feminine,’ as the lady novelists say of their pet bits of chill propriety.” “Worship Mammon! Heaven forbid !” ejaculated Lady Marabout. “But there’s duties, you see, my dear; your friend is a very delightful man, to be sure; I like him ee and if Valencia felt any great preference for im——” “ You'd feel it your duty to counsel her to throw him over for Goodwood.” “T never. said so, Philip,” interrupted Lady Marabout, with as near an‘approach to asperity as she could achieve, which approach was less like vinegar than most people’s best —. “* But you implied it: What are ‘duties’ else, and why is poor Cardonnel ‘ not desirable’ ?” a, Marabout played a little tattoo with her spoon in tele My ear Philip, you know as well as I do what I mean, One might think you were a boy of twenty to hear you !” “ My dear mother, like all disputants, when beaten in argument and driven into a corner, you resort to vitupera- tion of your opponent!” laughed Carruthers, as he left her and lounge mia to pick up the stick with which pretty Flora Elmers had just knocked the pipe out of Aunt Sally’s head on to the velvet lawn of Lady George Frangipane’s dower-house, leaving his mother by no means quillized by his suggestions. “Dear me!” thought Lady Marabont, uneasily, as she conversed with the Dowager-Countess of Patchouli on the respective beauties of two new pelargonium seedlings, the Leucadia and the Beatrice, for which her ner had won the prize the day before at the Regent’s Park Show— ‘““dear me! why is there invanably this sort of cross- purposes in everything? - [twill be so grevious to lose Goodwood, (and he is decidedly struck with her;;when he bought that rosebud yesterday of her at the bazaar, and put it in the breast of his waistcoat, I heard what he said, and it was no nonsense, no mere flirting complaisance either)—it would be so grievous to lose him; and yet if Valencia really cared for Cardonnel—and sometimes I almost faricy she does—I shouldn’t know which way to advise. thought it would be odd if a season could pass quietly without my having {some worry of this sort !’” Carruthers was quite right. ©ne fellow at least had lost his head after the beauty of the season, and he was. Car- donnel, of the—Lancers, as fine a fellow, as Philip said, as any in the Queen’s, but a dreadful detrimental in the eyes of all chaperones, because he was but the fourth sono of one of the poorest peers in’ the United Kingdom, @ fact which gave him an egis from all assaults matrimonial,’ and’ a freedom from all smiles and wiles, traps and gins, which © Goodwood was accustomed to tell him he bitterly envied him, and on which Cardonnel had fervently congratulated himself, till he came under the fire of the Hon. Val’s large luminous eyés one night, when he was leveling his glass from his stall at Lady Marabout’s box, to take a look at the — new belle, as advised’ to do by that most fastidious female critic, Vane Steinberg. Valencia Valletort’s luminous eyes » had gleamed that night under their lashes,and pierced through the lenses of his lorgnon. He saw her, and saw nothing but her afterwards, as men looking on the sun keep it on their retina to the damage and exclusion of all other objects. : Goeodwood’s attentions were very marked, too, even to eyes less willing to construe them so than Lady Marabout’s. Goodwood himself, if chaffed on the subject, vouchsafed nothing; laughed, stroked his moustaches, or puffed his cigar, if he happened to have that blessed resource in all dif- ficulties, and comforter under all embarrassments, between his lips at the moment ; but decidedly he sought -Valencia® | Valletort more, or, to speak more correctly, he’ shunned her less than he’d ever done any other young lady, and one or” two Sunday mornings—mirabile dictu—he was positively seen at St. Paul’s, Knightbridge, in the seat behind Lady © Marabout’s sittings. A fact which, combining as it did a~ brace of miracles at once, of early rising and ‘unusual piety, - set every Belgravienne in that fashionable sanctuary watch~ ing over the top of her illuminated prayer book, to the utter destruction of her hopes and interruption of her orisons. Dowagers