CHAPTER XII.

That fete to which the cull, the flower
Of England's beauty, rank, and power,
From the young spinster just come out,

To the old Premier too long in-
From legs of far-descended gout

To the last new-mustachio'd chin--
All were convoked by Fashion's spells
To the small circle where she dwells,
Collecting, nightly, to allure us,

Live atoms, which together hurl'd,
She, like another Epicurus,

Sets dancing thus, and calls the World.

MOORE.

BELLSTAR was quite right in supposing that every one worth knowing would be at the Marchioness of Coleraine's fête at Roehampton. Yet the grounds were not inconveniently crowded, for people worth knowing in the highest rank are not SO numerous as to be easily collected in multitudes. The marchioness herself was a fine example of an English matron in high life. From her position she was naturally one of

the leaders of fashion, and she graced its gaieties by her good taste, her irreproachable character, her lively disposition, and her amiable qualities. She was a general

favourite; for with her fashion was made subservient to something better than itself,

-to kind offices, social intercourse, polished hospitality, and benevolent purposes. She had too much tact to obtrude any of her charitable schemes on the notice of her guests; yet on this, as on other occasions, she contrived that institutions in which she felt a special interest should quietly put forth a claim to patronage. In one tent was the model of a school-room, and in another specimens of the female manufacture of a village which, under her care, was rising from a place of abject wretchedness to a seat of industry and comfort.

Fashionable life is not exactly the spot in which the virtues flourish best, yet in this country there is enough salt in it to preserve it from corruption. Sometimes it leads good feeling; very seldom is it to be found at direct variance with it. Among us may be commonly seen-what is so rarely to be seen on, the Continent-a lady of rank preserving, amid the whirl of the gayest society, a steady

brain, an undazzled eye, an uncorrupted heart. One is a little anxious, though, for the fate of these ladies as years steal on them. Happy will it be for them if they can be content to live in their daughters, and see their triumphs renewed in their offspring.

Expectation had already been excited by the announcement of Cavendish's abrupt departure, and the sudden appearance in his place of Mr. Tremore, a name never heard before. Many were the exclamations of "How very strange!" ""Tis just like him" "He never does any thing like other people!" But there were some present whose very existence in society depended on their character for early information. Some of these, when appealed to, merely shook their heads, and put on a sage "I could an' if I would" look; but others played a bolder game. The placarders of Fleet-street have their parallels in the salons of the great. If there be no news, it is the part of these lying gazettes to make it.

"Indeed you flatter me," said a greyheaded gentleman to a group of ladies whose oracle he was. "I know nothing on the subject; but I have heard".

"That is it; what have you heard?" ex

claimed an impetuous young girl in the brilliant bloom of her first season.

"I have heard"-he laid a marked stress on that word-" that this Tremore is a ward of Cavendish, and that he is the proprietor of a great part of those estates-you understand-which were thought to be haps I had better not say any more."

Per

"I must say I think that's very likely," broke in an elegantly-dressed dame of middle age whose pedigree went up to the Conquest. "Really one is never sure about these new men. There's no trusting them. Depend on it, as Plantagenet said to me yesterday, the Roman patricians had good reason for their hatred and ridicule of the novus homo." "Cavendish a new man!" shrieked two young ladies together.

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Comparatively I mean, of course; his father was lord mayor, or common-councilman, or deputy-ward, or something of that sort; I don't know much about those odious city titles. But who was his grandfather, I should like to know?"

"Ah! that's what I should like to know," said the greyheaded gentleman, whose rooms in Grosvenor-street were hung with portraits of his ancestors, there being more than one

blue ribbon among them. Really one never knows how those sort of people make their money. Nor," he added below his breath, "on how sandy a foundation their great fortunes stand."

This gentleman, in spite of his ancestry, was proud two days ago to be sent by Cavendish on an errand. But the announcement of his departure for a year, had made a sudden change in his sentiments.

"How shocking, though, if Cavendish has kept this gentleman out of his estates!" said the impetuous young lady, who had some pretensions to the character of an heiress.

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Or," said the greyheaded oracle of the party, as if the phrase slipped unconsciously from his tongue, "if he should not be able to give a satisfactory account of his trusteeship."

This supposition appeared very shocking to several ladies of the party, and there seemed a chance of a discussion on Chancery control, when the young belle of the party turned the current of the discourse by asking

"Is he so handsome as they say?" The gentleman slightly shrugged his shoulders, as much as to say, "Some persons may