"Who, I? I daresay I shall not notice the naughty men who come

late. I shall have more to do."

Lady Catherine pretended to give herself airs, laughing joyously at the pretence. But Lady Catherine did notice these late-comers in spite of everything her own triumphant success, among other impediments, -partly because the strangers were worthy of notice, partly because there is a fate and a Providence in men and women's destinies.

Lady Stukely joined Lady Catherine, as desirable a chaperon as could be made by wisdom, reputation, the hoary crown of a high head, the splendour of the brocade, lace, and jewels,—above all the finish of the manners of the old régime, and individually by the innate truth and tenderness of a staunch old spirit, which no long apprenticeship to worldly ways could render more than superficially worldly.

The ladies walked as the evening was fine, and in the lingering inadvertent homeliness of the artificial world on this side of the Channel, which capped the mock simplicity maintained by a violent effort on the revolutionized shores of France. Lady Stukely and her grand-daughter were attended by a couple of men-servants, to prevent their being too pressingly waited on by a crowd of respectable admirers among the townspeople, whom such a spectacle entranced "mightily," to the doors of the Assembly Rooms. Later in the evening, the same townspeople would not think it beneath their dignity to get up, on the Pantiles without, rival country-dances to those of the nobility and gentry within, jigged blithely to the music, floating through the open windows, of the one instrumental band. Was it not a social world, though it was also a world of extravagance, excess, sometimes of vile debauchery, on which the setting sun shone between fifty and sixty years ago?

The due buzz of admiration had been given on Lady Catherine's entrance, the due throng of solicitations for the honour of an introduction, and the felicity of being her partner, had followed. Other stars of the season-the beautiful Miss Heathcotes, understood to be penniless adventuresses, but so much the rage, and so likely to wed, in unwary moments, enamoured dukes, or earls at least, that rash squires could not refrain from singeing their wings, Miss Larkins, the great city heiress, for when were city heiresses not in the field? and they were more conspicuous, more marked by mammon ugliness in a former than in the present generation subsided discreetly, or with a little unavailing angry twinkle giving way to the unmistakeable rising sun.

Lady Stukely, after taking care to do a little severe weeding to the candidates for her grand-daughter's notice, saw her present task in a manner happily ended, and her goal attained. She delegated its slight remaining duties to qualified allies, and in consideration of her own years and honourable labours, allowed herself to be seated at the principal card table. There Lady Stukely arranged her cards like a high-bred connoisseur in card playing, who had played at the loo table of the late Princess Emily, and was elegant rather than offensive in taking snuff after

the fashion of Queen Charlotte herself, while she received a more fragrant incense to sweeten the tit-bits of scandal between the deals, in the assurance of this night's establishment of her grand-daughter's prospects. Now and then Lady Stukely turned her glass lovingly on her charge, and there was Lady Catherine, fair as a lily, and fresh as a rose, with that feather of hers nodding and beckoning in fine majesty and harmony. The girl was really dancing, not walking, with tripping, bounding feet, by the aid of an interminable succession of happy, gallant, and—as Lady Stukely took care-fitting partners down the central alleys and up the side vistas of double performances of the Triumph and the White Cockade, the genuine English country-dances still holding their ground against the mongrel quadrille which had displaced the courtly minuet. Waltzing had been brought over into England before the wane of the Great Empire, and of the first famous waltzers at Almacks, there was one at least, who, like Sir Christopher Hatton of Elizabethan memories, whatever he might owe to his heels, was not to risk his whole fame on them. But such ladies as Lady Stukely were slow to award their patronage, in the persons of their young daughters and grand-daughters, to round dances.

Lady Catherine did not weary. She was so naïve as to admire the chalked boards and the decoration of the ceiling, as well as the company; the increasing smell of white soup and negus did not disgust her, but she was never too engrossed to notice the various entrances into the rooms to the last that of a party of officers, no doubt, the same Sally Judd had seen alighting in the inn-yard.

