make her my slave. Years had elapsed since I had found myself master of a slave, that is a slave worth reducing to slavery ;-a slave who was the mistress of many slaves,-a slave in a diamond necklace and robes of brocade.

I could scarcely resist bragging of my intentions that night to Frank Walsingham; as, standing together on the steps at the Travellers', he alluded in an apologetic tone to Lady Brettingham, as if ashamed of having cut me out. However, I did abstain-not so much out of regard for Mereworth or affection for his wife, as out of respect for Cecil Danby.

Meyer is one of the best tailors who ever snipped a coat. Yet I said all sorts of uncivil things about him next morning, as I was dressing to proceed to Grosvenor Square; for though he fitted me to a T, I was afraid he might not fit me to a T.-resa. Seriously, however, I had not much to complain of; and I drove up to the door in Grosvenor Square, as gallantly as Wellington gallopped on to the

field of Waterloo, where he had planned an action, as people build chateaux en Espagne, twelve months before.

Joy upon joy,-I was admitted!—I made my way into the drawing-room as blithely as Romeo up the ladder of cords provided by that shocking old Friar Lawrence, whom scarcely an actor now-a-days is modest or immodest enough to represent;-I made my way, I say, into the drawing-room, and had a heavenly choir chaunted forth "She is saved!" as they do in the last act of Goethe's Faust, could not have been more assured of the fact. -I had no more chance of carrying her off, than the brazen monster in Hyde Park !—

No more paleness, no more nervousness. Her eye was bright with happiness, her brow radiant with triumph;-she was not ashamed though her enemies addressed her in the gate! -I never saw a human countenance more joyously resplendent;-her son was with her! Lord Chippenham was seated by her side!—His

father had sent for him from Oxford to the

Coronation, where he was to officiate in the royal suite.

Now, I appeal to my readers whether, had Lady Mereworth entertained a becoming sense of my feelings towards her, she would have rejoiced in the idea of presenting to me a son twenty years of age?-And yet I swear she looked as proud and as pleased when she said -"Mr. Danby, my son,-Chippenham !—have you forgotten Mr. Danby?"-as if she had been doing the most agreeable thing in the world!—

As to resenting her heartless conduct upon the young man, it was out of the question. Never did I see a nobler or finer young fellow, except in one or two of Sir Joshua's portraits. The description given by Richardson of Sir Charles Grandison when a youth at Grandison Hall, shadows forth the noble, frank, and distinguished countenance of this mal à propos intruder.

I hate what is called "a youth,”—which is only a civiller word for hobbledehoy. But Chippenham was perfect,-Chippenham was, quant au physique, all I have described my brother to be au moral. He took me, meanwhile, so heartily by the hand, that I was forced to affect pleasure in recalling to mind the boy I had held in my arms on the deck of the Ariel, to show him the dolphins at play.

A change was over the spirit of my dream!— Though as sulky as Achilles, and as grandiose as Agamemnon, I submitted to be disarmed by a child!

Nothing could be more painful than the unsuspecting frankness with which Chippenham took himself for granted as the friend of his father's friend. He did not seem to conceive it possible I could find him a bore; but with gay ingenuousness, began to consult me upon his dress for the coronation.-Who was the best robe-maker?-Where was he to get this, and look for that?- His father, he said,

was too much engrossed by business to be molested about such trifles;-and he evidently addressed me less as the infallible fashiongiver of the day, than as the family Fool, to whom alone it was permissible to prate of velvet and ostrich feathers.

Lady Mereworth was delighted;-listening with her infatuated eyes fixed on his glowing face, as a woman gazes at twenty on her lover, but at forty on her son;-and when he asked me to drive him down to Webb's in the Strand, -(yes! he actually asked me-the Cecil Danby of White's to drive him into the Strand!)she seemed to think that nothing could be more natural than the proposal.—

I was obliged to comply;-and to be sincere, in spite of his provoking good faith, was delighted with young Chippenham.-Nevertheless, as we went along, I had serious thoughts of driving against a lamp-post and breaking his bones; for he had the audacity to confide to me certain of his college indiscretions,