year, what have you been doing? Every one of you, my father, my brother, and you yourself, have been filling my ears with cruel reports against a poor boy, whom you choose to depict as every thing that was dissolute and wicked, when there was nothing against him; nothing, but that he was poor. Yes, you yourself, grandmamma, have told me many and many a time, that Clive Newcome was not a fit companion for us; warned me against his bad courses, and painted him as extravagant, unprincipled, I don't know how bad. How bad! I know how good he is; how upright, generous, and truth-telling: though there was not a day until lately that Barnes did not make some wicked story against him-Barnes, who, I believe, is bad himself, like -like other young men. Yes, I am sure there was something about Barnes in that newspaper which my father took away from me. And you come, and you lift up your hands, and shake your head, because I dance with one gentleman or another. You tell me I am wrong; mamma has told me so this morning. Barnes, of course, has told me so, and you bring me Frank as a pattern, and tell me to love and honor and obey him! Look here"-and she drew out a paper and put it into Lady Kew's hands-"here is Kew's history, and I believe it is true; yes, I am sure it is true." The old dowager lifted her eye-glass to her black eye-brow, and read a paper written in English, and bearing no signature, in which many circumstances of Lord Kew's life were narrated for poor Ethel's benefit. It was not a worse life than that of a thousand young men of pleasure, but there were Kew's many misdeeds set down in order: such a catalogue as we laugh at when Leporello trolls it, and sings his master's victories in France, Italy, and Spain. Madame d'Ivry's name was not mentioned in this list, and Lady Kew felt sure that the outrage came from her. With real ardor Lady Kew sought to defend her grandson from some of the attacks here made against him; and showed Ethel that the person who could use such means of calumniating him, would not scruple to resort to falsehood in order to effect her purpose. "Her purpose!" cries Ethel; "how do you know it is a woman?" Lady Kew lapsed into generalities. She thought the handwriting was a woman's at least it was not likely that a man should think of addressing an anonymous letter to a young lady, and so wreaking his hatred upon Lord Kew. "Besides Frank has had no rivals -except-except one young gentleman who has carried his paint-boxes to Italy," says Lady Kew. "You don't think your dear Colonel's son would leave such a piece of mischief behind him? You must act, my dear," continued her ladyship, "as if this letter had never been written at all; the person who wrote it no doubt will watch you. Of course we are too proud to allow him to see that we are wounded; and pray, pray do not think of letting poor Frank know a word about this horrid transaction." "Then the letter is true!" burst out Ethel. "You know it is true, grandmamma, and that is why you would have me keep it a secret from my cousin; besides," she added with a little hesitation, "your caution comes too late-Lord Kew has seen the letter." "You fool!" screamed the old lady, "you were not so mad as to show it to him?" "I am sure the letter is true," Ethel said, rising up very haughtily. "It is not by calling me bad names that your ladyship will disprove it. Keep them, if you please, for my aunt Julia; she is sick and weak, and can't defend herself. I do not choose to bear abuse from you, or lectures from Lord Kew. He happened to be here a short while since, when the letter arrived. He had been good enough to come to preach me a sermon on his own account. He to find fault with my actions!" cried Miss Ethel, quivering with wrath and clinching the luckless paper in her hand. "He to accuse me of levity, and to warn me against making improper acquaintances! He began his lectures too soon. I am not a lawful slave yet, and prefer to remain unmolested, at least as long as I am free." "And you told Frank all this, Miss Newcome, and you showed him that letter?" said the old lady. "The letter was actually brought to me while his lordship was in the midst of his sermon," Ethel replied. "I read it as he was making his speech," she continued, gathering anger and scorn as she recalled the circumstances of the interview. He was perfectly polite in his language. He did not call me a fool, or use a single other bad name. He was good enough to advise me, and to make such virtuous pretty speeches that, if he had been a bishop, he could not have spoke better; and as I thought the letter was a nice commentary on his lordship's sermon, I gave it to him. I gave it to him," cried the young woman, "and