so beautiful-it was 66 so like Yermany." So much for taste, and the doctrine of association. Those fit gates for a summer palace, the light and airy arches which lead to Sion House, passed also, the country begins to take an air of town-houses and gardens are smaller-single blessedness is rarer-turnpikes more frequent-and terraces, palaces, and crescents, are many in number; then the town of Kensington, small and mean, looking a century behind its neighborhood.

On

The road now becomes a noble and wide one. foot, and by daylight, the brick walls on either side are dreary enough; but at night they only give depth to the shadow, and the eye catches the lighted windows and the stately roofs of the houses they enclose. To my own individual taste, these are the most delightful of dwellings, close upon the park for drives, close upon the streets for dinners, enclosed, large, and to themselves, having as much of rural felicity within their walls as I at least desire; that is to say, there are some fine old trees, lilacs and laburnums in full blossom, sweeps of turf, like green carpet, and plenty of delicate roses, &c. A conservatory is the aristocracy of flowers.

Just where the road is the widest they meet the mails, the gallant horses sweeping along

"As if the speed of thought were in their limbs."

and every step accompanied by a shower of fiery sparkles. The lamps that glance and are lost-the cheerful ringing of the horn-the thought that must rise, of how much of human joy and sorrow every one of those swift coaches is bearing on to its destination:-newspapers that detail and decide on all the affairs of Europe-letters in all their infinite variety, love, confidence, business-the demand of the dun, the excuse of the debtor-delicate bath and coarse foolscap the patrician coat of arms, and the particularly plebeian wafer the sentimental motto and graceful symbol, side by side with the red patch stamped with a thimble but any one of these thoughts will be more than enough to fill the brief moment which the all but animated machine takes in passing. How different from the days when the coach," one and one only, was eight days coming from York, and its passengers laid in a store of provisions which, in our rapid days, would supply them half way to America!

:

"London, my country, city of the soul!" exclaimed Lady Mandeville, as she caught sight of the brilliantly lighted arches of Hyde Park Corner, and the noble sweep of the illuminated Park in the distance, while Piccadilly spread before them in the darkness like an avenue of lamps. "I have heard that a thoroughbred cockney is one of the most contented animals in the world: I, for one, to use a favorite modern expression, can quite enter into his feelings.""

"Do you remember," replied her husband, "Lorraine's quotation to St. James's Street?—

For days, for months, devoutly

I've lingered by thy side,

The only place I coveted

In all the world so wide.'*\

And though I like the country as an Englishman and a patriot ought to do, I own I feel the fascination of the flagstones."

"Emily, I accuse you of want of sympathy with your friends-I declare you are asleep you will make a bad traveller; however, I shall rely upon your amendment."

Emily was not asleep, but she was oppressed by that sense of nothingness with which the native of a great town is too familliar to be able to judge of its effect on a stranger. She had been accustomed to live where every face was a familiar one-where every one's affairs had, at least, the interest of neighborhood—and where a stranger had all the excitement of novelty. Here all was new and cold the immensity was too great to fix on a place of rest the hurry, the confusion, of the streets bewildered her. She felt not only that she was nobody, but that nobody cared for her a very disagreeable conviction at which to arrive, but one very natural in London.

That journey is dreary which does not end at home; and I do not know whether to despise for his selfishness, or to pity for his situation, the individual who said that he had ever found

"Life's warmest welcome at an inn."

It was paying himself and his friends a compliment.

* Kennedy.

CHAPTER III.

A most delightful person? I said "yes:"
To such a question how could I say less?
And yet I thought, half pedant and half fop,
If this you praise, where will eulogium stop?

66

a

THE day after their arrival, the Mandevilles being engaged to a family dinner, where they could not well take a stranger, Emily accepted the invitation of a Mrs. Trefusis, with whom, to use the lady's own expression, she was prodigious favorite." And to Mrs. Trefusis' accordingly she went, and was received with that kind of manner which says, "You see I mean to make a great deal of you, so be very much obliged." At dinner Miss Arundel was placed next a gentleman; her hostess having previously whispered, "I think you will have a treat."

