room, and took refuge behind one of the county ladies, who sat fat and fidgety on the edge of her chair, in a thick brocade gown and a profusion of blonde (now that both are out of fashion), not venturing to look to the right or the left except when her husband, who stood near her, a portly man in a blue coat, gilt buttons, and white waistcoat, occasionally stooped down and whispered, "there, my dear, that's the duchess sitting next her ladyship on the sofa;" or, "I wonder how long it will be before we have dinner?"

Lady Sudbury and the Duchess of Darlington occupied one sofa, and between them sat a beautiful little Blenheim dog of the name of Juan; his large, black, eastern eyes looking languidly round, as though he was bored to death, and wondered with Mr. Palmer (the county gentleman) when dinner would be ready; one paw rested on Lady Sudbury's soft green velvet dress, while she stroked one of his long, silken, Titian-like ears, and complained to the duchess of the dreadful headaches she had had lately.

“It's your mind, dear Lady Sudbury," said her grace, with a half smile; you really study too much."

66

"Have you seen," inquired Lady Sudbury, modestly waiving the accusation, "have you seen this new American author, Mr. Snobguess ?"

"No," replied the duchess.

"Oh, you should see him," said Lady Sudbury, "for he is writing a book about England, and means to mention all the beauties; but he is to be here to-day; Lady Stepastray, who, you know, has a perfect menagerie of lions always about her, is to bring him to dinner, and they stay till after Christmas; I told her to tell him that he must not be disappointed if he finds me very dull, for I have been suffering so much with my head lately."

While Lady Sudbury was still speaking, a page advanced, and when she had ceased, announced Lady Stepastray and Mr. Snobguess. The latter, having been duly presented by the former, made his best Broadway bow, and said,

"I'm sorry, my lady, to hear that you've not been quite roight (right) about the head lately."

The duchess smiled; Lady Sudbury looked notes of interrogation, and Mr. Rufus Snobguess came to a full stop by seizing poor little Juan's unoccupied ear; which piece of low-bred Yankee familiarity naturally roused

his Blenheim blood and set him howling. Reader, hast ever seen a shepherdess worked in a sampler, looking down upon a pet lamb with a look of softness and vacuity, produced by the reflection of green silk grass three inches below her eyes, studded with pink silk roses waving one inch above her hat and crook? if so, exert thy memory to recall the vision; this done, stretch thy imagination to the contemplation of the same shepherdess evaporating on a bank of primroses, and you will behold the intellectual and ethereal Lady Stepastray; there was a feline gentleness in her ladyship's manner, a mewing softness in her ladyship's voice, that was perfectly entrapping. She had a graceful habit of crossing her left hand over her right wrist, and then drawing both in towards her chest, that gave a picturesque air to her whole figure, between that of a Magdalene and a Morris-dancer. Some forty years ago, she had, through the medium of a Scotch divorce, disembarrassed herself of her first husband; and so well had this severe discipline agreed with him, that he was still walking about and merry, long after the silent tomb had received his successor. An interesting youth, now about two-and-forty, was the result of her ladyship's first marriage; but her feelings were of that refined and delicate nature, that she seldom saw him, and few had ever heard of him; whether it was the almost infantine simplicity of her thoughts that continued to impart such youth to her appearance, I cannot take upon me to say; but certain it is, that it seemed as if she and Time had thrown for victory, and that she had decidedly won. Seeming to think that death was out of the question for her, she compromised the matter by dying her hair and rejuvinating her dress every year; and though she had not entirely left off love, she had within the last ten years taken to literature, and written some charming works; one called the "Chamberlain's Daughter," and another the "Old Road to Ruin," which, considering she had been going it for the last fifty years, she could not have possibly selected a subject with which she was more conversant; having for a similar number of years thoroughly wormed herself, by falsehood, flattery, and accommodating conduct, into the good graces of every one, either in society or literature, whom she thought worth toadying; her plan being, like that of the illustrious Roman who stood aloof on the top of the hill

till he saw which side victory favoured, to be neuter in all differences, conjugal or otherwise, till she saw which party was the strongest, and then join that. However, I'm sure this only arose from her love of being in the fashion; for however kind one may have been to people, however great and continued the benefits one may have bestowed upon them, and however inordinate their expressions and professions of gratitude may be, let but misfortune come to us, and, like a blot of ink upon a fair transcript, it seems to obliterate everything. As I have never yet met with any one who had succeeded in reading her ladyship's books, it may be interesting to know the style of her writings: this they may do through a very delightful medium, that of reading the ninth number of Nicholas Nickleby, as the "Chamberlain's Daughter" and the "Old Road to Ruin" were precisely in the same milk-and-water-run-mad school of "The Lady Flabella;" that charming novel which Kate Nickleby read out to Mrs. Wititterly, and which that lady thought "so soft," while Kate (a point in which most persons will be likely to agree with her) thought it "very soft."

