"A gallant knight came pricking o'er the plain," His will and wishes to this little band. At his lance-head that pennon hung unfurled Which flaunted in those fields that knight had won, Who was no feudal lord of vassal loons→ But Serjeant Simkins of the twelfth dragoons! THE STORY OF VER VERT. T. Let me here record the adventures of a hero, not less pious than Eneas, though more unfortunate; but neither let me reveal the secrets of the cloister, nor unveil the grave nothings and mysterious trifles of its sacred precincts. It has somewhere been observed, that a wandering life tends to inculcate error; that it is far better to live peaceably in the boson of our families, and to preserve our virtue in the circle of our own hearth, than to visit foreign and distant clines, where the heart, exposed to every danger, returns laden with vice. Of the truth of this remark, the affecting history of our hero affords an afflicting proof In a nunnery, at Nevers, in France, lived a renowned parrot, by name Ver-Vert. Young and untutored when transferred from the distant shores of India to the seclusion of a cloister, with all the gentleness and frankness of youth, he possessed a pure and innocent heart. He soon learned the sacred language of the nuns, and proved himself worthy of so hallowed a cage. Ver-Vert awakened the dormant affections of the sisters, and became the delight of their sojourn. From their hands he was feasted with a thousand delicacies; he lived in luxurious indolence, free from affliction` and ennui, and the undisputed sovereign of every heart. Happy, but too happy was that sister, who at night-fall saw a nook of her cell graced by his presence. For him, Sister Thecle neglected the sparrows-four canary birds died of rage, and two once favoured cats fell the victims of envy. During these days of innocence and joy, who could have imagined that a time would arrive-a time of crime and affliction-when this Ver-Vert, now the idol of every heart would become a loathsome object of disgust, produced, alas by the over-kindness of the sisters? Reared in such a school, Ver-Vert was a pious and wellconducted bird: never had any idea of evil entered his head -never had his mouth been defiled by the utterance of an immodest word. He was well versed in the Canticles; he could express the pious slowness of the voices of the nuns; he was a skilful imitator of their sacred sighs, the languishing notes of their anthems, and their dove-like moanings. Though confined within the walls of a convent, his renown was soon spread abroad. To see this prodigy, people came even from Moulins. To visitors, this illustrious bird uttered recitations without causing drowsiness in his audience: and what orator can make a similar boast? Thus lived as a saint and true sage, Father Ver-Vert, as fat as a monk, though not less venerable, with all the erudition of an Abbot. For ever had he been beloved-for ever happy, had he not travelled; but, oh! horresco referens, the period was at hand, when the sun of his glory was to set. O crime! O shame! O bitter remembrance! Fatal journey in the eyes of posterity! Ver-Vert's name was not uttered only in these climes; ru mour had wafted his fame to a convent at Nantes, and kindled in the minds of the nuns a desire to see him; they accordingly wrote to the sisters of Nevers, entreating a visit from this far-famed prodigy, at the same time suggesting that he might be sent by the river Loire. The letter at length arrives at Nevers. "To lose Ver-Vert, what a sacrifice! Can we consent to it? O heavens, rather would we suffer death! What shall we do if we part with Ver-Vert-Ver-Vert, the delight and solace of our sojourn! No, no, he cannotshall not go!" These were the exclamations of some of the younger nuns, but their objections were over-ruled by the elder sisters, who resolved on sending him, as they could not possibly offend the sisters of Nantes by an obstinate refusal. At the idea of Ver-Vert's departure, a sudden gloom pervades the whole place. Dreams full of horrors disturb their sleep, and their fears are only redoubled by the return of day. The fatal hour at length arrives; then ensue the heartrending pangs of parting, and the commencement of a long and cruel absence. They bathe him with their tears, and, in losing him, he appears still more endeared to them. "He is gone, and with him has fled all happiness; but go dear Ver-Vert, go where honor and virtue summon thee! May gentle zephyrs waft thee in safety across the uncertain waters, whilst I, dejected and disconsolate, repine in forced exile." Such was the adieu of a young nun, who would willingly have emerged from the Convent, to follow the object of her affection. In the same boat with the sacred bird were a Monk, three Dragoons, two Gascons, and others. Ver-Vert was ignorant of their language and manners, and was, as it were, in a foreign land. He no longer heard the