you will make a bad traveller; however, I shall rely upon your amendment."

Emily was not asleep, but she was oppressed by that sense of nothingness with which the native of a great town is too familiar to be able to judge of its effect on a stranger. She had been accustomed to live where every face was a familiar one-where every one's affairs had, at least, the interest of neighbourhoodand where a stranger had all the excitement of novelty. Here all was new and cold: the immensity was too great to fix on a place of rest-the hurry, the confusion of the streets bewildered her. She felt, not only that she was nobody, but that nobody cared for her—a very disagreeable conviction at which to arrive, but one very natural in London.

That journey is dreary which does not end at home; and I do not know whether to despise for his selfishness, or to pity for his situation, the individual who said, that he had ever found

"Life's warmest welcome at an inn."

It was paying himself and his friends a compli

ment.

CHAPTER XV.

A most delightful person? I said "

yes:"
To such a question how could I say less?
And yet I thought, half pedant and half fop,
If this you praise, where will eulogium stop?

THE day after their arrival, the Mandevilles being engaged to a family dinner, where they could not well take a stranger, Emily accepted the invitation of a Mrs. Trefusis, with whom, to use the lady's own expression, she was "a prodigious favourite." And to Mrs. Trefusis' accordingly she went, and was received with that kind of manner which says, "You see I mean to make a great deal of you, so be very much obliged." At dinner Miss Arundel was placed next a gentleman; her hostess having previously whispered, "I think you will have a treat."

When a person says, "Were you not delighted with my friend Mr. A, B, C, or D?— I placed you next him at dinner, as I was sure

his wit would not be thrown away upon you" -the "you" dwelt on in the most complimentary tone is it possible to answer in the negative? Not even in the palace of truth itself. You cannot be ungrateful-you will not be undeserving and you reply," Mr. is a most delightful person." Your affirmative is received and registered, and you have the comfort, perhaps, of hearing your opinion quoted, as thinking him so superior-while you really consider the gentleman little better than a personified yawn.

Emily was not yet impertinent or independent enough to have opinions of her own, or she might have differed from her hostess's estimate of Mr. Macneil. Mrs. Trefusis valued conversation much as children do sweetmeats-not by the quality, but the quantity: a great talker was with her a good talker-silence and stupidity synonymous terms-and "I hate people who don't talk," the idéale and morale of her social creed. It was said she accepted her husband because he did not ever allow her to slip in an affirmative. An open carriage and a sudden shower drove her one day into desperation and Lady Alicia's; unexpected pleasures are always most prized; and half an hour's

lively conversation with Miss Arundel, rescuing her from the double dulness of heavy rain and Lady Alicia, excited a degree of gratitude which constituted Emily a favourite for a fortnight at least. She had as yet had no opportunity of acknowledgment, and she now expressed her partiality by placing her next Mr. Macneil at dinner.

In every man's nature some one leading principle is developed-in Macneil this was self-satisfaction. It was not vanity—that seeks for golden opinions from all ranks of men; it was not conceit-for that canvasses, though more covertly, for admiration; but Macneil was vain en roi-he took homage as a right divine— and, whether in love or law, learning or literature, classics or quadrilles, there existed for him a happy conviction that he was the perfection of each. At college he used to drink porter of a morning while reading for his degree, to repress, as he said, the exuberance of his genius (query, is genius, then, incompatible with examination and a university?) He married for the pleasure of stating how very much his wife was in love with him. Great part of his reputation rested on always choosing the subject his auditor was most likely to know nothing about.

To young gentlemen he talked of love-to young ladies, of learning; and we always think, what we do not comprehend must be something very fine for example, he dilated to Emily on the music of Homer's versification, and the accuracy of Blackstone's deductions.

As they went up stairs, Mrs. Trefusis whispered, "Did you ever meet so entertaining a man? he never stopped talking once all dinner." He had, certainly, some natural advantages as a wit: he was thin, bilious-looking, and really was very ill-natured—and half the speeches that have a run in society, only require malice to think them, and courage to utter them. Still, it is difficult to affix any definite character to Mr. Macneil. He had neither that sound learning which industry may acquire, nor that good sense which is unacquirable; and as for wit, he had only depreciation: he was just the nil admirari brought into action.

On arriving in the drawing-room, Emily gladly sought refuge in a window-seat; her hearing faculty was literally exhausted; she felt, like Clarence,

"A dreadful noise of waters in her ear."

Luckily, it was a period when none are expected