I shall invite into my carriage whom I please, and at whatever hour may suit me. And now let us talk of something else." Our next subject was not much more agreeable than the preceding one. Herbert has resolved to leave London on the first of July; and I have, therefore, only another fortnight to enjoy of Armine's society. She is still eager that I should fulfil my promise of passing a month or two of the autumn with them in Bedfordshire, and still confident of my acquiescence: but I cannot bear the thoughts of becoming an inmate under the same roof with Herbert, more especially a roof where his authority prevails. I am sure we should disagree. Just as the carriage was turning down Brook Street, after I left my sister, it was suddenly stopped, and Herbert himself appeared at the window.

"I wish you joy!" said he, with one of his bitterest sneers. "Thank you !" I replied, resolved not to gratify him by inquiring the cause of his felicitations.

"Ah! you had heard it already? I was in hopes, I should be the first person to convey the joyful tidings.”

"What joyful tidings?" cried I, startled out of my resolution.

"The death of Lord Penrhyn. I have just come from the club. The old man died at eight this morning; leaving a clear rent-roll of seventy thousand a-year, four magnificent country houses, and one in town. You are in luck! I wish you good morning."

My unexpressed wishes for him were far less amiable; but resolved not to appear disconcerted, I kissed my hand as the carriage drove on. I was going to Smith's, for the purpose of getting a bracelet mended; and, while giving my orders, in came Lady Mardynville; who, instead of pursuing her business, whatever it might be-if, indeed, she had any but to be disagreeable-began curtseying and simpering with such an enormous accession of deference, that I am convinced she has heard the false report of my marriage, and the true one of Lord Penrhyn's death. Terrified lest she should accost me with congratulations before all the shopmen, which would spread the story from one end of London to the other, I talked so fast and so confusedly to Smith about the snap of my stupid bracelet, that he must have thought me bewitched, while she, doubtless, believed me to be giving orders for a rivière of brilliants. At last I hurried away, as if making off with some of the trinkets I had been turning over.

In what a curious position have I involved myself! Here am I condemned by the voice of the world to marry, by way of penance, a man, the very idea of whose importance has set Lady Mardynville's knees bobbing! Seventy thousand a-year! And I, who am thought so rich, and who find myself so rich, with six! What might one not do with so classical an income! What might one not do for it, except marry an unprincipled heartless man like Mr. Penrhyn? I beg his

pardon, Lord Penrhyn. To be sure, every one is not so prejudiced against him as Herbert. I know many houses where he is a great favourite. At the time Mrs. Percy exposed herself on his account, no one seemed to think it extraordinary; and certainly his prospects of fortune could have nothing to do with her engouement. Now, of course, every one will think him charming; so that the applauses of the world will, for the future, go for nothing. To-morrow, Ascot with Lady Cecilia.

Friday. I prefer Ascot a thousand times to Epsom. The road is less rural, but more amusing. The rabble-rout, inseparable from a race-course, is, at Ascot, a rustic, at Epsom, a swell mob; the company is more select; and, above all, the presence of royalty dignifies the affair. The prickers in scarlet liveries, who keep the ground, give an air of courtliness to the place; and one feels to be in the near neighbourhood of

The forest, Windsor, and thy green retreats.

Lady Cis was not in spirits. She should not attempt such exertions; for public places of all kinds are her abhorrence; and she is the least locomotive person in the world. No one can be a more charming causeuse: but, to converse like her sex, she must be sitting in her own chair, with her feet on her own footstool, her own lapdog on the sofa near her, and her own sachet of maréchale powder lying on the table by her side. Her mind is so acclimate to her boudoir, that elsewhere she becomes absent and fretful. Yesterday, she found the day too hot, the roads too dusty; she could not arrange our parasols to her liking; and, when we arrived on the course, was distracted by the noise of tabors and fifes, and the bawling of the pea-and-thimble men; and would have it that our horses were going to be frightened. Her ordinary movements are so circumscribed, that she is not prepared for the common occurrences of life; and yesterday she was herself so bored, that, had it not been for Clarence, she would have ended with boring me. Happy they who know no other calamity in life than that of being bored! Yet, in this world of tortures and privations, how many of us presume to complain of that as of the greatest of evils.