began to tremble behind their fans; young © ladies to quake over their bouquets; the topic was eagerly discussed by every woman from Clarges street to London © Square; their Graces of Doncaster smiled well pleased on Valencia—she was unquestionable blood, and they so wished dear Goodwood to settle! There was whispered an awfal — whisper to the whole female world ; whispered over matuti- nal chocolate, and luncheon Strasbourg pates, ball-supper Moets, and demi-monde-supper Silleri, over Vane Stein- berg’s cigar and Eulalie Rosiere’s cigarette, over the Morn- ing Post in the elubs, and Le Follet in the boudoir, that— © the Pet Eligible would—marry! That the Pet Prophecy of universal smash was going to be fulfilled could hardly have © occasioned greater consternation. OORIREE: & The soul of Lady Marabout had been disquieted ever since her son’s suggestions at Lady George Frangipane’s morning ‘party, and she began to worry: for herself, for Valencia, for Goodwood, for Cardonnel, for her responsi bilities in general, and for her “dearest Adeliza’s” alter- nate opinions of her duenna qualifications in particular. Things were nicely in train. Goodwood was beginning to bite at that very handsome fly the Hon. Val, ind ‘om- ised to be hooked and landed without much diffoulty- | before long, and pl hopelessly for him, tri ntly for her, in the li et of matrimony. ngs were beautifully in train, and Lady Marabout was for once flat-

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ee _— oO -- . a tering herself she should float pleasantly through an un- ruffed and successful season, when Carruthers poured the one drop of amari aliquid into her champa ae by his suggestion of Cardonnel’s doom. And then Lady Marabout began to worry. | he-who could not endure to see a fly hurt or a flower pulled needlessly, had nothing for it but. to worry for Car- donnel’s destiny, and puzzle over the divided duties which Carruthers had hinted to her, To reject the one man be- cause he was not well off did seem to her conscience, un- comfortably awakened by Phil’s innuendoes, something more mercenary than she quite LEked to look at; yet to throw over the other, future. Duke of Doncaster, the eligi- ble, the darling, the yearned-for of all May Fair and Bel- e: seemed nothing short of madness to inculcate to alencia; a positive treasou to that poor absent, trusting, “ dearest Adeliza,” who, after the visions epistolarily spread out before her, would utterly refuse to be comforted if Good- wood any way failed to become her son-in-law, and, more- over, the heaviest blow to Lady Marabout herself that the merciless axe oi that. brutal headsman Contretemps could deal her. | “JT donot know really what to dc or what to advise,” would Lady Maraboui say to herself over and over again (so disturbed by her onerous burden of responsibilities that she would let Despraux arrange the most outrageous coiffures, and, never noticing them, go out to dinner with emeralds on blue velvet, or something as shocking to feminine nerves. in her temporary aberration), forgetting one very great point, which, remembered, would have saved her all trouble, that nobody asked her to do any- thing, and not a soul requested her advice, ‘“ But Good- wood is decidedly won, and Goodwood must not be lost; in our pesition we owe something te society,” she would invariably conclude these mental debates; which last phase, being of a vagueness and obscure application that might have matched it with any Queen’s speech or electional ad- dress upon .record, was a mysterious balm to Lady Mara- bout’s soul, and spoke volumes to her, if a trifle hazy to you and to me. .