"Belle et charmante Zelis toi qui m'adore!"

but where was the genius of the place? Sitting in a Bergère, night-capped and dressing-gowned into a sem. blance of life, but still looking more like death in masquerade.

"God bless my soul," said Major Nonplus, in a disappointed voice, as if angry at having been got out of bed by a falsehood, "why, they told me you were dead!"

"So I am, very nearly," gasped Herbert.

"My dear fellow, what have you done?" inquired his mother, bending over him.

"For myself, I'm afraid," replied Herbert.

"My dear, my dear, don't talk so, pray," said his mother; and then turning to the English physician, who was counting his pulse and looking at his watch, added,

"I need not, I'm sure, say, doctor, that if you recover him from this here dangerous attack, no d'argent shall be spared on my part."

"I am happy to tell your ladyship," said the doctor, "that I consider Mr. Grimstone now out of danger, and have no doubt that in a few days he will be as well as ever, and able to travel."

"Yes, my dear mamma, I feel a great deal bettter already; but pray sit down, for you don't look well. I wish you would try the Homœopathic system."

"God bless me, my dear," said the dowager, darting full three yards from her son, as if she had been galvanized, "do you mean to poison me too?"

"Heaven forbid, my dearest mamma, for your will has ever been my study, and I should not wish you to do anything you did not like."

Humph," muttered the major, pulling down little avalanches of his sugarloaf mountain of a cotton nightcap over his ears; "many a true word said in jest: I don't doubt but her will has always been your study." "I'm sure, doctor," resumed her ladyship, "you will agree with me in the things I tell Herbert he ought to avoid, and never eat pepper, cucumbers, cold feet, thorough draughts, and the heat of the sun."

How he was to eat cold feet, thorough draughts, and the heat of the sun, was not exactly plain to the doctor's capacity; therefore was his politeness the greater in telling her ladyship that he perfectly agreed with her. VOL. II.-I

Saville, who had been remarkably kind, and really anxious about Herbert during the first two hours that they were assembled in his room, could not, now that he was out of all danger, resist a smile at his rueful appearance. "I fear," said Herbert, languidly, "I never shall be fit for anything again."

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Oh, don't despair," replied Saville.

a very good outline of an ambassador yet."

"You'll make

"I don't quite understand what you mean by that," said Herbert.

"Why," resumed Saville, smiling, "I was thinking of the old story of the Duc de Choiseul, who was so remarkably thin that, when he came to London to negotiate a peace, Charles Townshend, on being asked whether the French government had sent the preliminaries of a treaty, answered he did not know, but they had sent the outline of an ambassador."

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My feet are so dreadfully cold," said Herbert, not liking to join in a laugh against himself, "that I should like to have a carriage-muff."

Lord de Clifford remembering that there were generally two or three in Mademoiselle d'Antoville's room, volunteered to go for one. Although it was now past three in the morning, he entered that lady's sanctum without the ceremony of knocking, naturally supposing that she had been in bed hours before, dreaming of him. What, then, was his surprise, upon opening the door, to find the candles lighted on the table, and upon looking athwart the gleam, to see Count Campobello's tall figure seated on the sofa, and on his knee, with one arm conjugally encircling his neck, sat Mademoiselle Antoville! The room was large, and carpeted à l'Italian; that is to say, covered with green baize, and a quantity of straw laid under it: so that Lord de Clifford being en pantoufle, his footsteps fell noiselessly. Giving one more look to convince himself that the tableau before him was no optical illusion, he took one of the candles, and quietly walking over to the unconscious pair, rudely seized his hitherto adored Laura by the arm, and flinging her to the other end of the room, overtook the <count, who pusillanimously forsook his inamorata, and was making the best of his way towards the door, when Lord de Clifford saved him all further trouble by kicking him down stairs. On his return, after the performance of this little ceremony, he found Mademoiselle

d'Antoville upon her knees, in a fine somnambula attitude, with her hair let down upon her shoulders according to the most approved fashion of all heroines guilty or guiltless; but all was in vain; nothing could she extort from her inexorable companion but a mandate to depart from under his roof in less than six hours! Never had mademoiselle felt so intensely before, never did she feel so intensely again! No! not even when, a year after these events, she published a novel called " Le Cœur epuisée," and had a triumphal dinner given to her on the occasion at Lointiers by six members of La Jeune France, who alternately addressed her as Aspasia and Corinne. Meanwhile Lord de Clifford returned to his brother's room foaming with rage, in the exuberance of which he proclaimed (Saville, whom he would not trust, having returned to bed) his Laura's delinquency.

"Those d-d women," said he, "do what you will for them, it's all the same. No gratitude, no honour, no faith in any of them. It was only yesterday that I replenished her wardrobe with what might have constituted the trousseau of a princess, d-n her."