However, thanks to her dinners, and Fuzboz's good digestion and consequent gratitude, he had manufactured a charming biography of "this gifted lady," accompanied by a youthful portrait, for one of the magazines. In this interesting life, the first husband and the old son were both carefully suppressed, or, rather, lopped off as useless excrescences with which the public had nothing to do; and then Fuzboz proceeded to inform them that her ladyship's thirst for knowledge (that abstruse and metaphysical knowledge beyond the capacity of most of her sex) had burst forth in uncontrollable force even from her earliest infancy; no wonder, then, that it had been quenched by such deep draughts from the "Pierian spring," when we consider the length of time that had elapsed from that period up to the present. So that Fuzboz's concluding peroration, bidding the world wonder at and admire the result of her ladyship's studies, was almost superfluous. At the advent of each succeeding work (piece of work would be a more appropriate term, as they had always to be "done in English by several hands," as the poor publisher knew to his cost, though to do them into sense was a miracle beyond the power of modern times); well, at the advent

of each succeeding work, Lady Stepastray was sure to possess herself of a classical gold inkstand, or a costly jewelled pen, or sometimes both, which were paraded to the fashionable and literary world by turns, varying their history for each as to authors and authors' wives. It was "Look, my dear Mr. or Mrs. So and So, the dear Duke of (naming a royal duke) sent me these the other day, with such a pretty letter, thanking me for my book, and saying that, as no one made such good use of their pen, he must send me these implements for writing in the hope of inducing me to write more; now it was so very prettily expressed you can't think!" The lords and ladies heard the same story in their turn, with this difference, that the royal duke was changed to "the celebrated author of so and so;" but this sometimes entailed another addition, as her auditor would exclaim, "Dear Lady Stepastray, do show me the letter, for I should so like to see his handwriting :" whereupon her ladyship was overpowered with a very natural confusion, and looking blush-ways, simpered out, "Oh, I thought it looked so vain to keep it, that I burned it."

Next to being a genius, Lady Stepastray was determined to grow into a young beauty, and it was curious to see the dexterity with which she contrived to give people notice of this, by wrapping up the fact in a pretended insult. Thus she would, à propos de bottes, say to some blooming beauty of nineteen, "dear Lady Jane," or Caroline, as the case might be, "you are much too beautiful to go through this world without envy and illnature; people are so ill-natured; only think of Lady M. saying to me the other day, 'ah! it's all very fine, Lady Stepastray, but I'm certain the men would never read your books as they do if you were not such a pretty woman! Now, so very ill-natured, you know, because reviewers (with a great emphasis on the word) don't care whether one is pretty or not; but, the fact is, Lady M. being an authoress herself, she is jealous of me!"

Another very ingenious device of Lady Stepastray's was silently to claim the authorship of every very clever book that came out anonymously: this she achieved by looking confused, or abruptly changing the subject when the merits of the work were discussed; or if any one remarked, "It is evidently in so and so's style, and, after all, I think it must be theirs," she would VOL. II.-N

look down with a conscious smile and murmur, "No, no, it is not Mr. B.'s or Mrs. G.'s, I have reason to know;" and then, if laughingly taxed by her auditors, who knew full well she could not write such a book, with the authorship, she would playfully tap them on the wrist, and smilingly walk away as she said, "What right have you to suppose it's mine? I have not owned it. Now pray don't go and say that I wrote it, for I-I mean the person who wrote it-I know, wishes it to be kept a profound secret!"

Lady Stepastray, as soon as she had dulcified sufficiently with Lady Sudbury and the duchess, glided across the room, and professed herself overwhelmed with delight to see dear Lord Cheveley; and so far she was sincere, that she really was always rejoiced to see any one that was either great, or rich, or celebrated. Cheveley was truly grateful when dinner was announced, as it relieved him from the "fadeurs" of Lady Stepastray, whose talk was about as piquante as cold veal without salt. Lord Sudbury, having passed on with the Duchess of Darlington, and the Duke with Lady Sudbury, it became Cheveley's turn to offer his arm to Lady Florence Lindley, Lord Sudbury's sister, a handsome and agreeable woman of about thirty, who seemed the only person unconscious of these two qualifications; the young ladies being distributed between Lord St. Leger, Tom Dareall, and Mr. Palmer, while Mrs. Palmer availed herself of the benefit of clergy in the chaplain's left arm. Lady Stepastray fell to the lot of Mr. Spoonbill, and catching a glimpse of Mrs. Palmer athwart that gentleman's voluminous shirt-frill, had barely time to dole out a homœopathic dose of civility suited to a country gentleman's wife, in the form of a slight and distant bow, when she perceived her "protegé," Mr. Snobguess, towing himself after her.

"Pon honour! my lady," said he, sidling up to her, "this aint treating us according to Hoyle though, neither; for I think there should be a lady to every gentleman."

"And so there is a lady to every gentleman," said Mr. Spoonbill, tartly, as he took a rapid survey of Mr. Snobguess's disjointed figure, French-polished manglewurzel-looking face, and the lock of hair, enclosed in a square sarcophagus of pearls, that decorated his shirt.

"Mr. Spoonbill, Mr. Snobguess, the celebrated Amer