"All the world," was at Ascot; and Lord Clackmannan, as master of the buckhounds, or the horse, or I know not what, managed to procure us a privileged place on the course, opposite to the royal stand, where we saw "all the world" to advantage. Lady C. and Lady Alicia were with the king and queen; and Clarence had the happiness of doating upon his idol through an opera-glass the whole of the day. Lord Hartston passed us twice; and I observed the Duke of Merioneth, who was talking to us at the time, take off his hat with the deference he would have shown to a prince of the blood. What influence resides in a celebrated name! How far beyond all ordinary distinctions of rank!

I perceive that the report of my engagement to Lord Penrhyn has gained ground. The duke inquired of me when I intended to leave town for the season; then checked himself, observing, “But I beg pardon-I conclude nothing is yet settled ?" Vexed by his inference, I confided my dilemma to Cecilia, who treated it as a delicate distress not worth mentioning. "Leave people to find out their mistake," said she, with her usual languid air of indifference; or, if you like it better, convert the mistake into reality. You know I have long recommended you to marry Penrhyn."

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"But, as he has never even hinted an intention of proposing"

"Of course not. Lord Penrhyn is too much a man of the world, and knows too well his own value, to fling his hand at the head of any woman on a short acquaintance. People of his kind are seldom in a hurry to be married. It is only boys like Clarence, or old lords dropping into an estate and wanting an heir, who play the fool-hardy in such matters."

us.

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-We came back from Ascot, tired, dusty, thirsty, sunburnt, cross; and doubly cross at finding ourselves engaged to a late dinner at old Lady Burlington's. But the dinner revived The room was cool; the party, intelligent and chatty. I heard the dowager say to L- who sat next her at table, I have been moving heaven and earth this season to get that Lord Hartston; but he will not be had. I have written to him, and told him I was godmother to his grandfather; I have been at him through every living creature of his acquaintance, from his sister to his bootmaker; but the man is inflexible. I fancy he is afraid of being decoyed into one of my lionfeeds; but I hope I appreciate him better. Fox, you know, was my great friend; so was Sheridan, so was Burke, so was Fitzpatrick; and I shall go miserable to my grave, unless Lord Hartston dines with me before the season is over."

I can

"No; pray don't die while you have so good a cook," said her neighbour, helping himself to an epigramme de volaille pique aux crevettes. "You only want Hartston as a novelty— in managerial phrase-to draw a good house for you. not pretend to assist you, because he is my friend, and with my friends I never take liberties. But you shall have him in small change. I will procure you several stars of lesser magnitude, all newly discovered; a Pole who—"

Not for the universe! In spite of our dear Lord Dudley, those Poles are quite rococo.

"A Pole whose hands were worked off in the mines of Siberia. He goes about in hanging sleeves, and has trained a poodle to fetch and carry for him. I believe he was a Bedouin last season-mais c'est egal. Then you shall have a dandy American, talking fashion, Shakspeare, and the musical glasses, in a style to make the fortune of a Margate M.C.; and, par supplement, a fine lady novelist, who sends you her

new work with a little perfumed billet, begging you will 'nothing extenuate, nor set down aught in malice."

"Thank you, thank you," cried the old lady, beginning to see through her friend's persiflage, "I will not trust to you; I shall try and engage the influence of Mrs. Delaval's bright eyes. Mrs. Delaval, my dear, are you acquainted with Lord Hartston? Yes, now I think of it, you must be. You both came into fashion about the same time; and I know he is faufile with that good-looking disagreeable, brother-in-law of yours, who lives in Park Lane."

"New Norfolk Street," insinuated one of her neighbours. "Never mind where. I really wish, my dear, you would get me presented to him."

"To my disagreeable brother-in-law ?"

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No, no; the other. Tell him I have the greatest respect for him, and so forth; and that I was the friend of Fox, Burke, Windham, and so forth; and that I hope to have the honour of seeing him at dinner, either the 26th, 27th, 28th, 29th of June, or the 7th or 8th of July."