“* Arthur Cardonnel is excessively handsome! Such very good style! Isn’t it a pity they’re all_so poor! ‘His ather played away everything—literally everything. The sons. have. no more to marry upon, any one of them, than if they were three cross-sweepers,” said her lady- ship, carelessly, driving home from St. Paul’s one Sunday morning. “She does like him!” sighed Lady Marabout over that Sabbath’s. luncheon wines. “It’s. always my fate— always; and Goodwood, never won before, will be thrown —actually thrown—away, as if he were the younger son of a Nobody!” which horrible waste was so terrible to her imagination that Lady Marabout could positively have shed tears at the bare prospect, and might ime shed them, too, if the Hon. Val, the butler, two footmen, and a e had not, inconveniently happened to be in the room at the time, so that she was driven to restrain her feelings and drink some Amontillado instead. Lady Marabout is not. the first person by a good many who has had to smile over sherry with a breaking heart. Ah! Lips have quivered as they laughed over Chambertin, and trembled as they touched the bowl of a champagne-glass. Wine has assisted at many a joyful festa enough, but some that has been drunk in gayety has caught gleams, in the eyes. of the drinkers, of salt water brighter than its brightest. sparkles; water that no other eyes can see, Because .we may drink Badminton laughingly when the gaze of Society the Non-Sympathetic 1s on us, do you think we must never have tasted any more bitter dregs? Va-ten, becasse. Where have you lived? Nero.does not always, fiddle while Rome.is burning from utter heartless- ness, believe mae, bas rather—sometimes, perhaps—because ose to-night, ] fancy, he is §0 very uady Marabout, sitting with her sister LADY MARABOUT’S TROUBLES. — rrr ———e, chaperones on the cosy causeuses of & mansion in Carlton Terrace, at one of the last balls of the departing season. “I never saw dear Valencia look better, and certainly her waltz- ing is——-Ah ! good evening, Major Cardonnel! Very warm to-night, is itnot? Ishall be so glad when I am down again at Fernditton. ‘Town, in the first week of July, is really not habitable.” And she furled her fan, and smiled on him with her pleasant eyes, and couldn’t help wishing he hadn’t been on the Marchioness. Rondeletia’s visiting list, he was such a detrimental, and he was ten times handsomer than Good- wood ! “ Will Miss Valletort leave you soon?” asked. Cardonnel, sitting down by her. | “Ah, monsieur vous etes la!” thought Lady Marabout, as she answered, like a guarded am Ns Waa as she was, that it was not all settled at present what her niece’s post-season destiny would be, whether Devon or Fernditton, or. the Spas, with her mother, Lady Honiton; and then unfurled her fan again and chatted about Baden and her own indeci- sion as to whether she should go there this September. “ May I ask you a question, and will you pardon me-for its plainness ?” asked Cardonnel, when she’d exhausted Ba- den’s desirable and non-desirable points. | ae Lady Marabout shuddered as she bent her head,and thought, “The creature is never going to confide in me! He will win me over if he do, he looks so like his mother! And what shall I say to Adeliza ?” “Ts your niece engaged to Goodwood or not ?” If ever a little fib was tempting to any lady, from Eve downward, it was tempting to Lady Marabout now! A falsehood would settle everything, send Cardonnel off the field, and clear all possibility of losing the “best. match of the season.” | Besides, if not’ engaged to Goodwood actually to-night, Val would be, if she liked, to-morrow, or the next day, or before the week was over at the fur- therest—would it be such a falsehood after all? She colored, she fidgeted her fan, she longed for the little fib!—how terribly tempting it looked! But Lady Marabeutis.a bad hand at prevarication, and she hatesa lie, and. she ans- wered bravely, with a regretful twinge, “ Engaged ? No; not if “ Not yet!. Thank God !” ; .- Lady Marabout stared at him and at the words muttered under his mustaches: ) “ Really, Major Cardonnel, I do not see why you-——-” “ Should thank Heaven for it? Yet I do—it is a re- prieve. Lady Marabout, you and my mother were close friends ; will you listen to me for a second, while we are not overheard? That I have loved your niece—had the madness to Jove her, if you will—you cannot but have seen ; that she has given me some reasonable encouragement it is ne coxcombry to say, though I have known from the first what a powerful rival I had against me} but that Valencia loves me and does not love him, I believe—nay, I know. «1 have said nothing decided to her ! when all hangs ona single die we shrink from hazarding the throw. But I my fate to-night. If she come to you—as girls will, L be- lieve, sometimes—for countenance and counsel, will you stand my friend ?