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diately followed, had checked the words upon her lip, and to her surprise they seated themselves on the side that was wholly unoccupied, and conversed in a tone inaudible to all but themselves. Not aware that her lover knew Lady Ravelgold, she supposed that they might have been casually introduced, till the earnestness of her mother's manner, and a certain ease between them in the little courtesies of the table, assured her that this could not be their first interview. Tremlet's face was turned from her, and she could not judge whether he was equally interested; but she had been so accustomed to consider her mother as irresistible when she chose to please, that she supposed it of course; and very soon the heightening colour of Lady Ravelgold, and the unwavering look of mingled admiration and curiosity which she bent upon the handsome face of her companion, left no doubt in her mind that her reserved and exclusive lover was in the dangerous toils of a rival whose power she knew. From the mortal pangs of a first jealousy, heaven send thee deliverance, fair Lady Imogen !

"We shall find our account in the advances on your ladyship's credit," said Tremlet, in reply to the direct question that was put to him. "Meantime, permit me to admire the courage with which you look so disagreeable a subject in the face."

"For disagreeable a subject,' read 'Mr. Tremlet.' I show my temerity more in that. Apropos of faces, yours would become the new fashion of cravat. The men at Crockford's slip the ends through a ring of their ladylove's, if they chance to have onethus!" and untying the loose knot of his black satin cravat, Lady Ravelgold slipped over the ends a diamond of small value, conspicuously set in pearls.

"The men at Crockford's," said Tremlet, hesitating to commit the rudeness of removing the ring, "are not of my school of manners. If I had been so fortunate as to inspire a lady with a preference for me, I should not advertise it on my cravat."

"But suppose the lady were proud of her preference, as dames were of the devotion of their knights in the

days of chivalry would you not wear her favour as conspicuously as they?"

A flush of mingled embarrassment and surprise shot over the forhead of Tremlet, and he was turning the ring with his fingers, when Lady Imogen, attempting to pass out of the tent, was stopped by her mother.

"Imogen, my daughter! this is Mr. Tremlet. Lady Imogen Ravelgold, Mr. Tremlet !"

The cold and scarce perceptible bow which the wounded girl gave to her lover, betrayed no previous acquaintance to the careless Lady Ravelgold. Without giving a second thought to her daughter, she held her glass for some champagne to a passing servant, and as Lady Imogen and her friends crossed the lawn to the dancing tent, she resumed the conversation which they had interrupted; while Tremlet, with his heart brooding on the altered look he had received, listened and replied almost unconsciously; yet from this very circumstance, in a manner which was interpreted by his companion as the embarrassment of a timid and long-repressed passion for herself.

While Lady Ravelgold and the junior partner were thus playing at cross purposes over their champagne and bons-bons, Grisi and Lablache were singing a duet from I Puritani, to a full audience in the saloon; the drinking young men sat over their wine at the nearly deserted tables; Lady Imogen and her friends waltzed to Collinet's band, and the artizans were busy below the lawn, erecting the machinery for the fire-works. Meantime every alley and avenue, grot and labyrinth, had been dimly illuminated with coloured lamps, showing like varicoloured glow-worms amid the foliage and shells; and if the bright scenery of Rose Eden had been lovely by day, it was fay-land and witchery by night. Fatal impulse of our nature, that these approaches to paradise in the "delight of the eye," stir only in our bosoms the passions upon which law and holy writ have put ban and bridle !

"Shall we stroll down this alley of crimson lamps?" said Lady Ravelgold, crossing the lawn from the tent where their coffee had been brought to

them, and putting her slender arm far into that of her now pale and silent companion.

A lady in a white dress stood at the entrance of that crimson avenue, as Tremlet and his passionate admirer disappeared beneath the closing lines of the long perspective, and, remaining a moment gazing through the unbroken twinkle of the confusing lamps, she passed her hand hard upon her forehead, drew up her form as if struggling with some irrepressible feeling, and in another moment was whirling in the waltz with Lord Ernest Fitzantelope, whose mother wrote a complimentary paragraph about their performance for the next Saturday's Court Journal.

The bugle sounded, and the band played a march upon the lawn. From the breakfast-tents, from the coffeerooms, from the dance, from the cardtables, poured all who wished to witness the marvels that lie in saltpetre. Gentlemen who stood in a tender attitude in the darkness, held themselves ready to lean the other way when the rockets blazed up, and mammas who were encouraging flirtations with eligibles, whispered a caution on the same subject to their less-experienced daughters.

