in persuading the family that it would be better to put an unconscious face upon the business; for, in the course of an hour, the family coach came round, and away they rumbled à l'ordinaire into the park; the carriage displaying only four pink satin bonnets instead of five. Miss Augusta remained at home, weeping out her tender sorrows.

About six o'clock I received a few apologizing lines from the duke, stating that he had been unavoidably detained by the arrival of his mother, to pass the day with him; and informing me that nothing was known of the quarrel between his friend and Mr. Hanton farther than that the affair was at an end.

-At seven, the Herberts dined with me; my brother in high spirits at the prospect of quitting town, and Armine quietly happy, because she saw her husband so. Immediately after dinner I proposed a drive in the open carriage on the Harrow road, the prettiest, but least frequented of the suburbs; and, while enjoying the cool of the evening, and gossiping of this and that, Lord Hartston and his duel again came upon the tapis. In the openness of my heart I indiscreetly observed, that I believed Hanton capable of any degree of insolencethat his conduct towards myself-I paused, but it was too late. Herbert would not let me rest till I had explained every particular of the proposal and the letter.

"By heavens! I clearly understand it now!" cried he. "The infernal ass, no doubt, hazarded to Hartston some impertinent comment upon your conduct; and Hartston, impelled by the foolish preference he is still absurd enough to indulge, and, knowing you had neither husband, father, nor brother, to defend you, thought fit to resent it! As if the duty did not belong to me! As if it were not my place to vindicate the reputation of my sister-in-law! I must have a serious explanation with him; I must know the truth."

"But you have not the slightest grounds for your supposition," said I, really alarmed.

"There are a thousand, a million of topics, on which they may have disagreed."

"No, no, no! From one or two hints I gathered from Colonel Trevor, who was eager to put an end to my investigation, I am convinced that you, and you only, were the cause of the dispute."

"At all events," interposed Armine, "the affair is

now at rest; and it would be very unfair to my sister to renew the publicity of what must be painful, and may be injurious to her."

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'Injurious to her!" cried Herbert, losing all command of himself; "I declare to you, Harriet, that for a woman endowed with common sense, I look upon you as worse than inexcusable. Through life your prospects have been ruined by your own wilfulness,— your own folly! It is now more than ten years since I first became acquainted with you, and from that time I have scarcely ever seen you conduct yourself like a reasonable being."

"Thank you,' ," said I, trying, at least, to retain the command of my own temper.

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No; don't think to silence me by a woman's flippant retort! I will tell you the truth, and you shall hear it. Think of all the evil you have heaped on your own head! Because that fellow, Delaval, swore you were an angel at your first race-ball, and looked well at the head of his regiment on a field-day, you accepted his proposals. You were assured by your friends that he was a violent man-a man of inferior education; yet you ventured to give him your hand, and fix yourself for life in one of the most wretched districts in Ireland. Reflect on, what he became there! Reflect on what you suffered under the tyranny of a brute-a sot!" Stay!" cried I. "With myself you are at liberty to deal as harshly as you please. Colonel Delaval is no more. His name is sacred."

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"So far you may be right," replied Herbert, in a milder tone. "Of him I have no right to speak; but of yourself, Harriet, I must and will. You returned among us, having suffered much, and little profited by your sufferings; but young, honoured, wealthy, rich in all that ought to have secured your happiness. What have you done to improve these blessings? Branded yourself with fashionable notoriety, and rendered your name as familiar in the mouths of the puppies of the clubs as those of the vile and worthless. One of the first men in this kingdom was disposed to make you his wife, and elevate you to a position which even the most ambitious of your vain associates have gloried in attaining. Your levity revolted him. It was a woman of heart, of mind, not a flimsy worldling, he wished to find in the companion of his future life; and all he has de

rived from a momentary illusion, is the stigma of a duel with one of the meanest and most contemptible of Crockford's profligates. But this is not all. You have exposed yourself to a thousand slights. Penrhyn's insolence (thanks to your friends, the Lancasters and Percies) has raised a general laugh at your expense; yet, apparently unsatisfied with the extent of your incautions, only last night you chose to thrust yourself upon the notice of the public, tête-à-tête with the Duke of Merioneth, in order that the Sunday prints might hold you up to ridicule as they have done this day, as 'the dashing Irish widow, who is venturing a bold cast of the net for; but why should I repeat such trash! or, rather, why should such innuendoes have been levelled at the daughter of General Montresor!"

I was too much agitated for any attempt to interrupt or appease him. While he was speaking, dearest Armine, unable to repress her tears, took my hand in hers, and pressed it tenderly, as if bespeaking my forbearance towards her husband. But her appeal was needless. I could not be angry with Herbert. Every word he uttered was dictated by the best intentions,-by the warmest interest in my welfare. I trust he exaggerates my errors. I trust he is deceived. I

Monday, 1st.-I woke this morning with a dreadful headache, partly caused by reflections on Herbert's remonstrances, partly by the knowledge that Armine and the children were already some twenty miles on their road into Bedfordshire. However, I have promised to visit them at Hollybridge early in the autumn.

