with a contemptuous smile ;-"Lady Mereworth is forty, if she is a day!"

Had she said fifty, I could have borne it,for the falsehood had been palpable.- But forty was too near thirty-seven to be passed

over.

"I was acquainted with Lady Mereworth when a little girl in muslin frocks," said I, much nettled, " and can assure you, from my own knowledge, that she will not be eight-andthirty till next April."

A glance across Frank towards Lady Brettingham apprized me that Walsingham was biting his lips to prevent laughing outright. Her ladyship was less forbearing.

"Forgive me!"—said she, with the most impertinent air of significance:-"I was not aware that things had gone so far!"

I forget what I thought of when I wound up my watch that night; but I remember that, next day, when I entered the drawing-room in Grosvenor Square, I interrogated the coun

tenance of Lady Mereworth, conceiving, for the first time, the possibility that it might be susceptible of variation. When the butler announced "Mr. Danby!" I looked straight towards her; and thought I saw,-mind, I only say I thought I saw,-a sudden deepening of complexion accompany her spontaneous smile of welcome. I even fancied,-I had never thought of such things before,-that her breath came shorter, as I described to her the play of the preceding night, and in reply to her inquiries informed her I had been with Lady Brettingham.

Still, she stitched quietly on; and talked of a letter she had received from her son at Oxford, and of some difficulty she had found about the fitting of Mereworth's coronet for the approaching pageant, in a tone indicating any thing but indifference to her family affairs, or want of indifference towards me; and when, after having picked up a needle-case which I purposely rolled upon the carpet, I made the

movement a pretext for leaving my chair and taking a place beside her on the sofa, she made way for me precisely with the same mechanical civility she would have done for Lord Ormington. It was not at all in that style it suited me to be encouraged!

"I do believe I am piqued!" said I to Cecil Danby, with a smile, as I whipped my horse on entering my cabriolet, and drove off where I was little in the habit of driving,―into the Park." But after all, it is rather strange I should have been devoting my time to this woman for the last four months, and that she should not discover there is any difference between me and the chair I am sitting upon?I will try the effect of a little absence, both on her and myself."

Next day, I did not go so near Grosvenor Square as Park Lane!—I went and played tennis and being out of practice, played abominably,-lost my money and my temper, and wished Lady Brettingham, (not Lady Mereworth,) at Hanover.

I had not the smallest thoughts of proving the success of my experiment so soon as the day following: but Frank Walsingham having proposed to me at White's to drive me to Connaught Place, where I was to dine, as we traversed Grosvenor Square, proposed leaving cards for the Mereworths. Recalling to mind

the expression of his face in Lady Brettingham's box, I knew better than to object; more particularly as I was aware that, at that hour, Lady Mereworth was invariably out.

To my great annoyance, however, no sooner had we stopped at the door, than the officious porter, instead of quietly receiving the cards tendered to him, put aside the hand of the tiger and advancing to the door steps, informed me that "My lady was at home."-It had not entered into the good man's calculations that after one hundred and thirty-three consecutive visits, I could possibly want to shirk this single one.— There was no help for it. Though Frank muttered a word between his teeth that sounded

terribly like "bore," we were forced to go up; and on this occasion, there was no mistake. A blush of the deepest and most decided nature did brighten the cheek of Lady Mereworth as she accosted me!-Not a syllable of inquiry, no allusion to my yesterday's absence.— Had her conscience been clear, it would have been only natural to say-"What were you doing yesterday that I did not see you?"-Very suspicious! As I quoted in my last volume, and choose to quote again, "une femme qui ne vent s'apercevoir de rien, s'est aperçue de tout!" -This time, it was my breath that grew short, however, as I attempted to divert her attention from Frank Walsingham's lively sallies.—

Without imputing a thought to Lady Mereworth that angels might not harbour, it was certainly only natural that, if even the fauteuil on which I habitually sat, had been suddenly moved from the room, she should take heed of its absence; and after those hundred and thirty-three visits, spent in agreeable and im