He bowed, and she turned away. "The proud, insulting girl!" he said, as the crowd, amid murmurs of 'capital''excellent '-' clever,' and laughter too wellbred to be loud, pressed onward with her, leaving us alone near a window which opened into the conservatory-"the proud, insulting girl! she shall regret this." I could forgive him for the first sentenceit was natural; but the second was cowardly. "At all events," I said, "you are her debtor. She has given you a new sensation." 58 CHAPTER II. -And where, ye haunts Of grandeur and of beauty, shall the heart WILSON. MUSIC-I know I am very presumptuous to give an opinion so at war with that of the public-but I cannot avoid saying, that music has become so much of a science that it is no longer a pleasure! On that particular evening, rich in so many memories, our hostess had arranged—as was her custom—that there should be a couple of whist-tables, in a little book-room, which had not achieved the dignity of a library;—those who 'like a rubber,' are generally quiet, unobtrusive, bygone 'elderlies,' who never enjoy anything but whist; and if they cannot get up a rubber,' make up their minds to be retired and 'injured' the whole evening; it is therefore expedient as it is kind and right, to cater for their fancy, and provide them with a single or double-action den, where, in silence, though not in obscurity, they can pursue what an old friend laboured for ten years to convince me was an intellectual enjoyment. I am quite willing to take it for granted, that all engaged therein believe it to be so in this world we are subject to many delusions. Helen had been car : ried off in triumph, by a party of juvenile worshippers, to look at some rare flowers in a conservatory-followed there, as everywhere else, by a crowd; and my friend had entered into an argument with a little, round, florid, flushed gentleman, in a brown, queer wig, which stood up a good deal behind; his features were small, and, in his youth, must have been handsome, and his eyes were bright, not with continuous, but a twinkling, light; his accent was 'frae the north' (what a patent those portherns have for growing talent); and, as I was not quite near enough to hear their conversation, and did not know who the gentleman was, I wandered away, little thinking I had looked my first and last on the author of The Battle of the Baltic.' Well, I wandered into the whist-room, knowing I should be able there to gather my thoughts together for I was bewildered. I had met a score of people-any one of whom I would have gone a score of miles to look at just to look at! and, as poor Jerry would say, "then thank the Lord more than ever for my eyesight;" and I had heard them speak, and seen them-authors, sculptors, ministers of state, beauties, past and present, painters, poets-seen them all, and absolutely spoken to some, and marked them all rendering homage to that little mismanaged child, who received the homage as if she were a born queen. My nerves were not so shaken as on the first night of the play, or even as at the reading of the play in the green-room, nor was I ill, as I had been at Mrs. Major Cobb's-but it was very wonderful; and for Helen, how dangerous she stood on such a height, with so little, nothing, in fact, to sustain her there! How was it I became haunted by the sorrow, that I had not been able to draw her and Florence into friendship? That Marley! Now it is truth that I never thought of him without growing cold, feeling that I changed colour and must look like a ghost. So I began to think over those I had seen, and was seeing still, for the door was partly open, and many were walking up and down: the wide corridor. No one can be insensible to the actual living beauty of the women of England; it was glorious to watch. them as they passed. I tried to recall every word I had heard, so as to fix it in my memory; and I felt disappointed to find how little there was to carry away. But how silly!-how absurd to suppose that people who wrote books and |