—will you, for the sake of my friendship with your son, your friendship with my mother, ro my ul say in cause, and uphold what I believe Valencia’s heart my favor ?”’ | | Lady Marabout was silent; no Andalusian’ ever wor- ried her fan more ceaselessly in coquetry than she did in perplexity. enlisted, tale Marabout was lost ! ys “ But—but—my dear a Cardonnel, you are aware——”’ she began, and stopped. awkward to tell a man to his face he 1s “not desirable!” __ “T am aware that I cannot match with Goodwood? I am; but I know, also, that Goodwood’s love cannot match with mine, and that your niece’s affection is not his. That he may win her I know women too well not. to fear, there- fore I ask you to be my friend, If she refuse me, will you must know. Her heart was appealed to, and when that was should suppose it may be a little _

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LADY MARABOUT’S TROUBLES. plead for me ?—if she ask for counsel, will you give such as your own heart dictates (I ask no mpc ig, will you re- member that on Valencia’s answer will rest the fate of a man’s lifetime ?” He rose and left her, but the sound of his voice rang in Lady Marabout’s ears, and the tears welled into her eyes. ‘Dear, dear! how like he looked to his poor dead mother ! But what a position to place mein! Am I never to have any peace ?’ N ot at this ball, at any rate. Of all the worried chape- rones and distracted duennas who hid their anxieties under pleasant smiles or affable lethargy, none were a quarter so miserable as Helena, Lady Marabout. Her heart and her head were enlisted on opposite sides; her wishes pulled one way, her sympathies another; her sense of justice to Cardonnel. urged her to one side, her sense of duty to “dearest Adeliza” urged her to the other; her. pride, longed for one alliance, her heart yearned for the other., Cardonnel had confided in her and appealed to her; seguétur, Lady Marabout’s honor would not allow her to go against him ; yet it was nothing short of grossest treachery to poor Adeliza, down there in Devon, ex- pecting every day to congratulate her daughter on a prospective duchy won, to counsel Valencia to take one of these beggared Cardonnels, and, besides—to lose all her own laurels, to lose the capture of Goodwood ! No Guelphs and Ghibelins, no Royalists and Imperialists, ever fought so hard as Lady Marabout’s divided duties. * Valencia, Major Cardonnel spoke to me to-night,” began that best-hearted and most badgered of ladies, as she sat before her dressing-room fire that night, alone with her niece. Valencia smiled slightly, and a faint idea crossed Lady Marabout’s mind that Valencia’s smile was hardly a pleas- ant one, a trifle too much like the play of moonbeams on ice. “* He spoke to me about you.” Indeed !” “ Perhaps you can guess, my dear, what he said ?” “Tam no clairvoyant, aunt;” and Miss Val yawned a little, and held out one of her long slender feet to admire it. “Every woman, my love, becomes half a clairvoyant when she is in love,” said Lady Marabout, a little bit impa- tiently ; she hadn’t been brought up on the best systems herself, and though she admired the refrigeration (on prin- ciple), it. irritated her just a little now and then. ‘“ Did he —did he say anything to yow to-night ?”’ “Oh, yes!” “* And what did you answer him, my love ?” ““ What would you advise me ?” Lady Marabout sighed, coughed, played nervously with the tassels of her peignoir, crumpled Bijou’s ears with a reckless disregard to that priceless. pet’s feelings, and wished herself at the bottom of the Serpentine, | Car- donnel had trusted her, she couldn’t desert him; poor dear Adeliza had trusted her, she couldn’t betray her; what was right to one would be wrong to the other, and to reconcile her divided duties was a Danaid’s labor. For months she had worried her life out lest her advice should be asked, and now the climax was come, and asked it was. ‘“‘ What a