When a person says, "Were you not delighted with my friend Mr. A, B, C, or D?—I placed you next him at dinner, as I was sure his wit would not be thrown away upon you”—the "you" dwelt on in the most complimentary tone-is it possible to answer in the negative? Not even in the palace of truth itself. You cannot be ungrateful-you will not be undeserving-and you reply, "Mr. is a most delightful person.' Your affirmative is received and registered, and you have the comfort, perhaps, of hearing your opinion quoted, as thinking him so superior-while you really considered the gentleman little better than a personified yawn.

Emily was not yet impertinent or independent enough to have opinions of her own, or she might have differed from her hostess's estimate of Mr. Macneil. Mrs. Trefusis valued conversation much as children do sweetmeats not by the quality, but the quantity: a great talker was with her a good talker-silence and stupidity synonymous terms-and "I hate people who do n't talk," the ideale and morale of her social creed. It was said she accepted

her husband because he did not ever allow her to slip in an affirmative. An open carriage and a sudden shower drove her one day into desperation and Lady Alicia's; unexpected pleasures are always most prized; and half an hour's lively conversation with Miss Arundel, rescuing her from the double dulness of heavy rain and Lady Alicia, excited a degree of gratitude which constituted Emily a favorite for a fortnight at least. She had as yet had no opportunity of acknowledgment, and she now expressed her partiality by placing her next Mr. Macniel at dinner.

In every man's nature some one leading principle is developed-in Macneil this was selfsatisfaction. It was not vanity that seeks for golden opinions from all ranks of men; it was not conceit-for that canvasses, though more covertly, for admiration; but Macneil was vain en roi-he took homage as a right divine-and, whether in love or law, learning or literature, classics or quadrilles, there existed for him a happy conviction that he was the perfection of each. At college he used to drink porter of a morning while reading for his degree, to repress, as he said, the exuberance of his genius (query: is genius, then, incompatible with examination and a university?). He married for the pleasure of stating how very much his wife was in love with him. Great part of his reputation rested on always choosing the subject his auditor was most likely to know nothing about. To young gentlemen he talked of love—to young ladies of learning; and we always think what we do not comprehend must be something very fine for example, he dilated to Emily on the music of Homer's versification, and the accuracy of Blackstone's deductions.

As they went up stairs, Mrs. Trefusis whispered, “Did you ever meet so entertaining a man? he never stopped talking once all dinner." He had, certainly, some natural advantages as a wit: he was thin, bilious looking, and really was very illnatured and half the speeches that have a run in society, only require malice to think them, and courage to utter them. Still, it is difficult to affix any definite character to Mr. Macneil. He had neither that sound learning which industry may acquire, nor that good sense which is unacquirable; and as for wit, he had only depreciation he was just the nil admirari brought into. action.

:

On arriving in the drawing room, Emily gladly sought refuge in a window seat; her hearing faculty was literally exhausted; she felt, like Clarence,

"A dreadful noise of waters in her ear."

Luckily, it was a period when none are expected to talk, and few to listen. Is it not Pelham who wonders what becomes of servants when they are not wanted;-whether like the tones of an instrument, they exist but when called for? About servants we will not decide; but that some such interregnum certainly occurs in female existence on rising from table, no one can doubt who ever noted the sound of the dining and the silence of the drawing room.

Women must be very intimate to talk to each other after dinner. The excitement of confidence alone supplies the excitement of coquetry; and, with that peculiar excellence which characterises all our social arrangements, people who meet at dinner are usually strangers to each other.

Very young people soon get acquainted; but then they must be very young. Few general subjects have much feminine attraction: women are not easily carried, not exactly out of themselves (for selfishness is no part of the characteristic I would describe), but out of their circle of either interests, vanities, or affections. A woman's individuality is too strong to take much part in those abstract ideas which enter largely into masculine discussion. Ask a woman for an opinion of a book-her criticism will refer quite as much to the author as to his work. But, while on the subject of this "silent hour," what an unanswerable answer it is to those who calumniate the sex as possessing the preponderance of loquacity! Men do talk much more than women. What woman ever stood and talked seven hours at or about a schoolmaster, as has been done? What woman ever goes to charities, to vestries, &c., for the mere sake, it seems to me, of speaking? But "if lions were painters" is as true now as in the days of Esop. Goethe said of talking, what Cowper said of domestic felicity, that it was

"The only bliss that had survived the fall."

Mrs. Trefusis was quite of this opinion. The present