pious ejaculations of the Evangelists, passages from the Bible, or religi ous orations; no, his ears were dinned by the most loath. some expressions, and the boatmen scarce opened their mouths without cursing or blaspheming. Amid this confu. sion, Ver-Vert was silent. Importuned and entreated by his fellow passengers, he was at length induced to speak, and in a pedantic tone exclaimed: "Ave, ma sœur." In an in. stant the air was rent with roars of laughter, and poor VerVert had to run the gauntlet of ridicule. This he could not brook-in his heart he cursed the fair vestals, and from this period may be dated the loss of his innocence. In less than two days, all that he had before learned was forgotten This eloquent bird soon acquired the entire slang o fthe boatmen of the Loire, and became a finished and confirmed blasphemer. Scarce was an oath uttered, ere he re-echoed it. The reprobate felt proud in receiving their plaudits; he was content with his own merit; he swallowed their proffered praise with avidity, and seemed to rejoice in his profanity. How soon, alas! is youth initiated into evil! During these degrading scenes, how are the sisters of Nantes engaged? They are offering up their prayers for the safe return of the ungrateful Ver-Vert-whose affections are alienated from them-who no longer considers them worthy his regard. "O, amiable sisters, cease your vigils! Think no more of him, who has so basely prostituted both his talents and his heart! That parrot, with a mind once so pure and innocent, is now only a shameless blasphemer. Of what avail are splendid talents, if not guided by virtue!" The boat now approaches Nantes. The Sisters anxiously await his arrival; no sooner does he make his appearance than they crowd around him; they are lavish of their praises-admire the beauty of his plumage, and expect to hear from him sentiments ennobled by virtue, and to be astonished and amazed by the rich stores of his mind. Vain, fleeting anticipation! To their interrogations he replied with nonchalance and in a disdainful tone: "Par la Corbleu! que les nonnes sont folles !" "He is a sorcerer," said one sister; "Good God, what a reprobate!" rejoined another. "What," said a third, "Is this the renowned and virtuous parrot?-this the muchHere he exclaimed talked-of-the far-famed Ver-Vert ?" "La peste te creve. Attempts were made to pacify him ; this only enraged him the more, and, bristling up, he poured forth all the horrible oaths he had heard from the boatmen of the Loire. To the younger sisters these expressions were little better than Greek; but when he roared forth "Jour de dieu! —mort―mille pipes de diables !” they were astounded, and the nuns, retreating, crossed themselves in silence. Sister Angelica, searce able to speak from fright, cried out in a faltering voice-" Mercy on us! Who can have sent this demon among us? Let him be banished -let him immediately quit this sojourn." Accordingly, it was at once resolved to send him back-no one interceding for him-no one regretting his departure. On his return to his first quarters he made a similar display of his newly-acquired talents. How heart-rending to the fair sisters! It caused their tears to flow apace, and involved them in the deepest affliction. What was to be done? After much deliberation, they doomed him to two months' abstinence, and solitary confinement. At the expiration of this period, he had become contrite in spirit, had forgotten his dissolute companions, and was reinstated in the affections of the sisters. The day of his release from exile was indeed a day of rejoicing; but O, the indiscreet profuseness of the too kind sisters! They heedlessly allowed Ver-Vert to gorge himself, and, horrid to relate he died of a surfeit, That he might not be lost to posterity, his portrait was taken by many a fair hand, and at the foot of a myrtle tree was placed a tomb, in which the fair vestals deposited his remaius; and on it was engraven an appropriate epitaph. Such is the history of this ill-fated hero, as recorded by "Le Monsieur Grisset in a very able French poem, entitled Ver-Vest." The present version is merely a narrative of the facts contained in it. The poem itself will amply repay the trouble of perusal, as, under the most refined and elegant language, is couched the most cutting satire. The poet has displayed a deep knowledge of human nature has traced its workings to the quietudes of a cloister, and has laid bare the human heart, though muffled up in the cloak of assumed religion. The circumstance of the parrot at once adopting the language of his fellow-passengers, may be compared to the case of a youth just let loose on the world, and who, led by the gibes and jeers of his companions, blindly follows them in their dissolute career, and soon out-roots the deepsown seeds of virtuous education. AN ORIGINAL RIDDLE. If it be true, as Welshmen say, W. L. Honour depends on pedigree-then stand by, clear the way; Painted on parchment nice,-I'm older still; For I was there, and before that, I did appear with Eve in Paradise: And I was Eve, and Eve was I, Suppose, then, Adam and Eve talking; (With all my heart) but if they're walking, But that I've breath, therefore to such CONS BY CONTINUOUS CONTRIBUTORS. Why are soldiers off duty in an encampment like antiquarians seeking for the lost sheets of a book ?