The group was made up of several marked men of rank and fashion, imposing, from their easy, nonchalant, critical air, if from nothing else; advanced as the evening was, their progress up the crowded room created a new sensation. Soon Lady Catherine experienced that she had a formidable rival as the observed of all observers, not only in the group where union was strength, but in its central figure, a dark, bold, brightlooking young man, wearing gracefully enough the uniform of a staff officer. Who was he? What had he done, to be on a staff at his age? Was he indeed the Lord Robert Luttrel, a son of the Duke of Salop's? -the same son who had done so dashing a thing in the course of the taking and burning of Copenhagen last year, and he, a mere boy, from his mother's apron-string? Yes; and it was said he was a favourite of Sir Arthur's, and now he had come across from Portugal, only ten days ago, with dispatches. He was fresh from the seat of war and the glorious victory of Vimiera, the supposed bearer of news of friend and foe-private and political of the rival kings, Ferdinand and Joseph; of Wellesley, Crawford, and Hill; of Junot, Kellermann, Murat, though he might well have been many a league from these worthies.

What was any heroine-lovely, young Lady Catherine, heiress of Oxham, even, to such a hero? It ought to have been hard to have her honours snatched from her, and more than divided with another, on the very first night of her reign; but Lady Catherine, though accustomed to

be made much of, delighted to confer favour and afford delight, and had a magnanimous soul at seventeen. With but the most infinitesimal and transient pang, at which she laughed and blushed the next moment, she fell unresistingly into the background, as her neighbours had done before her; nay, went before them in hurrying with the hurrying multitude to offer her gracious homage to the king, in whose honour she was a deposed queen.

Lady Catherine suffered from the scarlet-fever epidemic of the period. She had imbibed the infection from so mature a patient as Lady Stukely, who, discreet in all else, was a red-hot patriot; as warlike in her proclivities as if she had been the aged widow of a fighting baron of the eleventh or twelfth century, and not of a peaceful, turnip-growing, road-mending viscount, who had belonged properly to the eighteenth century, ere it was convulsed by the French Revolution. Lord Robert was the first real live hero that Lady Catherine's lustrous eyes had rested and feasted on; and she discovered, within a very few minutes of reviewing his perfections, that it was far better to have found a hero than to be a heroine, to give glory than to receive it. What had that sunburnt eager face, not above four or five years older than her own, looked bravely and without blanching on scenes of horror and affright, while the slim, almost boyish body stood unwaveringly the brunt of hail-storms of shot, and charges of bayonets, keeping its post and rallying the troops behind, till a commanding officer, who had received his death-wound, was dragged out of fire, to die in the shelter of the stack of wood which served for house and bed, and the last fainting memories of home. Lady Catherine's eyes grew larger, her face rosier, and then her generous sympathy had its reward.

After strolling a little up and down, staring merrily-not impudentlyin return for the stares he got, chatting frankly with those who were presented to him, only elevating his eyebrows occasionally at the questions addressed to him, and being guilty of but a few irresistible canards, Lord Robert's eye was caught by the face and figure of Lady Catherine Fortescue. He stopped short, smitten like an impulsive boy, not knowing who she was, like a barbarian from the wars, bent on improving his opportunity, like the spoilt child of fortune that he had been.

"Who is that lovely girl-that divine creature?"

"Lady Catherine Fortescue-young beauty-high rank-great fortune --just come out;-Tunbridge had the honour of her bursting bloom;-first appearance in the rooms this very night-tremendous impression-nothing like it since the Gunnings-Maulesdale, Sir Raaf, Five-bar Meredith, greatest catches here-all been attracted, fluttering in the train—all caught, who knows?" was the information communicated in emphatic fragments to the inquirer.

"By George!" protested the hero-it was uncertain whether he swore by the king or the saint; taking in everything, one would have said by the king-"I must dance with her."

VOL. XXX.—No. 178.

21.

"Im-possible; engaged three, six, nine deep. Old dragon of a grandmother, Lady Stukely, inspected and fixed the engagements."

"Then I shan't dance with any other lady," threatened Lord Robert, in a pet, preparing to loll sulkily against the wall.

In the first glow of his herodom, and of the satellites' hero-worship, to thwart and vex Lord Robert as if he were an ordinary mortal was not to be thought of. The Duke of Salop's son-this son the fighter of his country's battles, the conquering hero, or at least the hero who would conquer in the end-deserved better at the hands of his grateful admirers. One obliging fellow flew to the master of the ceremonies to make known to him the dilemma; another, an elderly enthusiast, a friend of Lady Stukely's, apprized her of the laurels which she and Lady Catherine were in danger of losing, and whispered to the guardian and grandmother that Lord Robert, though a younger son, inherited a good estate in Sussex from his maternal grandfather; a third, the shrewdest helper of all, observed that one of Lady Catherine's promised partners had forgotten himself and her, and was incapable of profiting by his good fortune (a casualty not unheard-of in those days), having in the meantime indulged in such rash potations in the refreshment-room that he had been carried senseless from the field to his lodgings, along with other vanquished men overtaken by the same evil hap. What so easy as for Lord Robert, by these combined forces, to step into the vacant shoes of his unconscious predecessor hors de combat?

