Our party from Delmé were ushered into a large drawing-room, the sole light of which was from an

immense bow window, looking out on the extensive lawn. The panes were of enormous size, and beautiful specimens of classique plated glass. The only articles of furniture, were some crimson ottomans which served to set off the splendid paintings; and one table of the Florentine manufacture of pietra dura, on which stood a carved bijou of Benvenuto Cellini's. Our party were early. They were welcomed by Mr. Græme with great cordiality, and by Mr. Hargrave with some embarrassment, for the tutor was still the bashful man of former days. Mr. Græme's dress shamed these degenerate days of black stock and loose trowser. Diamond buckles adorned his knees, and fastened his shoes. His clear blue eye-the high polished forehead-the deep lines of the countenance-revealed the man of thought and intellect. The playful lip shewed he could yet appreciate a flash of wit or spark of humour.

"Miss Delmé, you are looking at my paintings; let me show you my late purchases. Observe

this sweet Madonna, by Murillo! I prefer it to the one in the Munich Gallery. It may not boast Titian's glow of colour, or Raphael's grandeur of design,-in delicate angelic beauty, it may yield to the delightful efforts of Guido's or Correggio's pencil, but surely no human conception can ever have more touchingly portrayed the beauteous resigned mother. The infant, too! how inimitably blended is the God-like serenity of the Saviour, with the fond and graceful witcheries of the loving child! How little we know of the beauties of the Spanish school! Would I could ransack their ancient monasteries, and bring a few of them to light!

You are a chess player! Pass not by this check-mate of Caravaggio's. What undisguised triumph in one countenance! What a struggle to repress nature's feelings in the other! Here is a Guido! sweet, as his ever are! He may justly be styled the female laureat. What artist can compete with him in delineating the blooming expression, or the tender, but lighter, shades of female loveliness? who can pause between even the

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Fornarina, and that divine effort, the Beatrice

Cenci of the Barberini?"

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The party were by this time assembled. sides our immediate friends, there was his Grace the Duke of Gatten, a good-natured fox-hunting nobleman, whose estate adjoined Mr. Græme's; there was the Viscount Chambéry, who had penned a pamphlet on finance-indited a folio on architecture-and astonished Europe with an elaborate dissertation on modern cookery; there was Charles Selby, the poet and essayist; Daintrey, the sculptor-a wonderful Ornithologist-a deep read Historian-a learned Orientalist-and a novelist, from France; whose works exhibited such unheard of horrors, and made man and woman so irremediably vicious, as to make this young gentleman celebrated, even in Paris-that Babylonian sink of iniquity.

Dinner was announced, and our host, giving his arm very stoically to Mrs. Glenallan, his love of former days, led the way to the dining-room. Round the table were placed beautifully carved oaken fauteuils, of a very old pattern. The service of plate was extremely plain, but of massive gold.

But the lamp! It was of magnificent dimensions! The light chains hanging from the frescoed ceiling, the links of which were hardly preceptible, were of silver, manufactured in Venice; the lower part was of opal-tinted glass, exactly portraying some voluptuous couch, on which the beautiful Amphitrite might have reclined, as she hastened through beds of coral to crystal grot, starred with transparent stalactites. In the centre of this shell, were sockets, whence verged small hollow golden tubes, resembling in shape and size the stalks of a flower. At the drooping ends of these, were lamps shaped and coloured to imitate the most beauteous flowers of the parterre. This bouquet of light had been designed by Mr. Græme. Few novelties had acquired greater celebrity than the Græme astrale. The room was warmed by heating the pedestals of the statues.

Potage à la fantôme, and à l'ourika."

"I will trouble you, Græme," said my Lord Chambéry, "for the fantôme. I have dined on la pritannière for the last three months, and a novel soup is a novel pleasure."

Of the fish, the soles were à la Rowena, the salmon à l'amour. Emily flirted with the wing of a chicken sauté au suprême, coquetted with perdrix perdu masqué à la Montmorenci, and tasted a boudin à la Diebitsch. The wines were excellentthe Geisenheim delicious-the Champagne sparkling like a pun of Jekyll's. But nothing aroused the attention of the Viscount Chambéry so much as a liqueur, which Mr. Græme assured him was new, and had just been sent him by the Conte de Désir. The dessert had been some time on the table, when the Viscount addressed his host.

"Græme! I am delighted to find that you at length agree with me as to the monstrous superiority of a French repast. Your omelette imaginaire was faultless, and as for your liqueur, I shall certainly order a supply on my return to Paris."

"That liqueur, my dear lord," replied Mr. Græme, "is good old cowslip mead, with a flask of Maraschino di Zara infused in it. For the rest, the dinner has been almost as imaginaire as the omelet. The greater part of the recipes are in an old English volume in my library, or perhaps