much good may it do him. I don't think my Lord Kew will preach to me again for some time." "I don't think he will indeed," said Lady Kew, in a hard, dry voice. "You don't know what you may have done. Will you be pleased to ring the bell and order my carriage? I congratulate you on having performed a most charming morning's work." Ethel made her grandmother a very stately courtesy. I pity Lady Julia's condition when her mother reached home. All who know Lord Kew may be pretty sure that in that unlucky interview with Ethel, to which the young lady has just alluded, he said no single word to her that was not kind, and just, and gentle. Considering the relation between them, he thought himself justified in remonstrating with her as to the conduct which she chose to pursue, and in warning her against acquaintances of whom his own experience had taught him the dangerous character. He knew Madame d'Ivry and her friends so well that he would not have his wife-elect a member of their circle. He could not tell Ethel what he knew of those wo After He kissed her little hand. Lady Ann, who was in the room with her children when these few words passed between the two in a very low tone, thought it was a reconciliation. Ethel knew it was a renunciation on Kew's part-she never liked him so much as at that moment. Tho young man was too modest and simple to guess himself what the girl's feelings were. Could he have told them, his fate and hers might have been changed. men and their history. She chose not to under- | hour's time, the generous young gentleman held stand his hints-did not, very likely, comprehend his hand out to her. "My dear," he said, "if them. She was quite young, and the stories of you had loved me you never would have shown such lives as theirs had never been told before me that letter." It was his only reproof. her. She was indignant at the surveillance which that he never again reproved or advised her. Lord Kew exerted over her, and the authority Ethel blushed. "You are very brave and genwhich he began to assume. At another moment, erous, Frank," she said, bending her head, “and and in a better frame of mind, she would have I am captious and wicked." He felt the hot tear been thankful for his care, and very soon and ever blotting on his hand from his cousin's downcast after she did justice to his many admirable qualities eyes. -his frankness, honesty, and sweet temper. Only her high spirit was in perpetual revolt at this time against the bondage in which her family strove to keep her. The very worldly advantages of the position which they offered her served but to chafe her the more. Had her proposed husband been a young prince with a crown to lay at her feet, she had been yet more indignant very likely, and more rebellious. Had Kew's younger brother been her suitor, or Kew in his place, she had been not unwilling to follow her parents' wishes. Hence the revolt in which she was engaged the wayward freaks and outbreaks her haughty temper indulged in. No doubt she saw the justice of Lord Kew's reproofs. That self-consciousness was not likely to add to her good humor. No doubt she was sorry for having shown Lord Kew the letter the moment after she had done that act, of which the poor young lady could not calculate the consequences that were now to ensue. Lord Kew, on glancing over the letter, at once divined the quarter whence it came. The portrait drawn of him was not unlike, as our characters described by those who hate us are not unlike. He had passed a reckless youth, indeed he was was sad and ashamed of that past life, longed like the poor prodigal to return to better courses, and had embraced eagerly the chance afforded him of a union with a woman young, virtuous, and beautiful, against whom and against heaven he hoped to sin no more. If we have told or hinted at more of his story than will please the ear of modern conventionalism, I beseech the reader to believe that the writer's purpose at least is not dishonest, nor unkindly. The young gentleman hung his head with sorrow over that sad detail of his life and its follies. What would he have given to be able to say to Ethel, "This is not true!" His reproaches to Miss Newcome of course were at once stopped by this terrible assault on himself. The letter had been put in the Baden post-box, and so had come to its destination. It was in a disguised handwriting. Lord Kew could form no idea of the sex of the scribe. He put the envelope in his pocket, when Ethel's back was turned. He examined the paper when he left her. He could make little of the superscription or of the wafer which had served to close the note. He did not choose to caution Ethel as to whether she should burn the letter or