-Because they are in-tent on leaves of absence. What foreigner puts you in mind of an attachment ?—A Moor. (amour) How would you express in two letters "I am twice the bulk of you!"-I. W. (I double you) What does a man do who accuses me falsely, to become like William gazing at me ?-Belies me. (Bill eyes me) What should be the form of an entreaty to his Majesty ?— Billy do. (billet doux) When do fire-arms go off best?-When they're cheap. When ought a man to be most acquainted with his own actions? When he's beside himself. When do anglers catch the flying fish?-When they hook a fish fowl, (foul) PUNCH AND THE FANTOCCINI, OR, A CONFAB ON THE PERIPATETIC DRAMA. Between Snuffle, the master of a Fantoccini Show, and Wabblejaws, the proprietor and performer of Punch. (Locality, Leicester-square. Time, evening. Circumstance, a casual encounter.) [We have before said that we do not in all cases defer to that very delicate taste which insists on the rejection of every thing that is low. The elucidation of character, and the display of humour, are surely objects for the sake of which a little coarseness of expression (when not of that nature which gives offence to decency) may be pardoned. We shall therefore make no apology for giving publicity to the following curious dialogue, reported to us by a gentleman who had been disappointed of admission into the crowded assembly of the "Political Union," in Leicestea Square, on the evening of the 17th, but who hap. pened, in turning back, to come within ear-shot of another species of discussion, namely, the subjoined palaver between two rival itinerants of the Minor Theatrical order. Being determined to hear something, he took the benefit (while seeming to contemplate a contiguous shop-window) of this accidental affair, which we here relate, as nearly as possible, verbatim, with some little qualification, however, of the slang expressions employed. The tone and gesture of the speakers our informant describes to have been rich in the extreme.] Snufle. Come, don't pitch none of that gammon, old felly! Why an't I to walk the streets just as well as any other gentleinan? You wasn't so nasty particlar, mind ye, when you set up a bear, and took the shine out of my monkey. Wabble. Well, I knows all that well enough-and what on it? A bear or a monkey-they're all hanimals alike, as it were; but what I means, is, that I thinks its wery hard of an old friend as you used to call yourself, Muster Snuffle, to set up one of them there new fangled things the moment that my old uncle slipt his wind and left me his Punch's theatre. Come to that, I call it downright dishonest, and that's the philosophy on it! Snuffle. Dishonest! My eyes! and why? Wabble. 'Cause as how, Punch is the reglar Drammer as the gentlemen writes about in all the papers; and I'm blessed if I don't tip Mister Life in London summat on the subject. Every body writes now, and why should'nt I? Snuffle. Pack o' nonsense, legitimate drammer as they calls it. I'll tell you what it is, you're a d -d aristocratical set, you Punch gentry, and you've had it all your own way a deuced sight too long; I hope as how this here Reform Bill will settle your hash. It's the least it can do; for these times are 'nation bad for gentlemen of our profession. Wabble. I hopes the Lords will clap your nasty foreign humbug into schedule A. That's what I wish, old codger. A rubbishin', unmeanin', wire-dancin' set o' nonentities! I should like to know what any body would be the better, if they stared at it for a week together. Snuffle. And I should like to know what they'd larn from your precious Punch affair-answer me that, if you can, my nat ral! Wabble. Why, bless your eyes, its all instruction, like, and as rale as life. Why you larns as how you must'nt do no harm to nobody, or you'll go to the gallows first, and the devil afterwards. I calls that a good screed o' doctrine, and no mistake. Snuffle. Now you come it fine. That's a new go-a bit o' Parson Irvin. Well, I'm blowed if ever I thought o' that, and if I had I would'nt have believed it. Wabble, No, you would'nt believe nothing what's against your nasty shilly shally figures as hops and skips about, and ha'nt got no morality in 'em. Take care as keeping such like company don't bring you to dance on Jack Ketch's fantichaney-that's all, my rum 'un! Snuffle. Well, if it does, I'll behave myself decent like, and not go spitting about the place as your beastly Punch does. Wabble. Spitting's a nat'ral emotion. Snuffle. That may be, but Punch hasn't no right to spit. Wabble. Hasn't he? that's a pretty go-Why, pray? Snuffle. 