horrible position!” thought Lady Marabout. She waited and hesitated till the pendule had ticked off sixty seconds ; then she summoned her courage and spoke: “ My dear, advice insuch matters is often very harmful, and always very useless; plenty of people have asked my counsel, but I never knew any of them take it unless it chanced to chime in with their fancy. A woman’s best ad- viser is her own heart, specially onsuch a subject as this. Bat before I give my opinion, may Lask if you have ac- — him ?” uady. Marabout’s heart throbbed quick and fast as she put the momentous question, with an agitation for which she would have, blushed before her admirably, nonchalante niece; but the tug of war was coming, and if Goodwood should be lost ! — omni —s —_--——_ ee lll ea ll “ You have accepted him ?” she asked again. “No! I—refused him.” The delicate rose went out of the Hon. Val’s cheeks for once, and she breathed quickly and shortly. Goodwood was not lost then ! Was she sorry—was she glad? Lady Mdrabout hardly knew; like Wellington, she felt the next saddest thing after a defeat is a victory. “ But you love him, Valencia ?” she asked, half ashamed suggesting such weakness, to this glorious beauty. he Hon. Val unclasped her necklet as if it were a chain, choking her, and her face grew white and set—the coldest will feel on occasion, and all have some tender place that can winch at the the touch. ‘Perhaps ; but such folly is best put aside at once. »Cer- tainly I prefer him to others, but to accept him would have been madness, absurdity. I told him so!” — . “You told himso! If you had the heart to do so)» Valencia, he has not lost much in losing you!” burst in Lady Marabout, her indignation getting the better of her judgment, and her heart, as usual, giving the de grace to her reason. “I am shocked at you! ver tender -hearted woman feels regret for affection she is obliged to repulse, even when she does not return it; and you, who love this man 4 “ Would you have had me accept him, aunt ?” | “Yes,” cried Lady Marabout, firmly, forgetting every vestige of “duty,” and every possibility of dear Adeliza’s vengeance, “if you love him, I would, decidedly. . When I married my dear Philip’s father, he was what Cardonnel is, a cavalry man, as far off his family title then as Cardonnel is off his now.” “The more reason I should not imitate. your impru- dence, my dear aunt; death might not carry off the §in- termediate heirs quite so courteously in this case! No, I refused Major Cardonnel, and I did rightly; [ should have repented it by now had I accepted him. There is noth- ing more «silly than to be led away by romance.. You De Bonceurs are romantic, you know; we Valletorts are happily free from the weakness. 1am very tired, aunt, so good night.” 7 The Hon. Val went, the waxlight she carried shedding a paler shade on her handsome face, whiter and more set than usual, but held more proudly, as rf it had already wore the Doncaster coronet; and Lady Marabout sighed as she rang for her maid. “Of course she acted wisely, and I ought to be very pleased ; but that poor, dear fellow !—his eyes are so like his mother’s !” “I congratulate you, mother, on a clear field. You’ve sent poor Arthur off very nicely,’ said Carruthers, the next morning, paying his general visit in her boudoir be- fore the day began, which is much the same time in town as in Greenland, and commences, whatever almanacs may say, about two.or half-past p.m. “ Cardonnel left this morn- ing for Heaven knows where, and is going to exchange, Shellelo tells me, into the —th, which is ordered. to Bengal, so he won’t trouble you much more. When shall I be al- lowed to congratulate my cousin as. the future Countess of Doneaster ?” | | “ Please don’t tease me, Philip. I’ve been vexed enough about your friend. When he came to me this. morning; and asked me if there was no hope, and I was obliged to tell him there was none, I felt wretched,” said Lady Mar- about, as nearly pettishly as she ever said anything; “ but I am really not responsible, notin the least. Besides, | even you must admit that Goodwood is a much more desirable alliance, and if Valencia had accepted Cardon-, nel, pray what would all. Belgravia have said? Why, that, disappointed of Goodwood, she took the other out.of pure pique! We owe something to society, Philip, and something to ourselves.” | ate Carruthers laughed. “ Ah, my dear mother, you women will never be worth all you ought to be till you leave off kowtow-ing to ‘ what will of

