very well known as a good-natured handsome young man, and a very good waltzer, the only son of an Indian officer of large wealth, who chose to devote himself to painting, and who was supposed to entertain an unhappy fondness for his cousin the beautiful Miss Newcome. Kind folks who heard of this little tendre, and were sufficiently interested in Mr. Clive, asked him to their houses in consequence. I daresay those people who were good to him may have been themselves at one time unlucky in their own love-affairs.

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

I am obliged to own the fact, that for many months Lady Kew hunted after Lord Farintosh. This rheumatic old woman went to Scotland, where, as he was pursuing the deer, she stalked his lordship: from Scotland she went to Paris, where he was taking lessons in dancing at the Chaumière; from Paris to an English country-house, for Christmas, where he was expected, but didn't come-not being, his professor said, quite complete in the polka, and so on. If Ethel were privy to these manœuvres, or anything more than an unwittingly consenting party, I say we would depose her from her place of heroine at once. But she was acting under her grandmother's orders, a most imperious, irresistible, managing old woman, who exacted everybody's obedience, and managed everybody's business in her family. Lady Ann Newcome being in attendance on her sick husband, Ethel was consigned to the Countess of Kew, her grandmother, who hinted that she should leave Ethel her property when dead, and whilst alive expected the girl should go about with her. many letters as a Secretary of State almost. set off without taking anybody's advice, or announcing her departure until within an hour or two of the event. In her train moved Ethel, against her own will, which would have led her to stay at home with.

She had and wrote as She was accustomed to

her father, but at the special wish and order of her parents. Was such a sum as that of which Lady Kew had the disposal (Hobson Brothers knew the amount of it quite well) to be left out of the family? Forbid it, all ye powers! Barnes, who would have liked the money himself, and said truly that he would live with his grandmother anywhere she liked if he could get it,-Barnes joined most energetically with Sir Brian and Lady Ann in ordering Ethel's obedience to Lady Kew. You know how difficult it is for one young woman not to acquiesce when the family council strongly orders. In fine, I hope there was a good excuse for the queen of this history, and that it was her wicked, domineering old prime minister who led her wrong. Otherwise, I say, we would have another dynasty. Oh, to think of a generous nature, and the world, and nothing but the world to occupy it!—of a brave intellect, and the milliner's bandboxes, and the scandal of the coteries, and the fiddle-faddle etiquette of the Court for its sole exercise! of the rush and hurry from entertainment to entertainment; of the constant smiles and cares of representation; of the prayerless rest at night, and the awaking to a godless morrow! This was the course of life to which Fate, and not her own fault altogether, had for a while handed over Ethel Newcome. Let those pity her who can feel their own weakness and misgoing; let those punish her who are without fault themselves.

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

Of these it is our pleasing duty to be able to corroborate, to some extent, Mr. F. Bayham's favourable report. Fancy sketches and historical pieces our young man had eschewed; having convinced himself either that he had not an epic genius, or that to draw portraits of his friends was a much easier task than that which he had set himself formerly. Whilst all the world was crowding round a pair of J. J.'s little pictures, a couple of chalk heads were admitted into the Exhibition, (his great picture of Captain Crackthorpe on horseback, in full uniform, I must own, was ignominiously rejected,) and the friends of the parties had the pleasure of recognising in the miniature room, No, 1246, “Portrait of an Officer,”—viz., Augustus Butts, Esq., of the Life Guards Green; and "Portrait of the Rev. Charles Honeyman,” No. 1272. Miss Sherrick the hangers refused; Mr. Binnie, Clive had spoiled, as usual, in the painting; the chalk heads, however, before

named, were voted to be faithful likenesses, and executed in a very agreeable and spirited manner. F. Bayham's criticism on these performances, it need not be said, was tremendous. Since the days of Michael Angelo you would have thought there never had been such drawings. In fact, F. B., as some other critics do, clapped his friends so boisterously on the back, and trumpeted their merits with such prodigious energy as to make his friends themselves sometimes

uneasy.

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

Whereas the young Clive Newcome-and it comforted the poor fellow's heart somewhat, and be sure pleased Ethel, who was looking on at his triumphs—was voted the most charming young Englishman who had been seen for a long time in our salons. Madame de Florac, who loved him as a son of her own, actually went once or twice into the world in order to see his début. Madame de Montcontour inhabited a part of the "Hôtel de Florac," and received society there. The French people did not understand what bad English she talked, though they comprehended Lord Farintosh's French blunders. "Monsieur Newcome is an artist! What a noble career!" cries a great French lady, the wife of a Marshal, to the astonished Miss Newcome. "This young man is the cousin of the charming Meess? You must be proud to possess such a nephew, Madame!” says another French lady to the Countess of Kew (who, you may be sure,

is delighted to have such a relative). And the French lady invites Clive to her receptions expressly in order to make herself agreeable to the old Comtesse. Before the cousins have been three minutes together in Madame de Florac's salon, she sees that Clive is in love with Ethel Newcome. She takes the boy's hand and says, "J'ai votre secret, mon ami;” and her eyes regard him for a moment as fondly, as tenderly, as ever they looked at his father. Oh, what tears have they shed, gentle eyes! Oh, what faith has it kept, tender heart! If love lives through all life; and survives through all sorrow; and remains steadfast with us through all changes; and in all darkness of spirit burns brightly; and, if we die, deplores us for ever, and loves still equally; and exists with the very last gasp and throb of the faithful bosom-whence it passes with the pure soul, beyond death; surely it shall be immortal! Though we who remain are separated from it, is it not ours in Heaven? If we love still those we lose, can we altogether lose those we love? Forty years have passed away. Youth and dearest memories revisit her, and Hope almost wakes up again out of its grave, as the constant lady holds the young man's hand, and looks at the son of Thomas Newcome.

CHAPTER XLVI.

THE HÔTEL DE FLORAC.

INCE the death of the Duc d'Ivry, the husband of Mary Queen of

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

man.

When Florac has told his friends of the Club why it is he has assumed a new title-as a means of reconciliation (a reconciliation all philosophical, my friends) with his wife, née Higg of Manchester, who adores titles like all Anglaises, and has recently made a great succession, everybody allows that the measure was dictated by prudence, and there is no more laughter at his change of name. The Princess takes the first floor of the hotel at the price paid for it by the American General, who has returned to his original pigs at Cincinnati. Had not Cincinnatus himself pigs on his farm, and was he not a general and member of Congress too? The honest Princess has a bed