"There, Mr. Horn-thank you, Mr. Horn; 'tis done," said Florence. "How nicely you hold silks; almost as well as Jeffries."

"Mrs. Taggart!" exclaimed Lady Annabetta, with a deep sigh, as if she had been hearing a funeral sermon, "I don't like to see you sitting there so out of the way, or in the way, rather. Heigho!"

“No, my lady-no—” said Mrs. Taggart, answering to a movement of her ladyship's hand, "I decline taking the sofa; leave that, if you please, to Mrs. Simcox," she added, with some bitterness," who takes precedence, you know."

“I didn't know,” replied Lady Annabetta, with an absent air, "that commoners thought so much about those things."

"Oh, my lady," returned Mrs. Taggart, warmly, "there is not," (with emphasis,) "half the little nasty pride among the no-bility," (giving the august word its full importance,) "as among people who have no right to give themselves airs; you will always find that. Persons of real gentility are always the most humble ; that is my maxim. Don't you hold this to be turning to the clergyman,

true, Mr. Horn?"

who, having been at Oxford, was supposed to know the world.

"Heads of colleges are always very high," answered simple Mr. Horn, who, in Lady Annabetta's presence, scarcely dared to say his life was his own.

"I imagine so,”-resumed Lady Annabetta, after a long pause; for she very often allowed the conversation to drop entirely; and after a reverie in which one might suppose all trace of the previous discourse to have been lost, she took up the thread of the discussion just where it had been left off

"I imagine so. Undergraduates ought to be kept at a distance."

"I wonder who's arrived," said Florence, starting up, and shaking some silken ends and threads off her knee into the fire.

"That's Mrs. Simcox, I have no doubt," replied Mrs. Taggart, with a meaning smile. "Trust her for coming early. It is not every day she is invited to such a place as Grin

stead Park!"

66

My lady, Mr. Gerald De Grey!" said a servant, stiff as buckram, who moved into the

room somewhat in the measured and noiseless way in which Banquo's ghost comes forward on the stage ;-and, in a softer voice added,-" is arrived."

"Mr. who?" cried Lady Annabetta, springing up; "arrived-a-what-you are mistaken, sir." "Mr. De Grey !" reiterated Florence, contemptuously, reseating herself, as if she would not be thought to remain standing to receive him. "How unfortunate !" said Mrs. Taggart, sympathetically. "Now," thought she to herself, “Mrs. Simcox will be getting hold of him, first with her Byrons, and her Moores, and her Walter Scotts! I wish Mr. Taggart was here."

"How late!" observed Mr. Horn, looking at his watch,-" to intrude on a family," he added, timorously, looking at Miss De Grey, as if to find his cue in her expressive eyes.

Florence took no notice of him, as much as to reply, "Whatever we may say of our relations, you had better not interpose your remarks.”

"Mr. De Grey," resumed the servant, who stood erect in the gloom of the apartment near some pillars, "is gone to dress, my lady; and I was ordered to tell your ladyship that he had dined;" and the figure, having spoken, vanished.

The party were left to digest the intelligence. "This is Major De Grey's doing," began Lady Annabetta, energetically. "He has been

sent here to annoy us, whether we will or not. Florence, my dear, you know your part!"

"Oh, yes, mamma," answered Florence, resolutely, whilst an arch smile played upon her beautiful mouth; "he will receive no encouragement from me, mamma, be assured."

"A plot-a device-a contrivance!" continued Lady Annabetta, in a tone of tragic vehemence, walking about, and rubbing her hands. "It is just-just like him !"

Florence was silent for a moment.

" No,

mamma; no !" she said, looking up in a soothing attitude to her mother; "don't say that!-I am sure"-and she stopped short.

Gerald !" she broke out again.

"That hateful

"Detestable !" exclaimed Lady Annabetta. "I suppose he is coming to look over his property! Odious man !"

"It is very mysterious,-very unfortunate," interposed Mrs. Taggart, her head running upon her own concerns, and Mrs. Simcox.

A silence of some length ensued, which was broken by Mrs. Taggart saying, "I thought I

heard the hall bell! It is, it must be Mrs. Simcox!" And Mrs. Simcox had indeed arrived.

She entered, tall and stately, attired in the Siddonian style, with a cap and lappels over her head, fastened on either side after encircling the chin. The style which ladies adopt generally indicates the class of beauty to which they consider themselves the most entitled to belong. Mrs. Simcox was long and harsh, angular and bony; she had a faint pretension to an aquiline nose, and she took her line accordingly. It was the majestic, the impressive, the effective. She introduced to Lady Annabetta a young lady who generally accompanied her, and who had chosen to plant herself under the shadow of Mrs. Simcox' inspiring presence. In vulgar phrase, Miss Hutchins boarded with Mrs. Simcox. This nymph was of the lowly order, though of literary pursuits. But her pursuits, compared with those of Mrs. Simcox, were as the fluttering of a butterfly compared with the flight of a swan,-or goose. Mrs. Simcox was grand, philosophic, political, philanthropic,-took an extended range, a corrector of abuses, a builder-up of new theories. Miss