Up sped the missiles, round spun the wheels, fair burned the pagodas, swift flew the fire-doves off and back again on their wires, and softly floated down through the dewy atmosphere of that May night the lambent and many-coloured stars, flung burning from the exploded rockets. Device followed device, and Lady Imogen almost forgot, in her child's delight at the spectacle, that she had taken into her bosom a green serpent, whose folds where closing like suffocation about her heart.

The finale was to consist of a new light, invented by the Pyrotechnist, promised to Lady Roseberry to be several degrees brighter than the sun -comparatively with the quantity of matter. Before this last flourish came a pause; and while all the world were murmuring love and applause around her, Lady Imogen, with her eyes fixed on an indefinite point in the darkness, took advantage of the cessation of light to feed her serpent with thoughts of passionate and uncontroll

able pain. A French attaché, Phillipiste to the very tips of his moustache, addressed to her ear, meantime, the compliments he had found most effective in the Chaussée D'Antin.

The light burst suddenly from a hundred blazing points, clear, dazzling, intense-illuminating, as by the instantaneous burst of day, the farthest corner of Rose Eden. And Monsieur Mangepoire, with a French contempt for English fire-works, took advantage of the first ray to look into Lady Imogen's eyes.

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"Mais, Miladi!" was his immediate exclamation, after following their direction with a glance, ce n'est qu'u' tableau vivant, cela! Help, gentlemen! Elle s'evanouit. salts ! Misericorde ! Mon Dieu ! Mon Dieu!" And Lady Imogen Ravelgold was carried fainting to Lady Roseberry's chamber.

In a small opening at the end of a long avenue of lilacs, extending from the lawn in the direction of Lady Imogen's fixed and unconscious gaze, was presented, by the unexpected illumination, the tableau vivant, seen by her ladyship and Monsieur Mangepoire at the same instant-a gentleman drawn up to his fullest height, with his arms folded, and a lady kneeling on the ground at his feet with her arms stretched up to his bosom.

A little after two o'clock on the following Wednesday, Tremlet's cabriolet stopped near the perron of Willis's rooms in King-street, and while he sent up his card to the lady patronesses for his ticket to that night's Almack's, he busied himself in looking into the crowd of carriages about him, and reading on the faces of their fair occupants the hope and anxiety to which they were a prey, till John the footman brought them tickets or despair. Drawn up on the opposite side of the street, stood a family carriage of the old style, covered with half the arms of the herald's office, and containing a fat dowager and three very over-dressed daughters. Watching them, to see the effect of their application, stood upon the sidewalk three or four young men from the neighbouring club-house, and at the moment Tremlet was observing these cir

cumstances, a foreign britscka, containing a beautiful woman of a reputation better understood than expressed in the conclave above stairs, flew round the corner of St. James'-street, and very nearly drove into the open mouth of the junior partner's cabriolet.

"I will bet you a Ukraine colt against this fine bay of yours," said the Russian secretary of legation, advancing from the group of dandies to Tremlet, "that miladi, yonder, with all the best blood of England in her own and her daughters' red faces, gets no tickets this morning."

"I'll take a bet upon the lady who has nearly extinguished me, if you like," answered Tremlet, gazing with admiration at the calm, delicate, childlike looking creature, who sat before him in the britscka.

"No!" said the secretary, "for Almack's is a republic of beauty, and she'll be voted in without either blood or virtue. Par exemple, Lady Ravelgold's voucher is good here, though she does study tableaux in Lothbury-eh Tremlet?"

Totally unaware of the unlucky discovery by the fireworks at Lady Roseberry's fête, Tremlet coloured and was inclined to take the insinuation as an affront; but a laugh from the dandies drew off his companion's attention, and he observed the dowager's footman standing at her coach window, with his empty hands held up in most expressive negation, while the three young ladies within sat aghast, in all the agonies of disappointed hopes. The lumbering carriage got into motion -its ineffective blazonry paled by the mortified blush of its occupants-and, as the junior partner drove away, philosophising on the arbitrary opinions and unprovoked insults of polite society, the britscka shot by, showing him, as he leaned forward, a lovely woman who bent on him the most dangerous eyes in London, and an Almack's ticket lying on the unoccupied cushion beside her.

