went in, therefore, to Lady Brettingham's; - I did not much care where I went. Mariana received me with all her former graciousness. It was part of her system to make no enemies in life; and the regiment of partizans recruited by all that usually creates a legion of indignant faces, was really surprising. Her life was a system of policy. -Instigated by heartless ambition, she had resolved to render everything, even the holiest of feelings and engagements, subsidiary to her rise in life; and as in the political turmoil of France, even the altar-plate of the churches was melted down to assist in the advancement of the cause, nothing so sacred that Lady Brettingham did not trample under foot, as steps whereby to ascend the throne of preferment ! Like every other course unflinchingly persisted in, it succeeded. - I remember the time when the Windsor set used to say to me, "Cecil - how can you lose your time with that vulgar woman; - pretty certainly but after alla Mrs. Brettingham ?"-accompanied by shrugs and sneers, which, from certain persons, amount to a peine infamante. Yet now, when I entered her rooms after six months' absence, so as to have acquired the freshness of eye indispensable to judge of such a point, whom did I find thereWHOM? The very men, grown greyer and greater, who, eight years before, had reprehended me for losing my time with "a" Mrs. Brettingham! She had managed to assemble round her everything in London best worth assembling; everything belonging to the old Court whose privileges of birth and fortune stood above the chance of a reverse of fashion such as that of Harris; everything belonging to the new, secured by a trifling alloy from the rigidity distinguishing its less popular adherents. All the ministers surrounded her, and what was more to the purpose, the ministers' wives; for they knew that a card they had found so useful, might again acquire value from the chances of the game. The beaux esprits and têtes fortes of society came for the sake of sparkling in a ministerial circle; and the high élite of mere fashion, simply because it was understood that there was some question of selection among even the thricewinnowed chaff. All this was easy to be understood; for people of good fortune, good manners, and good appearance, may do wonders, (by the exercise of extremely bad principles,) towards the formation of what is called a good set. The wonder was that Mariana - I beg her and Sir Lucius's pardon, she had long been Lady Brettingham to me, should have achieved it without becoming an object of odium and insult to the ejected, or being poignarded by the bosom friends of whom she had ceased to remember the existence. Such is the charm of urbanity in this wicked world! — The Frenchman, who in a crowd elbows the breath out of your body, by first exclaiming " Pardon !" and conciliating you by a smile, deprives you of your title to knock him down; 66 car on peut tout faire," says the old song, "quand on le fait poliment." Objects whereof the surface is carefully oiled, pass through the waters of strife, with out contracting moisture; and Lady Brettingham shook the defiling waters from her wings-I was going to say like a swan but I have a partiality for swans, and will not degrade them by the comparison, shook the defiling waters from her wings, like a Muscovy duck. - As I half anticipated, Frank Walsingham was idling away his evening in Eaton Square; and already I felt the impossibility of accosting him with my usual friendship. If occupying his customary place beside Lady Mitchelston, I should feel it treachery to Jane;-if solitary and out of spirits, as becomes a lover absent from his love, I should feel it treachery to me.-I sat aloof, therefore, devoting to Lady Brettingham the formal attention and deference which constitutes every well-bred man's style of sending to Coventry the woman he has worn long enough on his sleeve; when up came Frank, with his usual-sunshiny face, and abrupt but cordial manner. "Cecil?" cried he "Cecil at a soirée, and on a Sunday evening! My dear fellow, accept my congratulations! I was afraid you were half married by this time! -Having missed you from your usual haunts, we fancied you crushed under the weight of parchments and wedding favours! I have not seen you for centuries." "I saw you at the opera last night," said I, coolly. "And I saw you,as one sees a lion at the Zoo. caged in his den. But you don't suppose I consider your sitting in Lady Crutchley's box, being at the opera?" "As much, I suppose, as your sitting in my sister's," said I, in the same tone. "I in Mrs. Herries's box ?" retorted Frank." My dear Cecil, only prove your words! It would have been indeed worth while to exchange the Omnibus for such an alternative. Why, I no more dare show so much as the shadow of my glasses there, than in the Queen's !" Lady Brettingham, little interested in our family discussion, now rising and walking away to play the agreeable to the French ambassador, Frank took her place beside me on