that is to be thought of for a moment. You will see they will marry young Lord Derwentwater to an Italian princess; but he is only seventeen, and his directors never lose sight of him. Sir Bartholomew Fawkes will have a fine property when Lord Campion dies, unless Lord Campion leaves the money to the convent where his daughter is —and, of the other families, who is there? I made every inquiry purposely—that is, of course, one is anxious to know about the Catholics as about one's own people: and little Mr. Rood, who was one of my poor brother Steyne's lawyers, told me there is not one young man of that party at this moment who can be called a desirable person. Be very civil to Madame de Florac; she sees some of the old legitimists, and you know I am brouillée with that party of late years."

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

So Ethel went to see Madame de Florac. She was very kind to Madame de Préville's children, Madame de Florac's grandchildren; she was gay and gracious with Madame de Montcontour. She went again and again to the "Hôtel de Florac," not caring for Lady Kew's own circle of statesmen and diplomatists, Russian, and Spanish, and French, whose talk about the courts of Europe,-who was in favour at St. Petersburg, and who was in disgrace at Schoenbrunn-naturally did not amuse the lively young person. The goodness of Madame de Florac's life, the tranquil grace and melancholy kindness with which the French lady received her, soothed and pleased Miss Ethel. She came and reposed in Madame de Florac's quiet chamber, or sat in the shade in the sober old garden of her hotel; away from all the trouble and chatter of the salons, the gossip of the embassies, the fluttering ceremonial of the Parisian ladies' visits in their fine toilettes, the fadaises of the dancing dandies, and the pompous mysteries of the old statesmen who frequented her grandmother's apartment. The world began for her at night; when she went in the train of the old Countess from hotel to hotel, and danced waltz after waltz with Prussian and Neapolitan secretaries, with princes' officers of ordonnance,-with personages even more lofty very likely,-for the court of the Citizen King was then in its splendour; and there must surely have been a number of nimble young royal highnesses who would like to dance

with such a beauty as Miss Newcome. The Marquis of Farintosh had a share in these polite amusements. His English conversation was not brilliant as yet, although his French was eccentric; but at the court balls, whether he appeared in his uniform of the Scotch Archers, or in his native Gleṇlivat tartan, there certainly was not in his own or the public estimation a handsomer young nobleman in Paris that season. It has been said that he was greatly improved in dancing; and, for a young man of his age; his whiskers were really extraordinarily large and curly.

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

self, permit one who might be your father to point where you are wrong.?'

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

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

ended."

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

If Ethel had not wanted to see him, would she have come? Yes; she used to say she was going to Madame de Préville's, not to Madame de Florac's, and would insist, I have no doubt, that it was Madame de Préville whom she went to see, (whose husband was a member of the Chamber of Deputies, a Conseiller d'Etat, or other French big-wig,) and that she had no idea of going to meet Clive, or that he was more than a casual acquaintance at the "Hôtel de Florac." There was no part of her conduct in all her life which this lady, when it was impugned, would defend more strongly than this intimacy at the "Hôtel de Florac." It is not with this I quarrel especially. My

fair young readers, who have seen a half-dozen of seasons, can you call to mind the time when you had such a friendship for Emma Tomkins, that you were always at the Tomkins's, and notes were constantly passing between your house and hers? When her brother, Paget Tomkins, returned to India, did not your intimacy with Emma fall off? If your younger sister is not in the room, I know you will own as much to me. I think you are always deceiving yourselves and other people. I think the motive you put forward is very often not the real one; though you will confess, neither to yourself, nor to any human being, what the real motive is. I think that what you desire you pursue, and are as selfish in your way as your bearded fellow-creatures are. And as for the truth being in you, of all the women in a great acquaintance, I protest there are but―never mind. A perfectly honest woman, a woman who never flatters, who never manages, who never cajoles, who never conceals, who never uses her eyes, who never speculates on the effect which she produces, who never is conscious of unspoken admiration, what a monster, I say, would such a female be! Miss Hopkins, you have been a coquette since you were a year old; you worked on your papa's friends in the nurse's arms by the fascination of your lace frock and pretty new sash and shoes ; when you could just toddle, you practised your arts upon other children in the square, poor little lambkins sporting among the daisies; and nunc in ovilia, mox in reluctantes dracones, proceeding from the lambs to reluctant dragoons, you tried your arts upon Captain Paget Tomkins, who behaved so ill, and went to India without-without making those proposals which of course you never expected. Your intimacy was with Emma. It has cooled. Your sets are different. The Tomkins's are not quite &c. &c. You believe Captain Tomkins married a Miss O'Grady, &c. &c. Ah, my pretty, my sprightly Miss Hopkins, be gentle in your judgment of your neighbours!

AL

CHAPTER XLVII.

CONTAINS TWO OR THREE ACTS OF A LITTLE COMEDY.

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

Suppose then, in the quaint old garden of the "Hôtel de Florac," two young people are walking up and down in an avenue of limetrees, which are still permitted to grow in that ancient place. In the centre of that avenue is a fountain, surmounted by a Triton so gray and moss-eaten, that though he holds his conch to his swelling lips, curling his tail in the arid basin, his instrument has had a sinecure for at least fifty years; and did not think fit even to play when the Bourbons, in whose time he was erected, came back from their exile. At the end of the lime-tree avenue is a broken-nosed damp Faun, with a marble panpipe, who pipes to the spirit ditties which I believe never had any tune. The perron of the hotel is at the other end of the avenue; a couple of Cæsars on either side of the door-window, from which the inhabitants of the hotel issue into the garden-Caracalla frowning over his mouldy shoulder at Nerva, on to whose clipped hair the roofs of the gray château have been dribbling for ever so many