divulge it to her friends. He took his share of the pain, as a boy at school takes his flogging, stoutly and in silence. When he saw Ethel again, which he did in an "You must not allow our kind letter-writing friend," Lord Kew continued, "to fancy we are hurt. We must walk out this afternoon, and we must appear very good friends." “Yes, always, Kew," said Ethel, holding out her hand again. The next minute her cousin was at the table carving roast fowls and distributing the portions to the hungry children. The assembly of the previous evening had been one of those which the fermier des jeux at Baden beneficently provides for the frequenters of the place, and now was to come off a much more brilliant entertainment, in which poor Clive, who is far into Switzerland by this time, was to have taken a share. The Bachelors had agreed to give a ball, one of the last entertainments of the season; a dozen or more of them had subscribed the funds, and we may be sure Lord Kew's name was at the head of the list, as it was of any list, of any scheme, whether of charity or fun. The English were invited, and the Russians were invited; the Spaniards and Italians, Poles, Prussians, and Hebrews; all the motley frequenters of the place, and the warriors in the Duke of Baden's army. Unlimited supper was set in the restaurant. The dancing-room glittered with extra lights, and a profusion of cut-paper flowers decorated the festive scene. Every body was present, those crowds with whom our story has nothing to do, and those two or three groups of persons who enact minor or greater parts in it. Madame d'Ivry came in a dress of stupendous splendor, even more brilliant than that in which Miss Ethel had figured at the last assembly. If the Duchess intended to écraser Miss Newcome by the superior magnificence of her toilet, she was disappointed. Miss Newcome wore a plain white frock on the occasion, and resumed, Madame d'Ivry said, her rôle of ingénue for that night. During the brief season in which gentlemen enjoyed the favor of Mary Queen of Scots, that wandering sovereign led them through all the paces and vagaries of a regular passion. As in a fair, where time is short and pleasures numerous, the master of the theatrical booth shows you blem of England, was his aversion; he shook his fist at the caged monster in the Garden of Plants. He desired to have "Here lies an enemy of England" engraved upon his early tomb. He was a tragedy, a farce, and a pantomime, all in a quarter of an hour, having a dozen new audiences to witness his entertainments in the course of the forenoon; so this lady with her Platonic lovers went through the complete dramatic course-skilled at billiards and dominos; adroit in the use tragedies of jealousy, pantomimes of rapture, and of arms; of unquestionable courage and fiercefarces of parting. There were billets on one side ness. Mr. Jones of England was afraid of M. de and the other; hints of a fatal destiny, and a Castillonnes, and cowered before his scowls and ruthless lynx-eyed tyrant, who held a demoniac sarcasms. Captain Blackball, the other English grasp over the Duchess by means of certain se-aid-de-camp of the Duchesse d'Ivry, a warrior crets which he knew there were regrets that of undoubted courage, who had been "on the we had not known each other sooner: why ground" more than once, gave him a wide berth, were we brought out of our convent and sacrificed and wondered what the little beggar meant when to Monsieur le Duc? There were frolic inter- he used to say, "Since the days of the Prince changes of fancy and poesy: pretty bouderies; Noir, Monsieur! my family has been at feud sweet reconciliations; yawns finally-and sepa- with l'Angleterre!" His family were grocers at ration. Adolphe went out and Alphonse came Bordeaux, and his father's name was M. Cabasse. in. It was the new audience; for which the bell He had married a noble in the revolutionary rang, the band played, and the curtain rose; and times; and the son at Paris called himself Victhe tragedy, comedy, and farce were repeated. tor Cabasse de Castillonnes; then Victor C. de Castillonnes; then M. de Castillonnes. One of the followers of the Black Prince had insulted a lady of the house of Castillonnes, when the En Those Greenwich performers who appear in the theatrical pieces above mentioned, make a great deal more noise than your stationary tragedians; and if they have to denounce a villain,glish were lords of Guienne; hence our friend's to declare a passion, or to threaten an enemy, they roar, stamp, shake their fists, and brandish their sabres, so that every man who sees the play has surely a full pennyworth for his penny. Thus Madame la Duchesse d'Ivry perhaps a little