'Cause as how he hasn't got a hawker's licence! Wabble, Stow your larking. I hate such blackguard joking. That's what they calls personal. But I'll tell you this; none of the Jacks in office will meddle with Punch, 'cause, you see, he tips the people a bit of politics, and he's always on the right side. I made him blow up his wife the other day, for troubling her head with what didn't consarn her. Lord love ye! the people said as how Colonel Jones's speech about the Queen was nothink at all to it! Snuffle. No, sure? Well, I dare say as the people laughed. Wabble. Laughed! You may say that. So then I made Punch shout out "Lord Grey and the Reform Bill for ever!" and Jem went round with the hat directly, and the browns tumbled in like new uns. What do you think of that? Snuffle. Why I think that you ought to stand a drop of summat short, to wash out all animosities, and drink success to the Bill. Wabble. Strike me lucky if I don't then, old chap! Tip us your fist, and come along. [The parties accordingly adjourn, and, in copious libations of Seager and Evans, soon forget at once their rivalry and themselves.] ADVERTISEMENTS EXTRAORDINARY. WANT SITUATIONS! (All Letters to be post-paid, and addressed to our Publisher, unless otherwise expressed.) TO TAKE CARE of AN EMPTY HOUSE, a poor Woman, with thirteen Children, who would undertake to fill the situation to the satisfaction of her Employer. WANTS a FAMILY'S WASHING, an industrious Woman' who has been accustomed to hard work, at Brixton. Ad dress, for the present, to Mrs. Bleachley, Sudbury, or to the care of Shirt's Library, City-Road. AS BAILIFF to a Country Gentleman, a Person who having been Bailiff to Gentlemen in Town, is not particula r and can take up any thing that offers. Address to Mr. Cæsar Grapnel, at the Bear and Ragged Staff, Islington. A3 HOUSEKEEPER to a Single Gentleman, or Widower, a Widow of genteel Connexions, and undeniable advantages. Direct to S. L. Y., near the Angel, Paradise Row, Newington. As FOREMAN IN A BREWERY, a respectable Young Man, whose connexions are in the Chemical Line, and who would have no objection to make himself useful. As CLERK OR LIGHT PORTER, a Young Man, lately from the North, who is very desirous of obtaining employment. As USHER IN A SCHOOL, a Young man, of delicate health and obliging disposition, whose expectations are moderate; a comfortable situation being his chief object. As CLERK of a COUNTRY PARISH, a Person who has been charitably educated, has picked up the rudiments of singing at Sadler's Wells, and has only a slight defect in his utterance. Address, H. U. M., Amen Corner, Pater. noster Row. The attribution of these volumes to that very lively authoress, Mrs. Charles Gore, is amply confirmed by their own internal evidence. The copious display of ingenuity and wit, the perpetual vivacity, the minute exhibition of the external modes of society, mark them for hers; as do likewise, in a less favourable but equally apparent sense, the flutter and bustle of small incident, the obtrusion of constant ornament, and the somewhat bewildering maze of petty particulars, including (what this fair writer is especially prone to,) the presentation of the names and qualities of a choice list of London tradesmen and artistes. That Mrs. Gore is an extremely clever writer can admit of no question: her talents must appeal to the admiration of all but the very dull. It is to be regretted, however, that so much ability, which is even overflowing in its amount, should want the accompa niment of a due portion of taste. Her style may be called the kaleidoscopic: it is showy, dazzling, and highly coloured; amusing to contemplate for awhile, but in the end fatiguing for its artificial minutenes, and its ceaseless shiftings with only the result of small differences. The reader is allowed no repose, and the writer loses some of his good-will through the exaction of so much labour from him. With these few remarks we proceed to offer a specimen of the work, making extract from the last of the half a-dozen fashionable tales of which it cousists. "The Special Licence" is the name given to this story, which carries us through all the sinuosities of coquetry and courtship into the denouement of an alliance between the families of the commercial Maxworths and aristocratic Astons, to the exclusion of certain selfish and scheming Parkynses. The following introductory dialogue is spirited and ingenious:→→ "Edward!' said Mr. Maxworth the banker to his eldest son, as they sat together over their wine after the departure of the ladies, you pass a great deal of time at Lord Boscawen's?' Yes, Sir.' 666 "Was his son a schoolfellow of yours?' "No, Sir.' A brother Oxonian ?' "No, Sir.' "Lord Boscawen is paralytic, and half imbecile, is he not?' "Yes, Sir.' "And her ladyship quite an old woman?' 