"I shall suffer with pleasure toutes les embarras des richesses," replied Eleanor laughing. "The brightest jewel is always improved by being set in gold. But let me fly to tell Miss Marabout the glorious news.”

Nearly at the same time Lady Howard imparted the intelligence of Sir Philip and Lady Barnard's return to her daughter Matilda, but without attaching to that event anything like the same importance or pleasure that had been expressed by her sister.

"How glad you must be!" said Matilda, with animation. I cherish quite an old-fashioned love of relations, having never known any yet whom I could not be attached to; and already I feel my heart warming towards poor Sir Philip, who has suffered such severe affliction. His son's death must have been a dreadful blow; and what pleasure I shall feel in consoling one who needs sympathy so much."

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"Why, really! to say the honest truth, it will be rather a bore, with all my numerous engagements,” replied Lady Howard, peevishly. "Sir Philip expects prodigious attention, and Lady Barnard is by this time deaf beyond assistance from all the trumpets that were ever invented, besides being so infirm she cannot stir without support. I quite dread the thoughts of it. Sir Philip is so exigeant with his love of music and painting, that altogether the pair will be a perfect oppression; but à propos of arts and sciences, Matilda, I am extremely desirous that Sir Philip should be as much pleased with your accomplishments and appearance as with Eleanor's; and I make it my particular request that you will do more than is possible to equal, or to excel your cousin."

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Why should there be any rivalship, Mama?" asked Matilda, with surprise. "We shall both, of course, exert our utmost to please Sir Philip, and I shall be quite happy

to assist poor Lady Barnard, who seems by your account to stand in so much need of comfort."

"I do not care about Lady Barnard at all!" said Lady Howard, impatiently; "but there are reasons of consequence why Sir Francis and I are both anxious about the impression you make on Sir Philip."

"That is quite a sufficient inducement for every effort," replied Matilda; " but consider, Mama, how impossible it is for me to have a chance of eclipsing Eleanor, especially in the estimation of such a person as you describe Sir Philip Barnard to be."

"Perhaps you are right," answered Lady Howard, bitterly; "but if I had conceived the most distant idea of such news as we have heard to-day, no power on earth should have induced me, not all the persuasions of Lady Olivia, nor your own entreaties, to have retained Miss Porson." "Oh! do not say so, my dear mother!" exclaimed Matilda, with unusual earnestness; “ you will make me too eager for success. There could not be a stronger motive than the desire to please you; but I shall feel additional anxiety now on account of Miss Porson's credit; for if you do not find me in all respects what might be expected, the fault is far from being hers. The unwearied pains she takes with me would really astonish you; and I consider it one of the happiest circumstances in my whole life to have been placed under her charge."

"Quite an oration!" said Lady Howard, "and very much in the school of aunt Olivia ;' but you might resemble worse people Matilda! so I shall let it pass for the present, but pray, my dear, never make me a 'set speech' again. Nothing can be a greater mortification than to observe how Eleanor outshines you in accomplishments, for these are, in fact, the only criterion by which a girl's education is ever appreciated. You will find in all societies,

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Matilda, that strangers will feel privileged, in half an hour's acquaintance, to put you through a perfect catechism upon your acquirements, Are you, musical, Miss Howard? Do you play on the pianoforte? and also on the harp? Can you sing? Have you a guitar?' Then after the question of music is fairly settled, you will be cross-examined on painting and languages, but no such probe can be applied to the understanding or the temper, and Eleanor will pass better through the world without either of them than you will with both, on account of her superior eclat in externals, especially with such people as my uncle.

CHAPTER X.

Little things are great to little men.

Ognuno ha i suoi gusti.

SIR PHILIP and Lady Barnard were received with a perfect storm of joy by Ladies Fitz-Patrick and Howard, who vied with each other in warm expressions of their felicity on the occasion of meeting with friends whom they professed to have long and almost hopelessly desired to embrace. Even Miss Neville seemed resolved on this occasion not to be outdone, and relaxing as much as possible from the cold frigidity of her natural manner, she hastened to Barry's Hotel along with Lady Olivia, and presented an "address of congratulation" on the safe return of her friends to a Christian land."

A long course of family dinner-parties now took place, according to established custom on a re-union of relations, who then seem to try their powers of wearying each other, by congregating the same circle, to discuss the same subjects in continual succession for a given number of days, with unrelaxing assiduity. Sir Philip Barnard had resources of conversation which were not easily exhausted. The pictures, statues, bijouterie, and antiques which he had purchased during a twenty years' residence abroad, were all to be described and commented upon, so that Eleanor complained it was duller than reading a volume of Eustace's Classical Tour all dinner time, to hear such raptures about his Carlo Marattis, Salvator Rosas, and Corregios, his vases by Benvenuto Cellini, his terra-cottas, and his tables of verd-antique and mosaic.

"I hate people who are always acting having been

abroad," said she, yawning. "I can't open my mouth to them without having Mont Blanc thrust in my teeth, or the Falls of the Rhine poured down my throat. It is really odious and whenever I am appointed to regulate society, no one shall be allowed to mention any place out of this country, nor any anecdote of what occurred longer ago than last week."

Lady Howard talked with her uncle for ever about the Vatican and the Louvre, while Lady Fitz-Patrick contrived occasionally to divert his thoughts into a discussion of dress and fashion, for she gladly discovered that Sir Philip spoke as eloquently on the merits of a new sleeve as of an old picture, he could comment one moment on the grouping of a Vandyke, and make an easy transition the next instant to the gracefulness of a favourite opera-dancer; and whether Cardinal Montralto's pictures or Princess Rimini's diamonds were under consideration, he was equally graphic in describing them all. There remained abundant evidence on canvass and in marble, that Sir Philip Barnard had once been handsome, and art still substituted what nature would have denied to more advanced years, for his whole appearance was, as Eleanor remarked, " a falsehood," which the most lynx-eyed observer could scarcely detect in the shade, though he was observed always carefully to avoid the full glare of day-light. His manners were extremely elegant, and he did all in his power to disguise from himself as well as from others, that the lapse of more than half a century had left any infirmities behind.

than ever!" was

"I declare, Sir Philip, you are younger Lady Fitz-Patrick's premeditated exclamation, when he arrived; and it was pronounced in such a natural impromptu tone, that no one could have supposed her remark was not suggested at the moment. Upon hearing it, however, Eleanor gave a satirical glance towards Miss Marabout, and walked a few steps behind Sir Philip with a ludicrous