cabriolet broke, and Cheveley only escaped being dashed to pieces by jumping out on the pavement at the top of the Haymarket.

A crowd, as is usual on such occasions, having instantly gathered round the place of the accident, the horse's head was soon secured, and the groom enabled to extricate him from the broken shafts, which as soon as he had done, Cheveley ordered him to take the cab to Adams's, and the horse home, and send the carriage as soon as possible for him to the Carlton, whither he would walk. Accordingly, emerging from the crowd, he retraced his way down the Haymarket without farther impediment till he came to the Little Theatre, where there was an immense crowd, the play being just over. He was in the act of crossing to the other side of the street, when his attention was arrested by the cry of "Lady de Clifford's carriage," and the answer, Lady de Clifford's carriage stops the way." Was it, could it be that Julia was in town?

As he asked himself this question, his heart beat so violently that he almost reeled again, and might have fallen had he not, in rushing back to the porch of the theatre, leaned against a pillar. He had scarcely drawn his hat over his eyes, before the words "Lady de Clifford coming out" fell upon his ear: suddenly his heart stopped beating, his breath was suspended, and he seemed actually to hear as well as see with his eyes, as he riveted them on the doors of the theatre; presently two figures appeared, which the light fell full upon they were Lord de Clifford and his mother. The former handed the latter into her carriage, and Cheveley sunk back against the pillar as disappointed and angry as if any one had deceived him, besides his own hopes. When the carriage drove off, Lord de Clifford, in returning into the theatre, jostled against Cheveley, and trod upon his foot; whereupon, instead of apologizing, he said, savagely,

"D-n you, why don't you stand out of the way?" "Because I have as good a right to the way as you, my lord," replied Cheveley, haughtily.

"You know me, then?" drawled Lord de Clifford, who had evidently taken too much wine.

"But too well," was the laconic reply.

"What the d-1 do you mean by that, sir?" "I mean what I say."

"Then," retorted Lord de Clifford, vehemently, "I'll make you eat your words, and may they choke you as you swallow them!" so saying, he raised his arm; but Cheveley calmly but resolutely seized it, and passing it back towards its owner's breast, walked under a lamp as he replied,

"And you know me too, my lord, so beware of what you are doing."

"Le-Le-Lord Cheveley!" stammered Lord de Clifford, starting back a few paces; and then added, in an ironical tone, "the Triton of the Tories, the denouncer of Democrats, the Demosthenes of dandies: most true, I know you; but allow me the honour of renewing my acquaintance with you at Wimbledon to-morrow; a little cold lead will prevent my thinking as lightly of you for the future as I do at present."

"Whatever your thoughts of me, or your designs on me, may be, you shall not betray me into a street brawl, especially as I perceive your potations have been as liberal as your politics, my lord."

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Ye-ye-you shall repent this; you shall hear farther from me, my lord marquis," muttered Lord de Clifford, closing his teeth and clinching his hand.

"As you please, my lord," said Cheveley, walking away from him and turning into Pall Mall.

And what were Cheveley's feelings as he hurried along? His first impulses were human, and, consequently, bad: for a few seconds his heart was a chaos of hope, triumph, ecstasy; here was the man he hated most on earth; who stood between him and all he loved, who caused all the misery of one whose happiness was dearer to him than his own-thrown by a sudden quirk of fortune, and that none of his own seeking either, completely into his power: he knew himself to be an unerring shot. To-morrow, that little feather from the wing of time, which had now nearly dropped, might blot him from creation, and leave Julia, free. But duelling he had always been sufficiently narrow-minded to consider as much murder as stabbing or poisoning; and would Julia link herself to a murderer -the murderer of her husband? Ay, still her husband in name and in bond, if in naught else. But then he was no David, sending Uriah into the field to be slain; the quarrel was none of his seeking; nay, more, it had been thrust upon him; the laws of society demanded VOL. IL-R

that he should take it up. So far sophistry, but what did the laws of God demand? that he should "do no murder;" and Cheveley's honour being derived from those laws, however fierce the struggle might be within him, he generally ended by obeying them. When he reached the Carlton, he threw himself into a chair, exhausted by the conflict he had undergone with himself; but having once resolved upon the line of conduct he should pursue, he became calm, and, when the carriage came, returned home to make some slight alteration in his dress, and proceeded, as he had originally intended, to D- House. In the cloak-room he was intercepted by Lady Stepastray, who mewed up to him with

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"My dear Lord Cheveley, don't you think that picture," pointing to one opposite where they stood, "has a great look of Lady de Clifford ?"

"Good heavens, no! as unlike as I to Hercules," said Cheveley.

"What a pity it is she and her husband cannot live together," purred Lady Stepastray.

And why can they not, pray?" asked Cheveley, bitterly.

"Oh, poor man, he says that she has such a horrible temper, and is so dreadfully extravagant."