the sofa. "Nay, I only thought so," said I," because you took Jane to her carriage, as I ought to have done;-and-" I snatched a glance at Frank, as I spoke, but saw no shame in his countenance. The villain only looked handsomer, brighter, and happier than usual."Upon his brow, shame was ashamed to sit." "Thank Heaven, then, you were otherwise employed,' said he, candidly; "for unless when such chances stand my friends, I have no possibility now of approaching her. Thanks to Ro., you know, I have long been banished the house; and as I do not dance, and have consequently no pretext for addressing her above a passing minute in a ball-room, I have not even those opportunities for contemplating her sweet face, which even such a scoff of the earth as a detrimental like myself might enjoy, if he bore any other name than mine !" There was no holding out against his frankness, — still less against his winning smiles. He was Frank Walsingham again, and already I had almost forgotten poor Chippenham and his afflictions. I could not, however, forget my brother; and if not angrily, determined gravely to interrogate the delinquent. "But my dear Frank," said I, as uncleishly as my white cravat and miraculously fitting pantaloons admitted, "what on earth can be the use of your indulging in admiration of Jane Danby, or of any other girl? - You are not a marrying man, you are not in a position of life to - tell me I am not in a position of life to enjoy the use of my eyes, ears, and understanding!" interrupted he, bitterly." Quite right, Cecil!-Quite right!—I am a younger son, - eh? Say it out, like the rest of them! a chartered beggar, a wretch, by the condemnation of providence, a child of wrath, a victim by predestination." I looked quietly round to ascertain, without allowing my suspicion to be manifest, whether he were mad or drunk; but saw nothing in his face, saving the frantic expression that my own used to wear when progressing every morning to Downing Street, during the period between my visit to the D'Acunhas' empty house in Burton Crescent and the mouth of the Tagus. He was desperate only because desperately in love. - "I know all you can urge," resumed he, perceiving my utter amazement. "I know that I have no more right to indulge in the pleasure of Jane's society, than to forin pretensions to a crown! But I cannot help it-Cecil, I swear to you I cannot help it!-If I had the slightest reason to hope or fear that my attentions were noticed by her, and that they might consequently prove prejudicial to her happiness, I would refrain; hard as it might be, I would never speak to her again!— But to have known such a creature as that, to have seen her intimately as, when you lived in Connaught Place, I used to see her, so superior in intelligence and accomplishments to every human being, yet simple and gentle as a child, gay, fearless, loving, confiding But God forgive me for talking about her!" cried he, interrupting himself, "I never so much as think of her a moment, when I am alone, without feeling it to be profanation, and swearing it shall be for the last time!" "I rejoice to see you so reasonable on the subject, my dear Frank," said I;" for if you seriously come to consider the question But why inflict upon the Public the prosification I inflicted upon poor Walsingham ? - The Public has no evil designs against my pretty niece, and deserves no such chastisement as a lecture at my hands! - For the last ten pages, it has probably been exclaiming with Hesiod, - Των δ' ακάματος ρεει αυδή Εκ στομάτων ηδεια and I will consequently put an end to a long_chapter, requesting it to take breath for one shorter and, I trust, more sweet. CHAPTER V. Her beauty was not made for all observance, Velut minuta magno Deprensa navis in mari, vesaniente vento. -CATULL. HONOUR and glory are as capricious in their influences as the infection of the cholera, which used to sweep off the patients on one side the ward of an hospital, and allow the other side to arise and walk. The lion of St. James's Street is an ass in Gray's Inn Lane; and the John Duke of Marlborough, a demigod in Blenheim Park, becomes in France the "Marlbrook," qui s'en vat-en guerre, Mironton, mironton, mirontaine, as a cadence for the dandling of teething infants! I, Cecil Danby, who to Frank was an angry uncle, protecting my pretty niece from the attacks of a younger brother, a middle-aged man not to be hoodwinked by a pair of silly lovers, became in Bruton Street not only a designing younger brother myself, but by a most Januslike extent of iniquity, as silly a lover as any Master Slender either on or off the stage! The French have a proverb of "jeter son bonnet par dessus les moulins," to exemplify any desperate piece of folly; and pleasant enough it is, in some cases, to fling one's hat over the mill. But believe me, gentle Public, it is much pleasanter to throw one's wig! When once a man of mature age makes up his mind to play the fool, or rather when his mind makes itself up to make a fool |