CHAPTER VII.

"Love knoweth every form of air,
And every shape of earth,
And comes unbidden everywhere
Like thought's mysterious birth."

THERE are few situations more conducive to enjoyment and sociability than a country house in England, particularly at that season of the year when the prospect. of field sports, and the attractions of la vie du château, bring together an assemblage of both sexes, determined on giving and receiving pleasure.

It was in the latter days of August, a month so lovely in this country, that a brilliant and numerous party were assembled at Oakwood, the splendid seat of Lord Clairville. All was delight and excitement. Archery, pic-nics, races, and cricket-matches, were by turns the chosen objects and promoters of pleasure; while the near approach of the first of September gave an interest to each passing day, that any who have witnessed the assumed or natural engouement of our English denizens for field sports, may well imagine. But, alas ! for the uninitiated-it cannot be described. Who can recount conversations where Mantons and Macintoshes, pointers and percussions, setters and spatterdashes, are the mystical words for ever intervening? Who can describe the impassioned gesture, the glowing cheeks and glittering eyes, accompanying the relation of some past deed in preserve or moor, by "flood or fell?" Still, however, the importance attached to these matters bears with it something of infection; and when we hear of foreigners with no other shooting-dress than

tight morocco boots and chaly trowsers, and owning moreover a perfect ignorance of all the private mysteries of a double-barrelled gun, being inoculated with this manie de chasse, we may not wonder at the universal and overwhelming fever that predominates on the first of September with our own natives, who have taken it naturally.

Yet in truth, it must be said there is scarcely a more pleasing sight, particularly in these days of luxury and self-indulgence, than that of a young man, who in London is a complete petit maitre, devoted to every description of false and effeminate pleasure, discarding all his frippery; and in his shooting jacket, thick shoes, and rough gaiters, walking forth as sturdily into the stubble-field or tangled coppice, as if his feet had never trod the carpeted saloons of Crockford's, or he had ever breathed the perfumed air of a boudoir or opera-box. We may suppose this excessive fondness for the sports of the field, among the higher classes of the English, has at least a salutary effect on the national character; inasmuch as the manliness it inculcates and encourages one half of the year, is a powerful counterbalance to the enervating and trivial pursuits of the other. This may partially account for some peculiar characteristics of those whom we may call, par excellence, English gentlemen: I mean that union of personal elegance, with a hardihood and contempt of fatigue, not exceeded by the poorest-laborer, a robustness of frame with extreme delicacy of idea, and a deep insight into the Sybarite's science of good living, and luxurious enjoyment, with the simple manners, and healthful constitution, of a peasant.

There is certainly no other nation of which the most influential part pass so much of their time in the country, or pursue so eagerly the invigorating recreations it affords; this we may infer, while it gives a healthy tone of mind, and manliness of spirit and demeanor, in a great measure counteracts the baleful influence of the

follies and dissipations of a town life. Indeed, there is something of purity in the happiness connected with a country life, that imparts its nature to the character; and when we observe that the profligate, the mercenary, or the malevolent, can rarely enter into the pleasure which is yielded by exercise in the pure and renovating air, the rich prospect unfolding the illimitable beauties of creation, or the tranquil study of nature in all her cunning work,"-we may fairly conclude that the feelings which such things call so abundantly from the heart, are in themselves virtuous; and though the pallid senses may shrink from their participation, we cannot doubt their being the natural and genuine sources of enjoyment bestowed by a beneficent Creator, especially when we see them last long after the factitious charms of the world have ceased to please.

A variety of motives had led to the assemblage of the gay party who now met beneath the hospitable roof of Oakwood, and though the ostensible one was pleasure, a deeper and more anxious reason had actuated its presiding genius. Lady Clairville had become most desirous of amusing, and by every means in her power conciliating, her son Julian; whose gravity and dejection seemed to become each day more habitual, while there was a coldness in his demeanor towards herself, which made his present ideas and opinions in a manner inaccessible.

By gathering at her house the gay, the young, and the dissipated, the wily mother thought to make him forget former intimacies and connections; and by including in the party the all-attractive Lady Florence St. John, and associating her in her schemes, she hoped she might win him from his childish fancy for Evelyn Cecil. It was thus she designated his deep and fervent attachment for his beautiful cousin.

Lady Florence St. John was as much renowned for her surpassing beauty as for her flirtations; and was exactly the person Lady Clairville wished should attract

her son. Aware, as she was, that before his feelings could be awakened for Blanche, they must be detached from the present idol of his heart, she knew of no one so likely to effect her purpose as Lady Florence; particularly as her views for the marriage of the young baroness and Julian would there encounter no obstacle; the co-operations of her Circe could but extend to an affaire du cœur, from the circumstance of her being a married woman. As far as regarded Blanche de Cressy, she had no fear of opposition to her wishes. She considered her too gentle to offer any contradiction to her will. Ignorant, moreover, of the deep interest Herbert Cecil had created in her heart, of which Julian was, in a measure, the promoter and confidant; she fully believed, from the many signs of confidence and affection which she daily witnessed between them, that the high-born girl was warmly attached to her son. Thus proving the truth of a remark of La Bruyère, who says "Il n'y a rien qui resemble tant à l'amour, que ces liasons que l'amour fait former."

Lady Florence St. John was the daughter of a needy Irish Earl. Born and reared amidst the healthy wilds of Connaught, until the expanding beauties of her form told of coming womanhood, her education was there begun, but completed in Paris. When perfected in every grace and accomplishment, with exquisite loveliness of person that scarcely needed such adjuncts, she was "brought out," as the phrase goes, at Rome, where she speedily became the cynosure of admiring eyes.

John St. John, Esq. of Marston Hall, in the county of Leicester, was the first who made it appear to her watchful father, that the attractions of Florence had done more execution than merely securing her the eclat of having her hand sought for in the dance by contending cavaliers. Mr. St. John's tutor pronounced the Lady Florence's beauty more classical than the most exquisite statue in the attelier of Canova-her dress in the best taste-her manners more agreeable than those

of any other girl in Rome; and that the husband of so lovely a creature would be more envied than the proprietor of the best hunter at Melton. The pupil thought he could show no higher sense of his tutor's judgment than by requesting the learned gentleman to bear his proposals of marriage to the earl, her father. His lordship's consent to the affair was readily given, and Lady Florence congratulated on being about to espouse "fifteen thousand a-year," before she exactly knew to which of her many admirers she had been affianced; but when made to understand that it was to the dulllooking young man, who had got up some races on the Corso to please her; though he had scarcely ever uttered six words in her presence, she felt perfectly satisfied as to her father's arrangements. She had been brought up to "get married," and when that desirable event was decided upon, she felt that the end of her exertions was accomplished; and that for the future, she had only to trim her bark for pleasure, and not for affairs of commerce. It is true, that she would rather the "fifteen thousand a-year" had been lodged in the exchequer of a Captain Greville, who she knew loved her; and for whose sunny blue eye, and harmonious guitar, she had certainly un sentiment; still, all that was nothing to the purpose; and when leaving the gay city of Paris, whither they had adjourned for the solemnization of the marriage, in the most exquisite English equipage that had ever entered the Barriers, she almost wondered at her own happiness, in having married at seventeen, "fifteen thousand a-year!"

Considering that the "holy state" had been entered upon with no more emotion on her part, than acquiescence to the will of her father; or on that of Mr. St. John, with deeper feelings than the calm sort of satisfaction, with which he would have secured the most beautiful cameo in Rome, their marriage can scarcely be called an unhappy one. He proved an indulgent and kind husband, though indolent and devoid of the