The white relievo upon the pale blue wall of Almack's, showed every crack in its stucco flowers, and the faded chaperons who had defects of a similar description to conceal, took warning of the walls, and retreated to the

friendlier dimness of the tea-room. Collinet was beginning the second set of quadrilles, and among the fairest of the surpassingly beautiful women who were moving to his heavenly music, was Lady Imogen Ravelgold, the lovelier to-night for the first heavy sadness that had ever dimmed the roses in her cheek. Her lady mother divided her thoughts between what this could mean, and whether Mr. Tremlet would come to the ball; and when, presently after, in the dos-a-dos, she forgot to look at her daughter, on seeing that gentleman enter, she lost a very good opportunity for a guess at the cause of Lady Imogen's paleness.

To the pure and true eye that appreciates the divinity of the form after which woman is made, it would have been a glorious feast to have seen the perfection of shape, colour, motion, and countenance shown that night on the bright floor of Almack's. For the young and beautiful girls whose envied destiny is to commence their woman's history in this exclusive hall, there exist aids to beauty known to no other class or nation. Perpetual vigilance over every limb from the cradle up; physical education of a perfection, discipline, and judgment pursued only at great expense and under great responsibility; moral education of the highest kind, habitual consciousness of rank, exclusive contact with elegance and luxury, and a freedom of intellectual culture, which breathes a soul through the face before passion has touched it with a line or a shade-these are some of the circumstances which make Almack's the cynosure of the world for adorable and radiant beauty!

There were three ladies who had come to Almack's with a definite object that night, each of whom was destined to be surprised and foiled: Lady Ravelgold, who feared she had been abrupt with the inexperienced banker, but trusted to find him softened by a day or two's reflection; Mrs. St. Leger, the lady of the britscka, who had ordered supper for two on her arrival at home from her morning's drive, and intended to have the company of the handsome creature she had nearly run over in King street; and Lady Imogen Ravelgold, as will appear in the sequel.

Tremlet stood in the entrance from the tea-room a moment, gathering courage to walk alone into such a dazzling scene, and then, having caught a glimpse of the glossy line of Lady Imogen's head at the farthest end of the room, he was advancing towards her, when was addressed by a lady who learned against one of the slender columns of the orchestra. After a sweetly-phrased apology for having nearly knocked out his brains that morning with her horses' fore feet, Mrs. St. Leger took his arm, and walking deliberately two or three times up and down the room, took possession, at last, of a banquette on the highest range, so far from any other person, that it would have been a marked rudeness to have left her alone. Tremlet took his seat by her with this instinctive feeling, trusting that some one of her acquaintances would soon approach, and give him a fair excuse to leave her; but he soon became amused with her piquant style of conversation, and, not aware of being observed, fell into the attitude of a pleased and earnest listener.

Lady Ravelgold's feelings during this petit entretien, were of a very positive description. She had an instinctive knowledge, and consequently a jealous dislike, of Mrs. St. Leger's character; and, still under the delusion that the young banker's liberality was prompted by a secret passion for herself, she saw her credit in the city and her hold upon the affections of Tremlet, (for whom she had really conceived a violent affection,) melting away in every smile of the dangerous woman who engrossed him. As she looked around for a friend, to whose ear she might communicate some of the suffocating poison in her own heart, Lady Imogen returned to her from a gallopade; and, like a second dagger into the heart of the pure-minded girl, went this second proof of her lover's corrupt principle and conduct. Unwilling to believe even her own eyes on the night of Lady Roseberry's fête, she had summoned resolution on the road home to ask an explanation of her mother. Embarrassed by the abrupt question, Lady Ravelgold felt obliged to make a partial confidence of the state of her pecuniary affairs; and to clear herself,

she represented Tremlet as having taken advantage of her obligations to him to push a dishonourable suit. The scene disclosed by the sudden blaze of the fire-works being this simply explained, Lady Imogen at once determined to give up Tremlet's acquaintance altogether; a resolution which his open flirtation with a woman of Mrs. St. Leger's character served to confirm.

She had, however, one errand with him, prompted by her filial feelings and favoured by an accidental circumstance which will appear.

"Do you believe in animal magnetism?" asked Mrs. St. Leger, "for by the fixedness of Lady Ravelgold's eyes in this quarter, something is going to happen to one of us."