"I fear, my dear fellow," soothed Herbert, in the melancholy retrospection of experience, "that women are like what the late King of Naples said of his troops; dress them as you will, they'll run away all the same."

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"Well, well, it can't be helped," said Major Nonplus, between the interstices of a sonorous yawn in alto; 'you'll be better in a day or two; but you see, just at first, love is like cheese; it digests everything but itself."

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Very just observation," said the dowager; "but," added she, taking her son's arm and wishing Herbert good-night, "I want to say a few words to you on this here business."

As soon as Lord de Clifford had reached his mother's room, she said, "You see, my dear, you must not mention this here circumstance of momselle's improper behaviour to Lady de Clifford; it's better not, because as she never liked her, and has been wishing her gone. I can say to her, that in your anxiety to consult all her just and reasonable wishes, you made it a pint to send momselle away, and get an English governess in her place. Besides, it will look vaustly well to the world; as if you always let her have her way about the little gurl's education, and so stop any remarks when she is taken

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from her and put to school, which is what I wish you to do, my dear, as it will be vaustly cheaper, and prevent her mother having so much influence over her. But you see, my dear, all these here sort of things require caution and prudence, on account of the ill nature of the world; but, as I always tell you, you are a vaust deal too open and candid."

"And, as I always say, my dear ma'am, you certainly are the cleverest woman and best manager in the world," rejoined the worthy son of this amiable parent, as he kissed her hand and wished her good-night, or, rather, morning. But, somehow or other, notwithstanding these wise precautions, by ten o'clock the next day, Lady de Clifford, in common with every other inmate of the hotel, was quite au fait to the scene between her husband and Count Campobello, and the true cause of Mademoiselle d'Antoville's departure. Still it was a relief to know that she was gone on any terms; and as for little Julia, she felt nothing but unmingled delight at finding that she should now wholly and solely be with her own dear mother and aunt.

Herbert Grimstone being perfectly convalescent in three or four days after his accident, it was decided that they should return to England, via Marseilles, the following week. The Seymours and Monsieur de Rivoli were to accompany them as far as Paris, but Major Nonplus had threatened himself all the way to England. The day before their departure, Lady de Clifford had been reading that very horrible, but very clever book, Mr. Reynolds's "Parricide." "The description of the parricide's father," said she to Fanny, laying down the book, "shows great knowledge of human nature. He says 'he neither possessed any positive virtue or vice, and I know of but two words that will accurately describe him; he was eminently selfish and insensible.' In these two sentences all his atrocities are fully accounted for; the first being the alpha and omega of all vice, and the latter a barrier which no virtue ever passes. But still, I think the moral of such powerful materials would have been much more subtle, consequently infinitely more useful, had he made both father and son equal monsters, equal destroyers of their own and other's happiness, and still kept them within the pale of the law; for then it would have been sufficiently vra semblable to have borne a comparison with the dire

hourly and daily realities of life, all arising out of the same sources, parental neglect and selfishness, and vanity let loose, like so many vicious, unbridled brutes, enacting the part of wild horses to that doomed Mazeppa, their possessor's fate. One thing this work convinces me of," continued Lady de Clifford, "namely, that the writer is a perfect Æneas of a son, though no doubt that discriminating, multiplied individual, the world, will vote him a parricide, and his book an autobiography. Actions being of no import whatever, thanks to the omnipotence of the press, therefore, in order to attain the reputation of great morality, people have only to write books filled with such claptraps as benevolence, virtue, morals, civil and religious liberty, &c., &c., &c., and thickly interlard it with the greatest happiness of the greatest numbers, which, being interpreted, means a total and most immoral disregard to the happiness and well-being of any and every individual. In short, to succeed in this enlightened age, when the march of intellect has billeted even every subaltern mind on that Marquis de Carabas of our social system, public opinion, to seem is everything; to be, nothing. Therefore, let all who would propitiate this autocrat follow the example of Glaucus, and forthwith exchange the golden arms of reality for Diomede's brazen ones of assumption."

"All you say is too true," replied Fanny, and she sighed as she said it; for, by the flush upon Julia's cheek, and the unusual brightness of her eyes, she could not but see how deeply she had been drawing from and referring to her own individual misfortunes.

"Do not go on reading that book, dearest," said she; "it would make you miserable if you were not already so. Here is Mrs. Armytage, which, like everything of Mrs. Gore's, is clever and delightful; but in this she really outdoes herself, for I think the conception almost Shakspearean."

Julia was about to reply, when the dowager entered, and with her usual vulpine smile, began with,

My dear madam, I fear you will find the little gurl very troublesome just at present; but you see, as you did not approve of her, De Clifford made it a pint to part with momselle on that account, and-and-"

"On account of her conduct with Count Campobello, I suppose," interrupted Lady de Clifford, somewhat haughtily.