Cheveley bit his lip nearly through; but being determined to hear all the little demirep before him had to say, made no reply.

And besides," continued Lady Stepastray," he says she is so insulting to his mother, too; now that is very bad, you know, especially when the old lady has been so kind to her; for Lord de Clifford himself told me that his mother had gone on her knees to him not to marry Julia Neville, and yet, after all, the very next day she received her as a daughter in the most affectionate manner. Now, so ungrateful of her, you know, my dear Lord Cheveley, to behave ill to her after this," moralized Lady Stepastray, crossing her hands and looking up in his face.

Cheveley could stand this no longer, but replied indignantly,

"I always knew Lord de Clifford to be an umprincipled, cold-blooded profligate; but I never before knew he was so barefaced a one as to utter such despicable falsehoods against an innocent and exemplary wife,

whom he and his vile old mother have left nothing undone to injure, persecute, and insult."

"No, no, my dear Lord Cheveley, I really don't think so; for Mr. Fonnoir and Fuzboz, and other men who live a great deal with him, now really a great deal, dining with him two or three times a week, say it's entirely Lady de Clifford's fault, and I think he's such a very superior person; did you see a review he wrote upon my book in the Investigator? now it showed such a fine mind; yes, yes, depend upon it, my dear marquis, Lady de Clifford is to blame; he should have married a woman of superior mind, who could have appreciated him," concluded Lady Stepastray, looking tenderly in her own face, as reflected by the mirror near which they were standing. At this juncture Cheveley espied Mr. Spoonbill towing Lady Dullgabble up stairs, and, breaking from Lady Stepastray in disgust, joined them, leaving her Arcadian ladyship alone with Lord de Clifford's cowardly falsehoods that she had uttered at secondhand. Lady Dullgabble had an ample face, into which her nose modestly retired; a figure like a carriage-bed rolled up for travelling, and arms like young bolsters; her voice was deep-toned like a watch-dog's, and she boomed out her words slowly and jupiterically (here's a new word! and if people don't understand it, I can't help it): she had also a graceful fashion of holding up one side of her gown, no doubt to show that her ankles were legitimate branches of the same family as her

arms.

"How do you like Kean's Hamlet ?" asked Cheveley, when they had waded through the first two rooms as far as the door of the ballroom.

"Why, I must confess, even better than my friend John Philip Kemble's, though hitherto I have considered no one could act Hamlet after him," tonansed Lady Dullgabble.

"From all I have heard of him, I should have thought that he'd have been too cold and too measured for Hamlet," said Cheveley.

"Yes, true, he certainly was too cold and too measured for Hamlet," interposed Mr. Spoonbill; "but, the fact is, I never saw Hamlet before I saw Charles Kean's, though I have seen the play a hundred times, but you ought to see him in Macbeth; his Macbeth is splendid; I don't like his Othello quite as well as his father's."

"Macbeth can't be acted now that Mrs. Siddons is gone," said Lady Dullgabble, shaking her head; "and there is an error in Kean's Macbeth: he says, 'Is this a dagger that I see?' too quickly. John Kemble used to say it very slowly."

"Then, with all due deference to your better judgment," bowed Cheveley, "I think John Kemble was wrong, and Charles Kean is right; for all excitement, and nearly all passions, especially those of fear and horror, are quick and sudden, and not slow and measured.” Here the Duke of D. came up, and with his wonted amiability and good-breeding, left "metal more attractive" to speak with, and listen to, Lady Dullgabble's prosings. Having shaken hands with him, Cheveley sauntered through the rooms, and could not help thinking, as he looked at some of the ladies present, that it might be truly said of them, as the Spanish sage said of Alexander the Great, that their "virtue was nothing more than a successful temerity."

Next to the happiness of seeing the face we love best on earth in a crowd, is that of meeting the looks of one who loves what we love, and who has been with us in gone-by hours, too happy ever to return: it is like a sudden ray of sunshine lighting up the heart and so Cheveley felt as he unexpectedly caught Mrs. Seymour's eyes, as she was wading through the crowd to speak to him.

"I am so glad to see you," said she, extending her hand, "you remind me so of old times: do you remember at Milan? at Venice? and, poor dear Julia, my heart aches when I think of her; but come into the litthe room where the cameos are, and we can talk at our ease, for there is nobody there."

Cheveley offered his arm, but his heart was too full to speak, and they walked on in silence till they reached the room Mrs. Seymour had mentioned; it was deserted, save but by a solitary couple, who were flirting over a cabinet of antiques, but who took flight on the entrance of the new comers. Cheveley had always liked Mrs. Seymour, but he now positively loved her, for the affectionate manner in which she had spoken of Lady de Clifford.

"And I am so glad to see you looking so well," said Cheveley, seating himself on the sofa beside her. "Have you heard from Mrs. Saville lately, and—and Lady de Clifford ?"