The next moment the Russian secretary approached and took his seat by Mrs. St. Leger, and with diplomatic address contrived to convey to Tremlet's ear that Lady Ravelgold wished to speak with him. The banker rose, but the quick wit of his companion comprehended the man

œuvre.

"Ah! I see how it is," she said, "but stay-you'll sup with me to-night? Promise me-parole d'honneur !”

"Parole!" answered Tremlet, making his way out between the seats, half pleased and half embarrassed.

"As for you, Monsieur le Secretaire," said Mrs. St. Leger, "you have forfeited my favour, and may sup elsewhere. How dare you conspire against me?"

While the Russian was making his peace, Tremlet crossed over to Lady Ravelgold; but, astonished at the change in Imogen, he soon broke in abruptly upon her mother's conversation, to ask her to dance. She accepted his hand for a quadrille; but as they walked down the room in search of a vis-à-vis, she complained of heat, and asked timidly if he would take her to the tea-room.

"Mr. Tremlet," she said, fixing her eyes upon the cup of tea which he had given her, and which she found some difficulty in holding, "I have come here to-night to communicate to you some important information, to ask a favour, and to break off an acquaintance which has lasted too long.'

Lady Imogen stopped, for the blood

had fled from her lips, and she was compelled to ask his arm for a support. She drew herself up to her fullest height the next moment, looked at Tremlet, who stood in speechless astonishment, and with a strong effort, commenced again in a low, firm tone"I have been acquainted with you some time, sir, and have never inquired nor knew more than your name, up to this day. I suffered myself to be pleased too blindly-"

"Dear Lady Imogen!" "Stay a moment, sir! I will proceed directly to my business. I received this morning a letter from the senior partner of a mercantile house in the city, with which you are connected. It is written on the supposi tion that I have some interest in you, and informs me that you are not, as you yourself suppose, the son of the gentleman who writes the letter."

"Madam!"

"That gentleman, sir, as you know, never was married. He informs me that in the course of many financial visits to St. Petersburgh, he formed a friendship with Count Manteuffel, then minister of finance to the emperor, whose tragical end, in consequence of his extensive defalcations, is well known. In brief, sir, you were his child, and were taken by this English banker, and carefully educated as his own, in happy ignorance, as he imagined, of your father's misfortunes and mournful death."

•Tremlet leaned against the wall, unable to reply to this astounding intelligence, and Lady Imogen went on.

"Your title and estates have been restored to you at the request of your kind benefactor, and you are now the heir to a princely fortune, and a count of the Russian empire. Here is the letter, sir, which is of no value to me now. Mr. Tremlet! one word more, sir.'

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to nerve her resolution anew, Lady Imogen Ravelgold shook the tears from her eyes, bowed coldly to Tremlet, and passed out into the dressing

room.

"If you please, sir," said a servant, approaching the amazed banker, "Mrs. St. Leger waits for you in her carriage."

"Will you come home and sup with us?" said Lady Ravelgold at the same instant, joining him in the tea

room.

"I shall be only too happy, Lady Ravelgold."

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The bold coachman of Mrs. St. Leger continued to "stop the way,' spite of policeman and infuriated footmen, for some fifteen minutes. At the end of that time Mr. Tremlet appeared, handing down Lady Ravelgold and her daughter, who walked to their chariot, which was a few steps behind; and very much to Mrs. St. Leger's astonishment, the handsome banker sprang past her horses' heads a minute after, jumped into his cabriolet, which stood on the opposite side of the street, and drove after the vanishing chariot as if his life depended on overtaking it. Still Mrs. St. Leger's carriage "stopped the way.' But, in a few minutes after, the same footman who had summoned Tremlet in vain, returned with the Russian secretary, doomed in blessed unconsciousness to play the pis aller at her tête-à-tête supper in Spring Gardens.

(To be continued,)

ORSON DABBS, THE HITTITE.

IT has been said, and truly, that it takes all sorts of people to make a world. He who complains of the lights and shades of character, which are eternally flitting before him, and of the diversity of opposing interests which at times cross his path, has but an illiberal, contracted view of the subject and though the Emperor Charles the Fifth, in his retirement at Estremadura, had some reason for being a little annoyed when he could not cause two or three score of watches to go together, yet he was wrong in sighing over his previous ineffectual

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