666 Yes, Sir.' "Is Lord Aston, a young man of great abilities ?' A-no-Sir.' "Mr. Maxworth emptied his glass, filled it again, and pushed the bottle towards his son. Some parents might possibly have been provoked by so obstinate a monosyllablomania to fling it at his head; but the old gentleman had lived long enough in the world to know that nothing is gained by putting oneself in a passion, except the head-ache. "Have the Boscawens many daughters?" said he, pursuing his cross-examination. "Two, Sir.' "The eldest "Lady Dorothea is a very fine woman.' "And the youngest?' persisted Mr.. Maxworth, as well aware as Jean Jaques himself, that the heroine of a hero of five-and-twenty is vastly superior to the vulgar designation of woman; and that he could not have touched the key note. "The youngest?-Surely, Sir, you must have heard of Lady Emma Aston? The loveliest creature in England!' cried Edward, in raptures at the mere mention of her name. A sylph, Sir, a perfect Hebe!-Sir Thomas Lawrence painted her as Iris flying through the clouds; and she is now sitting to Mrs. Mee as Byron's witch of the Aĺps dissolving into a rainbow. It is wonderfully like! "Wonderfully like a shower of rain! muttered old Maxworth to his wine glass. "Lady Emma is a perfect child of nature !' resumed his son, in a tone of increasing enthusiasm. When I was with Aston in Yorkshire last year, she used to follow us out shooting, and bring home the game in her pony cart.' I wish, with all my soul—' said Mr. Maxworth. "And such a horsewoman!' interrupted the lover. 'She can manage any one of Aston's hunters better than his rough rider. Her brother often prophecies she will break her neck.' "I wish, with all my soul' repeated the old man testily. But fortunately his son was incapable of listening just then; and Mr. Maxworth's wine glass was alone privy to the rash expression of his wishes concerning Lord Boscawen's youngest daughter. 66% " My dear father,' persisted the young enthusiast, if you could but see Lady Emma Aston, believe me you would be enchanted with her! "By her by her-Edward; learn to express yourself more accurately. With implies reciprocity; you have no reason to imagine that this fox-hunting sylph of yours would be enchanted with me.' 66 "I sincerely wish there were reciprocity in the case,' said Edward Maxworth in a lower tone, willing to propitiate his father by unlimited subjection to his idiomatic whims, 'I sin. cerely wish you might like her as much as I do.' "You sincerely wish I may like her!' exclaimed his father peevishly. The conditional mood is "Nay, my dear Sir, my mood is absolutely un-conditional!' cried the young man, my attachment to Lady Emma Aston is preter-pluperfect.' "And my dissatisfaction imperative,' growled his father, pushing back the empty glass till it fell into a dessert plate full of cherry stones, the stalks of which poor Edward, in nervous abstraction, had been tying into true lovers' knots. "It is very strange, Edward, that you should not have opened on this subject to me before →→→→ "You never pushed your inquiries so closely. It is very difficult, my dear father, to commence a discussion of such a nature.' "I wish it had been more difficult to commence a connexion of such a nature. I have always told you, and I tell you again, that there is something unnatural in friendships and attachments involving disparity of condition. You may produce greengages from a sloe bush, but, in process of time, the blackthorn brings forth its original fruit. You may persuade Lady Emma Aston to a temporary adoption of the habits of a banker's wife; but you will find her recur at last to all the pomps and vanities of Boscawen Castle.' "Had I but the precious opportunity of making such an experiment, I would convince you, Sir, that your illustration is fallacious.' “You would convince me very much against my will. It would destroy all the comfort of my old age, to find a flimsy fiddle-faddle woman of fashion stuck up like a doll by my fireside, to sneer at the habits of my house, and deride a condition of life whose respectability is beyond her power of comprehension,' General rules, Sir, are best illustrated by the exception. Do not decide on the qualities of Lady Emma till you have ascertained whether she belongs to the few or the many. It is a favourite theory of yours that clergymen's daughters are always self-sufficient; induced by being the pride of the parish to fancy themselves the pride of the kingdom. Yet my mother, Sir, my mother, you know, is a clergyman's daughter;—and I think you will allow-' "Well, well, well!' cried old Maxworth, ever ready to soften at the name of the best of wives; don't let us talk further on a subject likely to provoke dissension between us. All I ask, Ned, is that you will not be precipitate. Let concealment, like a worm in the bud, et cetera, et