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LADY MARABOUT’S TROUBLES. be said,’ and learn to defy that terrible oligarchy: Qu’en dira-t-on ?” ad boar . “He must speak definitely to-morrow,” thought Lady of the Marabout. But the larve of to-morrow burst mto the but-} terfly of to-day, and to-day passed into the chrysalis of yes- terday, and Goodwood was always very nearly caught, and never quite. . | “Come up-stairs, Philip; I want toshow youva little Paul Potter: bought the other day,” said Lady Marabout one morning, returning from a shopping expedition to Regent street)» meeting) her son at her own door just descending from his tilbury:, “Lord Goodwood calling, did you ‘say, Soames?) Oh, very well.” And Lady Marabout floated up the staircase, but signed to;héer footman to open the door, not of the drawmg-room, but of her own boudoir. “The Potter is in my Own room, Philip; you must come ini: here if you wish to see it,” said that adroit lady, for the benefit df Soames. But when the door was shut, Lady Marabout lowered her voice: confidentially: “The Potter isn’t here, dear; I had it hung in the little cabinet through the drawirg-rooms, but I don’t wish to go up there for a few moments— you understand.” Oarruthers threw himself ina chair, and laughed till the dogs Bijou, Bonbon, and Pandore all barked in a furious concert. ¥ “T understand ! So Goody’s positively coming to the int up there, is he?” “No donbt he is,” said Lady Marabout, reprovingly. “ Why else’should he come in when I was not at home? There isnothing extraordinary in it. The only thing I have wondered at is his having delayed so long.” ) “Tfa man,yhad to hang himself, would you wonder he put off pulling the bolt ?” | “T don’t see any em in your jests atall!” returned Lady Marabout.. ‘‘There is nothing ridiculous in winning such a girl as Valencia.” “No; -but the question here is not of winning her, but of buying her. ‘The price ‘is a little high—a ducal cor- onet and splendid settlements, a wedding-ring and bond- age for life; but he will buy her, nevertheless. Cardonnel couldn’t pay the first half of ‘the price, and so he was swept'out of the auction-room. You are shocked, mother? Ah, truth is shocking sometimes, and always maladroit. one oughtn’t to bring it into ladies’ boudoirs.” “Hold your tongue, Philip! I will not have you so satirical. ‘Where'do you take it from? Not fromme I am sure! Hark! there is Goodwood going! That is his step on the stairs, I think ! Dear me, Philip, I wish you sympathized with me a little more, for T do feel happy, ‘and 1 can’t help it: dear Adeliza ‘will be so gratified.” ; “My dear mother, I’ll do my best to be sympathetic, I'll go and congratulate Goodwood as he gets in: his cab, if you fancy I ought; but, you see, if I were in Dahomey beholding he head of my best friend ‘ara off, I couldn’t uite get up thé amount of sympathy in t eir pleasure at the refreshing sight the Dahomites might expect from me, and so—” But Lady Marabout missed the comparison of herself to a Dahomite, for she had opened the door and was crossing to the drawing rooms, her eyes bright, her step elastic, her heart exultant at the triumph of her maneu- vers, The Hon: Val was playing with some ferns in an etavere at the bottom of the farthest room, and responded to the kiss her aunt bestowed on her about as much asif she had been one of the statuettes on the consoles. -® Well, love, what did he say?” asked Lady Marabout, breathlessly, with eager delight and confident anticipation. Like drops of ice on warm rose-leaves fell each word of the intensely chill and slightly sulky response on Lady Marabout’s heart. “He said that he goes to Cowes to-morrow for the Royal Yacht +h oe dinner, and then on in the a e to the Spitzbergen coast for walruses. He left a P. P. C. card for you.” | | “ Walruses !’