CHAPTER XXXVI.

The spirit that I have seen

May be a devil, and the devil hath power

T'assume a pleasing shape.

Shakspeare.

MRS. COURTNEY was still a leader among the leaders at Brighton. Her parties were brilliant, and her daughters were belles; she herself had foresworn matrimony, but she was only the more in fashion; and the mightiest of the mighty had found it desirable rather to soften her rivalry than to contest her power.

She felt, however, that she was playing a desperate game; and, with the spirit of despair, she determined that, if it was her last, it should be worthy of her fame. Gordon, Seraphina's declared lover, had been absent for a week, called away by "most pressing business" to Staffordshire. In a few days after his departure, the Morning Post announced that "Sir William Gordon, of Gordon Castle, Staffordshire, long an invalid, having abruptly received the intelligence of the death of his gallant son, Captain Gordon, of the 72d, had died of the shock within a

few hours; and was succeeded in his title and estates by his fashionable and accomplished heir, now Sir Reginald Gordon, Bart."

Jack Flatter was instantly consulted. His advice was short and stern. "Leave this paradise of fools; in another week you must be undone. I see your predicted ruin in the softest smile of your fondest Marchioness. As to your new Baronet, if you want to find his match, marry him yourself."

The handsome widow looked at the sarcastic visage of her adviser, as Faust might have looked at Mephistophiles, in ridicule, surprise, and fear.

"Do you want to know more?" said Flatter.-"Why then I will tell you that this Gordon will be no son-in-law of your's. He is a heartless, subtle, and unprincipled pursuer of his indulgences.-You may rejoice in your daughter's escape."

"And in my own beggary, I suppose," said Mrs. Courtney, with a sigh from the depths of her bosom. "You know, or you must be told, Flatter, that my principal creditor has given me but one week's respite on the strength of this match. Gordon will not, dares not break it off. I am even persuaded of his attachment to Seraphina."

"Gordon," was the reply, "is attached to Seraphina, probably enough, just as he is at

tached to every pretty woman that passes before his eye. But he has restraints, bonds, arrangements-in short, my dear widow, insist upon no more of my knowledge."

"Devil," exclaimed Mrs. Courtney, with a bitter smile, "why am I to be tantalized in this manner? What encumbrance has he upon his inclinations? what control now? what necessity to follow any will but his own ?"",

"All those questions may be answered with more ease than, for your sake, my handsome Mamma, I should desire. His necessity arises from having anticipated his income, and being tied up from mortgaging; which will prevent his paying his encumbrance, a bond of twenty thousand pounds; which will prevent his getting rid of what you call, and fairly enough, the control of your former friend, Champetre's friend, every body's friend, the fair philanthropist, Lady Diana Prudely!"

Mrs. Courtney was thunderstruck, but soon partially relieved herself, by the simple mode of doubting Flatter's authority.

"Never lay that flattering unction to your soul. My authority is unquestionable. I had it last night, in peculiar friendship, from one of the greatest scoundrels of my acquaintance, a fellow who, of course, on the mere strength of his reputation, makes his way in

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to the very first circles. He was a rejected adorer of her ladyship, and in mere delicacy. feels it a duty to thwart her further infidelities. In two days Gordon will be here, in two days her ladyship will arrive, bond in hand, payable either in money or marriage. In the next four and twenty hours, the baronet will be Benedict, the married man."

"What has become of Champetre," said Mrs. Courtney, with the quickness of one to whom a sudden scheme has suggested itself. 'Lounging at Worthing in the fondest security. The death of her ladyship's husband had given a new turn to his thoughts, and her jointure became an object of his affections. She abandoned the colonel on that happy occasion, and winged her way to the Continent; there her reputation had preceded her, and there she sustained her reputation. Returning through mere ennui, she dropped into Champetre's way, as a pearl is said to drop into the jaws of an oyster. The bond with Gordon is an affair of this continental trip, and her ladyship, sick of Champetre's exquisite stupidity, and stimulated at once by avarice and ambition, is watching your new-fledged baronet as the hawk watches the pigeon."

Mrs. Courtney made a note in her memorandum-book.-"Now, Flatter," said she, "I must have no more lectures. My mind is

made up on two things. The first is, to have this baronet for Seraphina; the next, to expose, to extinguish, this monopolizing Lady Diana, whom I thoroughly detest, and whom, indeed, as a mother, and as a friend to public principle I-"

Flatter laughed out, and she left the sentence unfinished.

The result of the consultation was, that for the double purpose of pre-occupying Sir Reginald Gordon, and of fixing him irrevocably to Seraphina, a fancy ball should be given on the night of his arrival.

The ball was given, it was superb. Seraphina was in peculiar captivation. Even Martha, to whom the country air had given pretensions, on which Mrs. Courtney had commanded her to lay siege to the soul of a retired Indian general, whose body had vanished under age and the liver complaint, figured as a belle on that night of triumph. Sir Reginald Gordon was present, and in the highest possible animation. Neil Gow's band, that ubiquitarian troop, whose harps and fiddles seem to meet us at all corners of the isle at once, was in full harmony, and the votaries of Terpsichore, as the papers say. were 'tripping it on the light fantastic toe," when Gordon and Seraphina withdrew from the quadrille, loaded with admiration, and exhausted with mutual delight, into the re freshment-room.