cetera.' Be in love. if you must, but make none, till I have prosecuted further inquiries respecting the family.' And should the result be favourable?" We will then enter on the chapter of finance; rely upon i I will not wantonly deprive you of the honour of being refused by an Earl's daughter.' "My dear father!" "And in return for this forbearance, allow me to request that you will not fill my little Emily's head with the same non sense that possesses your own. It has long been my wish to see her united to the son of our neighbour at Elm Place.' "To Joseph Smith-that stupid hound!' A young man who is making his way to the head of one of the first houses in the city, and who has been her playmate from childhood.' "Had I entertained the slightest suspicion of such a scheme, I should have been more cautious in admitting Lord Aston's visits here; for I have every reason (except their own acknowledgment) to believe that a strong attachment exists between my friend and my sister.' 866 By Jupiter, this is too much!' cried the old man, rising from his chair and preparing to leave the room. Is every wish of my heart-every hope,-every project for the accomplishment of which I have been toiling for the last thirty years, to be frustrated by the blind obstinacy of a boy and girl, tickled by the vanities of a title and-' "No, no, my dear father! cried young Maxworth; 'do not judge us so ungenerously and so unfairly. Be not too hasty in your condemnation. And if, after a candid inquiry into the character and habits of the Aston family, you do not retract the judgment you have formed, I pledge you my sister's word and my own, that the bent of our inclination shall never induce us to afflict your declining years by filial rebellion.'"-Vol 3, Pp. 266-271. The following sketch of the Parkynses is lively and pointed, and reminds us not a little of the manner of Theodore Hook : "It was natural that a man having had his own way for sixty years, and proved that way a good one, should be inclined to value his own opinions; and it was excusable that a man having passed so large a portion of those sixty years in a comptinghouse, could be somewhat to seek in the economy of his social system. Mr. Maxworth was one of the first commercial men of his day; his judgment was invaluable on finance committees, and unimpugnable at Lloyd's. Even his theories of human nature, his notions concerning men and women, were accurate enough. But the crude material of men and women does not constitute the circles on which he was called to decide. Those factitious animals, fine ladies and fine gentlemen, form a distinct and anomalous class, and unreducible to common rules, possessing a thousand qualities invisible to the naked eye. "Unfortunately, old Maxworth scorned to have recourse to a microscope; and still more unfortunately, there stood, some three or four miles from Valleyfield Park, a handsome villa called Ryesburn; the property of a family named Parkyns, deriving, like the Maxworths, its opulence from mercantile pur suits, as low in its origin, but less lofty in its acquisitions. The father of Mr. Parkyns had emerged from one of those narrow lanes in the heart of the city, where modern alchemy transmutes copper currency into gold; but the little man himself, having formed an alliance with a tall spinster whose soul was ' above buttons,' and who had been born and educated so near the west end of the town as Hatton Garden, retired early in life to the imaginary dignities of landed-proprietorship,-by the purchase of an estate of some fifty acres, within view of Box Hill. Mrs. Parkyns, whose sphere of gentility was more bounded than she was aware of, now fancied him as thoroughly the country gentleman, as any agrarian magnat of the three ridings of the county of York; and there was a tinge of vulgar dash in her mode of spending his three thousand per annum, which raised her, in her own conceit, into a woman of fashion. The neighbourhood afforded no gigantic standard calculated to reveal her real insignificance-no Belvoir Castle, no Middleton, no Trentham, no Chatsworth. Mrs. Parkyns knew herself to be some hundreds a-year better than Stoke Hill, or Elm Place, or Reddington Lodge; and even when Mr. Maxworth of Cavendish Square purchased the half-ruined territory of Valleyfield Park, and built, and planted, and cultivated it into a paradise, she still maintained her right of walking first out of the Lympsfield ball-room, and playing the lady-paramount in the Lympsfield race-stand. She saw that Mrs. Maxworth was too diffident to dispute these honours of precedence, without suspecting that she was too wise to consider them worth contention. "But the lady of Ryesburn, by whatever bravado she might disguise her recognition of the fact, now regarded the balance of power of the county as completely destroyed. A new kingdom was erected to her very beard; and never was promoted |