Monday, 8th.-A whole week elapsed, and not a word in my diary. Since Herbert's rough apostrophe, or, perhaps I should say, since Herbert's harsh administration of wholesome truths, I have dreaded to record my own observations, seeing how completely I have suffered myself to become a dupe to the flatterers of the world. I misdoubt myself,-I misdoubt others. I would have quitted town the very day of Armine's departure, but that such a precipitate retreat would have been instantly traced by the malicious to its true motive, mortification. I am grown listless,-morose. People ask

if I am ill; and suggest this remedy and that, as they do to languid fine ladies, sickening. under the fatigues of the season and the vexation of its termination.

Most families, unshackled by the claims of parliament, or the responsibilities of supreme fashion, have already quitted town. London is more close, more dusty, more disagreeable than I could have supposed possible. The once green park under my windows is now of a tawny yellow and water-carts and Grange's currant-ice alone preserve the men and beasts, who still frequent it, from being carbonized in the course of their morning's amusement. Is it not one of the strangest abuses of this fox-hunting kingdom, that winter is to be spent in the country, and summer in town? What a meritorious achievement it would be for the reign of Victoria I., to cause the extermination of foxes, like that of the wolves of yore, by exacting an annual tribute of so many thousand heads! thus enabling the legislative lords of the creation to assemble between November and May, and its ladies to enjoy their parks and flower-gardens when the rose is on the bush, and the daisy in the grass.

As it is, we denizens of the scorching metropolis seem to pass the dog-days in rushing forth to this suburb and to that, gasping after fresh air. To-day, a déjeûner at Highgate; to-morrow, a gipsy party to Finchley; with fish dinners in taverns, savouring of punch, tobacco, Thames mud, and fried flounders; or venison dinners at the Star and Garter, for the supplementary enjoyment of a dusty drive. Old Lady Burlington and Mrs. Crowhurst, the Lancasters and Percies, exclaim, every time I meet them, "Is not London charming, now all the people are gone? It is like écarté after long whist!" For my part, I find it resemble only the last, tedious, dragging repetition of a waltz played by a musical snuffbox, of which the mainspring is run down. The thing wants winding up.

The other day we were a little enlivened by the novelty of Lord Hilton's ball. Those especially invited, myself among the number, left Westminster Bridge about four o'clock in the Admiralty barge; with a brassband attending, to outbray the strange tumults of the river; and with little Count Alfred de la Vauguyon (a walking Delcroix's shop) to out-essence its mauvaises odeurs. The river looked of a dingy copper-colour;

and the steeples of the city, and engine chimneys of the borough-nay, even the masts of the shipping in the docks, seemed to lose themselves in the haze of an atmosphere worthy the coast of Guinea, or the canvass of some Martinian pandemonium. We arrived at the inn at Woolwich, where five-and-twenty were invited to dine, in a state worthy to have been garnished with fried parsley and served among the fritures. Whitebait ought not to tempt any thing less than an alderman into such superfluous exertions in such weather.

The ball was prettily managed, and the yacht beautifully illuminated; but it strikes me we should have danced quite as much to our own satisfaction in Lord Hilton's mansion in Berkley Square. I accompanied Lady Cecilia back. I am careful now to avoid being in my own carriage with a vacant seat to be encroached upon by some impertinent lounger. The most amusing person of the party was Madame di Campo Fiorito. Deeply penetrated with the notion of the nautical glories of England, and the "rule" which that tin-helmeted amazon Britannia assumes to herself over the waves, she seemed to fancy that our marine supremacy must commence at London Bridge; she saw a seventy-four in every West Indiaman,-a frigate in every Doggerbank cod-schuyt, and a tar under the jacket of every jolly young waterman. Her ejaculations at the sight of Greenwich Hospital, and its wooden-legged Tom Toughs, were quite Della-Cruscan; and greatly did she applaud the magnanimity of our English sovereigns in having, as she concluded, resigned their own palace as a shelter for the veterans of their fleets, and contented themselves with the tumble-down almshouse of St. James's. The yacht, too, enchanted her; and she enchanted us in her turn, by the description of a fête she had witnessed in childhood, given to Josephine in the Bay of Genoa by the Ligurian republic; when hundreds of orange-trees in blossom were embarked in boats, and towed around the barge containing the wife of the hero of Marengo; an idea far more elegant in my opinion than the tinsel glories of Cleopatra's galley, with its purple brocades and painted Cupids.

Lady Southam, who leaves town to-morrow, is anxious that I should accompany her to Southam Castle; and there are few women for the sake of whose society I would more willingly make a sacrifice. But I have