? shrieked Lady Marabout; — Tob Lins * Walruses,” resporidedthe Hon. Vale >» ot ovo % “And said no more than that?’ .-o42-0 4 so fe.) "oom “ No more than that!” SS OMMIOTU Geer The Pet Eligible had flown’ off ancaught after all! Lady Marabout needed no further explanation“stouw fut dit. They were both silent and paralyzed. Do you suppose Pompey and Cornelia had much ‘need ‘of: words’ when they met at Lesbos after the horrible deroute of Pharsalia?o: ° “Pm in your mother’s blackest books. for ever, Phil,” said Goodwood ‘to Carruthers in the express to Southampton for the Ru YiC, Squadron Regatta of that. -year,) “but I can’t help it. It’s no good to badger us: into marriages itonly makes us double, and run to earth.» I was near compromising myself with your cousin, I grant, but the thing that chilled me was, she’s too studied. « It’sallygot up beforehand, and goes upon clockwork, and it’ @on’t® interest one accordingly ; the mechanism’s perfect, but we know when it will raise its hand, and move its eyes, and bow its head, and when we've looked at its beauty once we get tired of it. That’s the fault in Valencia, and’ in scores of them, and as long as they won’t “be (natural; why, they ean’t’ have much chance with us !’” | vo weil ‘hich ‘piece of* advice Carruthers, when he next ‘saw his mother, repeated to her, for the edification of all future ded-- utantes, adding a small sermon of his own : bi WO ‘*My dear mother, I ask you, is it to’ be expected that we can marry just to oblige women and please’ the news- papers? Would you have me marched off to Hanover Square because it would be a kindness to'take one‘of Lady Elmers’ marriageable daughters, ‘or ‘because >a leading journal fills up an empty column with farcical lamenta- tion on our dislike to the bendage?: Of ‘eourse> you wouldn’t ; yet, for no better reasons, you’d have chained’ poor Goodwood if you could have caught him. Whether a man likes to marry or not/is certainly his own private business, though just now it’s made a popular publie:dis- cussion. Do you wonder that’ we shirk the institution ? If:we have not fortune, marriage cramps our energiesy our resources, our ambitions, loads us with petty ‘cares, and trebles»our anxieties. To one who rises*with such a burden on his shoulders, how many ,sink down in ob- scurity, who, but fer the leaden weight of pecuniary diffi- culties with which marriage has laden’ their feet, might. have climbed: the highest round in the’social ladder? . On the other side, if we have fortune, if we have the unhap happiness to be eligible, is it wonderful that we are not. flattered by the worship, of young ladies. who love us for what we shall give them, that we don’t feel exactly hoti- ored by being courted for what we are worth, and: that we're not over-willing to give. up our liberty to oblige those who look: on’ us only as good speculations?) ‘What. think you, eh ?” a os 26 | badla’ “My dear Philip, you are right... I see it—I don’t dis- pute it; but when a thing becomes personal, you know philosopher becomes difficult. I have ‘such letters from poor dear Adeliza—such letters ! Of course she thinks. it is all my fault, and I believe she will break entirely — with me. It is so very shocking. § You see all Belgravia coupled their names, and the very day that he went off. to Cowes in that heartless, abominable manner, if an an- nouncement of the alliance as arranged did not positively appear in the Court Circular. It did indeed! T am sure Anne Hantton was at the bottom of it; it would be just like her. Perhaps poor Valencia cannot be pitied after her treatment of Cardonnel, but it is very hard on me.” Lady Marabout is right ; when a thing becomes personal » philosophy becomes difficult. When your gun misses fire, and a fine eock bird whirrs up from the ‘covert and takes. wing unharmed, never to swell the number of your triumphs» and the size of your game-bag, could you by any chance find it in ‘your soul to sympathize with the bird’s grati- fication at your mortification and its own good luck, } 75 The Black Lady of Duna. By J. 5. Le Fanu, : 76 Charlotte Temple, By Mrs. Rowson,