exaggerated her heroines' parts; liking to strike her audiences quickly, and also to change them often. Like good performers, she flung herself heart and soul into the business of the stage, and was what she acted. She was Phèdre, and if in the first part of the play she was uncommonly tender to Hyppolyte, in the second she hated him furiously. She was Medea, and if Jason was volage, woe to Creusa! Perhaps our poor Lord Kew had taken the first character in a performance with Madame d'Ivry; for his behavior in which part, it was difficult enough to forgive him; but when he appeared at Baden the affianced husband of one of the most beautiful young creatures in Europe-when his relatives scorned Madame d'Ivry-no wonder she was maddened and enraged, and would have recourse to revenge, steel, poison. There was in the Duchess's Court a young fellow from the South of France, whose friends had sent him to faire son droit at Paris, where he had gone through the usual course of pleasures and studies of the young inhabitants of the Latin Quarter. He had at one time exalted republican opinions, and had fired his shot with distinction at St. Méri. He was a poet of some little note; a book of his lyrics-Les Râles d'un Asphyxićhaving made a sensation at the time of their appearance. He drank great quantities of absinthe of a morning; smoked incessantly; played roulette whenever he could get a few pieces; contributed to a small journal, and was especially great in his hatred of l'infâme Angleterre. Delenda est Carthago was tatooed beneath his shirtsleeve. Fifine and Clarisse, young milliners of the Students' district, had punctured this terrible motto on his manly right arm. Le léopard, em wrath against the Leopard. He had written, and afterward dramatized a terrific legend describing the circumstance and the punishment of the Briton by a knight of the Castillonnes family. A more awful coward never existed in a melodrama than that felon English knight. His blanche-fille, of course, died of hopeless love for the conquering Frenchman, her father's murderer. The paper in which the feuilleton appeared died at the sixth number of the story. The theatre of the Boulevard refused the drama; so the author's rage against l'infâme Albion was yet unappeased. On beholding Miss Newcome, Victor had fancied the resemblance between her and Agnes de Calverley, the blanche Miss of his novel and drama, and cast an eye of favor upon the young creature. He even composed verses in her honor (for I presume that the "Miss Betti" and the Princess Crimhilde of the poems which he subsequently published, were no other than Miss Newcome, and the Duchess, her rival). He had been one of the lucky gentlemen who had danced with Ethel on the previous evening. On the occasion of the ball he came to her with a high-flown compliment, and a request to be once more allowed to waltz with her—a request to which he expected a favorable answer, thinking, no doubt, that his wit, his powers of conversation, and the amour qui flambait dans son regard had had their effect upon the charming Meess. Perhaps he had a copy of the very verses in his breast-pocket with which he intended to complete his work of fascination. For her sake alone, he had been heard to say that he would enter into a truce with England, and forget the hereditary wrongs of his race. But the blanche Miss on this evening declined to waltz with him. His compliments were not of the least avail. He retired with them and his unuttered verses in his crumpled bosom. Miss Newcome only danced in one quadrille with Lord Kew, and left the party quite early, to the despair of many of the bachelors, who lost the fairest or- | who, in spite of her age, size, and large family, nament of their ball. Lord Kew, however, had been seen walking with her in public, and particularly attentive to her during her brief appearance in the ball-room; and the old Dowager, who regularly attended all places of amusement, and was at twenty parties and six dinners the week before she died, thought fit to be particularly gracious to Madame d'Ivry upon this evening, and, far from shunning the Duchesse's presence, or being rude to her, as on former occasions, was entirely smiling and goodhumored. Lady Kew, too, thought there had been a reconciliation between Ethel and her cousin. Lady Ann had given her mother some account of the handshaking. Kew's walk with Ethel, the quadrille which she had danced with him alone, induced the elder lady to believe that matters had been made up between the young people. So by way of showing the Duchesse that her little shot of the morning had failed in its effect, as Frank left the room with his cousin, Lady Kew gayly hinted, "that the young earl