Lord Robert danced with Lady Catherine, certainly without shirking a couple of the two overflowing sets. Then he stood beside her looking at her, leaning over her, talking to her, till all the other couples had danced loyally and exultingly after the couple of the night. In the advantage of establishing innocent familiarity in the matter of rational acquaintance, these old-fashioned country-dances were, in comparison with modern dances, what stage-coach was to railway travelling. In evidence, recall how Henry Tilney had opportunity to play with and fall in love with the tastes of Catherine Morland, and how Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet even discussed and disputed principles, all between the "cross hands and down the middle and up again."

Next, by another stroke of a benign destiny, that dance concluded just as the signal was given for supper, and Lord Robert had the supreme happiness of escorting Lady Catherine to the supper-room, of serving her with chicken and claret cup, and of convincing himself, more and more to his own undoing and enslavement, how perfect his companion was in more than her young beauty or her gifts of fortune. How unaffected, how ingenuous, what a good listener he found her! She did not compel him to rack his brains and go back to last year's topics-what she thought of Catalani's singing and Young's playing, for the great Yorkshire election and Sir Francis Burdett's triumphal car, would not have been much in a young lady's way. He might have stumbled on the Duchess of Brunswick's arrival in the country, and what effect the event might

All women, young

have on the differences in a certain royal household. and old, were interested in a man and wife's quarrels. But he was saved the trouble. Lady Catherine was prepared to hang breathless on his stories of transports, disembarkations, marches, and bivouacs among cork trees and vineyards; above all, of a pitched battle. She put quick, intelligent questions in the sweetest of voices, laughed melodiously, turned away her Rubens' or Reynolds' head in its hat and feather, to hide the tender moisture which dimmed her bright eyes, when he knew his own were wet, as he entered into the tragic spirit of some of his narratives, and talked with a little faltering in his simple cloquence.

Lady Catherine came back from her first ball with a head as nearly turned and a heart as nearly lost as ever Lady Catherine's or young beauty's head and heart were in danger of capitulation on the first summons. Why, Lady Stukely had not been proof against the spell! Her own old head and heart were not quite in her keeping after all she had greedily swallowed of "the handsomest, best-matched young couple that eyes were ever set on;" of "the old fascinating romance in love at first sight warming the heart;" of "Dan Cupid's being worth all the heralds and gentlemen-ushers in the world, at the same time when they and Dan shook hands and walked in good-fellowship, it was a sight for an admiring universe-a sight almost more than this great human quality-world could stand without dying of envy ;" of "none but the brave deserving the fair, from the days of Alexander downwards." But Lady Stukely was old, and a little worn out with all this success and unexpected excitement. She retired to rest so soon as she had reached her lodging.

Lady Catherine, too young to feel fatigue, to entertain a doubt, all palpitating with emotion-very naturally, but very suddenly and swiftly, awakened, could not go to bed and to sleep immediately, and wanted to talk over her adventures, to recount what she could of her impressions. In her brotherless, sisterless state she had none to talk to but Sally Judd, and so to Sally, considerably overcome with sleep, yet with patience and interest to spare, as she unfastened Lady Catherine's dress and brushed her hair, Lady Catherine sat and prattled about the ball. And Sally was sharp enough to remark how perpetually the name of Lord Robert Luttrel-" the gallant young soldier from the Peninsula, you know, Sally"-slipped out, late as had been Lord Robert's attendance at the rooms, how his figure superseded and overshadowed other figures, how Lady Catherine's checks and eyes burned and glowed as she mentioned him.

Sally said to herself, in her plain way, "The business is done. My mistress has met her master if so be he choose to be the happiest and one of the powerfullest, gentlemen in England. It's like he'll consent, for Lady Catherine and Oxham are not gifts to be cast away. Shouldn't I like to get a look at him! but that will come in good time."

Even after Sally had been dismissed, Lady Catherine could not come down from her giddy height of happiness, but flitted about in her white dressing-gown with her twinkling bare feet, reproaching herself for