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"I am sorry to say, I have not the pleasure of knowing Lord Hartston."

"Haven't you? How stupid!-he would have made a charming match for you. By the way, my dear child, they say you are to marry Lord- -what's the name of the man who

has that fine property in Yorkshire ?"

"There are so many men who have fine property in Yorkshire."

“But I mean that man with mines, or iron-works, or quarries, or something or other; the man who wears a great bush of hair, as if his ears had been cropped."

1

"Your ladyship means, perhaps, Lord Penrhyn?" said some one, taking pity on my confusion.

"Do I? I dare say I do. Salmi,” turning to her maitre d'hotel, “remind me to ask Lord Penrhyn to dinner as soon as his grandfather has been dead a fortnight." And, fortunately for me, in the discursiveness of her ideas, she had already forgotten the matter which brought him on the tapis. "I will have the Percies to meet him. And now, mes bons amis, that the ices are on the table, I give you all leave to talk about Ascot. Had I not interdicted the subject during dinner, I should have heard of nothing else; and I detest races. I have not been to a race these sixty years."

Friday. How odiously provoking! When the Morning Post was brought me at breakfast, so little did I imagine it could contain any thing of personal interest to myself, that I ran through a whole column about Ascot, before I was attracted by a paragraph headed "THE LATE LORD PENRHYN," beginning with an account of his "crimson Genoa velvet coffin, with silver-gilt handles and plate;" and ending with, "We learn that the present Lord, who is in his forty-first year, is about to lead to the hymeneal altar the lovely and accomplished Mrs. Delaval, widow of Colonel Delaval, of Delaval Castle,

and daughter to the late distinguished General Sir Richard Montresor, K. B."

I am now, indeed, perplexed. If I send a denial to the newspaper, Lord Penrhyn may say, "Mrs. Delaval might have waited till she was asked ;" while, if I allow the assertion to remain unnoticed, the fact will be admitted as certain. I know not whom to consult. Herbert is so ungracious on the subject; and Lady Cecilia considers every thing so unimportant that does not relate either to herself or Clarence. I foresee that I shall be exposed to all sorts of annoyances by this foolish history. It would not surprise me to receive a letter in the course of the day from Lady Mardynville, asking me to stand godmother to her next child!

How the season brightens! I expected that, by this time, my gaieties would a little relax; instead of which, this morning has brought cards for four balls, two breakfasts, and a fete costumee. Dissipation seems to grow with what it feeds on; and, now the intoxication of pleasure has become fairly epidemic, all calculation, all moderation, is thrown aside. No one has a moment for reflection. The vigils of the ball over-night leave one scarcely time to dress in the morning for the business of the day, viz., visits and the Park. Then another toilet, and a dinner party; then another, and more balls. The sound of an orchestra is perpetually in one's ears; and full dress so habitual, that I shall scarcely know myself again in "white linen." I should like a week's quiet, and then a recommencement. The six months' quiet which really will follow all this stir and sparkling, does not seem altogether so desirable. I am now so accustomsd to live in a crowd, that I dread "the clock and crickets," which sound so loud in the stillness of a dull home.

Saturday.-Verily, I have my revenge for the insolent, sdeering bow with which George Hanton passed me the other day in the Park; and which was intended less for me than for Lord Lancaster and Sir Jervis Hall, with whom he was riding; ample revenge! Yesterday, as I was on a variety visit to Mrs. Hemstitch (the mantua-maker who formerly read me such a lecture on fine-ladyism), I met, on the stairs, a fine lad of about fifteen, his eyes swollen out of his head with crying. As the good woman happened to be alone, I asked her, indiscreetly enough, whether the youth was her son, and what was the cause of his tribulation.

"My sons, madam, are at decent schools, and, I trust, in decent clothing," said she, proudly. "If you had examined that poor lad, you would have perceived him to be almost in rags. He is in affliction for his father, who is dying in one of my attics."

"Do you let lodgings?" said I, as inconsiderately as before.

"No, madam; I simply afford a miserable refuge to an indigent family. Have you any orders for me this morning?" Pray forgive me, if I have offended you," I persisted:

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