was aux petits soins with Miss Ethel; that she was sure her old friend, the Duc d'Ivry, would be glad to hear that his godson was about to range himself. He would settle down on his estates. He would attend to his duties as an English peer and a country gentleman. We shall go home," says the benevolent Countess," and kill the veau gras, and you shall see our dear prodigal will become a very quiet gentleman." The Duchesse said, "My Lady Kew's plan was most edifying. She was charmed to hear that Lord Kew loved veal; there were some who thought that meat rather insipid." A waltzer came to claim her hand at this moment; and as she twirled round the room upon that gentleman's arm, wafting odors as she moved, her pink silks, pink feathers, pink ribbons, making a mighty rustling, the Countess of Kew had the satisfaction of thinking that she had planted an arrow in that shriveled little waist, which Count Punter's arms embraced, and had returned the stab which Madame d'Ivry had delivered in the morning. never lost a chance of enjoying her favorite recreation. Look with what a camel my lord waltzes," said M. Victor to Madame d'Ivry, whose slim waist he had the honor of embracing to the same music. "What man but an Englishman would ever select such a dromedary!" "Avant de se marier," said Madame d'Ivry. "Il faut avouer que my lord se permet d'énormes distractions." "My lord marries himself! And when and whom?" cries the Duchesse's partner. "Miss Newcome. Do not you approve of his choice? I thought the eyes of Stenio (the Duchess called M. Victor Stenio) looked with some favor upon that little person. She is handsome, even very handsome. Is it not so often in life, Stenio? Are not youth and innocence (I give Miss Ethel the compliment of her innocence, now surtout that the little painter is dismissed)—are we not cast into the arms of jaded roués ? Tender young flowers, are we not torn from our convent gardens, and flung into a world of which the air poisons our pure life, and withers the sainted buds of hope and love and faith? Faith! The mocking world tramples on it, n'est-ce pas! Love! The brutal world strangles the heaven-born infant at its birth. Hope! It smiled at me in my little convent chamber, played among the flowers which I cherished, warbled with the birds that I loved. But it quitted me at the door of the world, Stenio. It folded its white wings and vailed its radiant face! In return for my young love, they gave me-sixty years, the dregs of a selfish heart, egotism cowering over its fire, and cold for all its mantle of ermine! In place of the sweet flowers of my young years, they gave me these, Stenio !" and she pointed to her feathers and her artificial roses. "O, I should like to crush them under my feet!" and she put out the neatest little slipper. The Duchesse was great upon her wrongs, and paraded her blighted innocence to every one who would feel interested by that piteous spectacle. The music here burst out more swiftly and melodiously than before; the pretty little feet forgot their desire to trample upon the world. She shrugged the lean little shoulders—“ Eh!” said the Queen of Scots, "dansons et oublions ;" and Stenio's arm once more surrounded her fairy Mr. Barnes, and his elect bride, had also appeared, danced, and disappeared. Lady Kew soon followed her young ones; and the ball went on very gayly, in spite of the absence of these re-waist (she called herself a fairy; other ladies spectable personages. Being one of the managers of the entertainment, Lord Kew returned to it after conducting Lady Ann and her daughter to their carriage, and now danced with great vigor and with his usual kindness, selecting those ladies whom other waltzers rejected because they were too old, or too plain, or too stout, or what not. But he did not ask Madame d'Ivry to dance. He could condescend to dissemble so far as to hide the pain which he felt; but did not care to engage in that more advanced hypocrisy of friendship, which, for her part, his old grandmother had not shown the least scruple in assuming. Among other partners, my lord selected that intrepid waltzer, the Gräfinn von Gumpelheim, called her a skeleton), and they whirled away in the waltz again: and presently she and Stenio came bumping up against the stalwart Lord Kew and the ponderous Madame de Gumpelheim, as a wherry dashes against the oaken ribs of a steamer. : The little couple did not fall; they were struck on to a neighboring bench, luckily but there was a laugh at the expense of Stenio and the Queen of Scots-and Lord Kew, settling his panting partner on to a seat, came up to make excuses for his awkwardness to the lady who had been its victim. At the laugh produced by the catastrophe, the Duchesse's eyes gleamed with anger. "With ce Milor? But no," said Stenio. "He did it on purpose. There has been no day but his family has insulted me!" hissed out the Duchesse; and at this moment Lord Kew came up to make his apologies. He asked a thousand pardons of Madame la Duchesse for being so maladroit. "Maladroit! et très maladroit, Monsieur," says Stenio, curling his mustache; "C'èst bien le mot, Monsieur." the rudeness of M. de Castillonnes: he is a foolish Gascon he must have been too often to the buffet this evening." Lord Kew said, No, indeed he thought nothing of M. de Castillonnes' rudeness. "I am so glad! These heroes of the salle d'armes have not the commonest manners. These Gascons are always flamberge au vent. What would the charming Miss Ethel say, if she heard of the dispute?" "Also, I make my excuses to Madame la Duchesse, which I hope she will receive," said Lord Kew. The Duchesse shrugged her shoul-obliging friend should communicate it to her." ders and sunk her head. "Indeed there is no reason why she should hear of it," said Lord Kew, "unless some "When one does not know how to dance, one ought not to dance," continued the Duchesse's knight. "Monsieur is very good to give me lessons in dancing," said Lord Kew. "Communicate it to her-the poor dear! who would be so cruel as to give her pain?" asked the innocent Duchesse. Why do you look at me so, Frank?" 66 "Because I admire you," said her interlocutor with a bow. "I have never seen Madame la "Any lessons which you please, Milor!" cries Duchesse to such advantage as to-day." Stenio; and every where where you will them." "You speak in enigmas! Come back with Lord Kew looked at the little man with sur-me to the ball-room. Come and dance with me prise. He could not understand so much anger for so trifling an accident, which happens a dozen times in every crowded ball. He again bowed to the Duchesse, and walked away. : once more. "Silence, Victor!" cried Florac, seizing his arm, and drawing him away. "You know me, and that I am neither one nor the other. Believe my word, that my Lord Kew wants neither cour-of this couple. age nor wit!" The Duchesse danced as if she was bitten by "Will you be my witness, Florac?" continues that Neapolitan spider, which, according to the the other. legend, is such a wonderful dance incentor. She "To take him your excuses? yes. It is you would have the music quicker and quicker. She who have insulted-" "Yes, parbleu, I have insulted!" says the She poured out all the light of her languishing Gascon. "A man who never willingly offended soul alive. A man full of heart: the most frank-the most loyal. I have seen him put to the proof, and believe me he is all I say." sank on Kew's arm, and clung on his support. eyes into his face. Their glances rather confused than charmed him. But the bystanders were pleased; they thought it so good-hearted of the Duchesse, after the little quarrel, to make a public avowal of reconciliation! 66 Eh! so much the better for me!" cried the Southern. "I shall have the honor of meeting a gallant man and there will be two on the field." 'They are making a tool of you, my poor Gas-dance, the little Duchess." con," said M. de Florac, who saw Madame d'Ivry's eyes watching the couple. She presently took the arm of the noble Count de Punter, and went for fresh air into the adjoining apartment, where play was going on as usual; and Lord Kew and his friend Lord Rooster were pacing the room apart from the gamblers. Lord Rooster looking on, at the entrance of the dancing-room, over Monsieur de Florac's shoulder, said, "It's all right! She's a clipper to My Lord Rooster, at something which Kew said, looked puzzled, and said, Pooh, stuff, damned little Frenchman! Confounded nonsense!" "I was searching you, Milor!" said Madame d'Ivry, in a most winning tone, tripping behind him with her noiseless little feet. "Allow me a little word. Your arm! You used to give it me once, mon filleul! I hope you think nothing of "The viper!" said Florac, "how she writhes!" "I suppose that business with the Frenchman is all over," says Lord Rooster. "Confounded piece of nonsense." "You believe it finished? We shall see!" said Florac, who perhaps knew his fair cousin better. When the waltz was over, Kew led his partner to a seat, and bowed to her; but though she made room for him at her side, pointing to it, and gathering up her rustling robes, so that he might sit down, he moved away, his face full of gloom. He never wished to be near her again. There was something more odious to him in her friendship than her hatred. He knew hers was the hand that had dealt that stab at him and Ethel in the morning. He went back and talked with his two |