mising in the full persuasion that the path of right is like the bridge from earth to heaven in the Mohammedan creed; if we swerve but a single hair's-breadth, we are irrevocably lost."

At this moment my mother joined us, with a "Well, my dear Henry, everything is ready, we have no time to lose.'

My uncle rose, pressed my hand, and left in it a pocket-book, which I afterwards discovered to be most. satisfactorily furnished. We took an edifying and affectionate farewell of each other; passed through the two rows of servants, drawn up in martial array, along the great hall, and I entered the carriage, and went off with the rapidity of a novel upon "fashionable life.”

I DID not remain above a day or two in town. I had never seen much of the humors of a watering-place, and my love of observing character made me exceedingly impatient for that pleasure. Accordingly, the first bright morning I set off for Cheltenham. I was greatly struck with the entrance to that town: it is to these wateringplaces that a foreigner should be taken, in order to give him an adequate idea of the magnificent opulence and universal luxury of England. Our country has in every province what France only has in Paris, - a capital, consecrated to gayety, idleness, and enjoyment. London is both too busy in one class of society, and too pompous in another, to please a foreigner, who has not excellent recommendations to private circles. But at Brighton, Cheltenham, Hastings, Bath, he may, as at Paris, find all the gayeties of society without knowing a single individual.

My carriage stopped at the Hotel. A corpulent and stately waiter, with gold buckles to a pair of very tight pantaloons, showed me upstairs. I found myself in a tolerable room, facing the street, and garnished with two pictures of rocks and rivers, with a comely flight of crows, hovering in the horizon of both, as natural as possible, only they were a little larger than the trees. Over the chimney-piece, where I had fondly hoped to find a looking-glass, was a grave print of General Wash

ington, with one hand stuck out like the spout of a teapot. Between the two windows (unfavorable position!) was an oblong mirror, to which I immediately hastened, and had the pleasure of seeing my complexion catch the color of the curtains that overhung the glass on each side, and exhibit the pleasing rurality of a pale green.

I shrank back aghast, turned, and beheld the waiter. Had I seen myself in a glass delicately shaded by rosehued curtains, I should gently and smilingly have said, "Have the goodness to bring me the bill of fare." As it was, I growled out, "Bring me the bill."

The stiff waiter bowed solemnly, and withdrew slowly. I looked round the room once more, and discovered the additional adornments of a tea-urn and a book. "Thank Heaven," thought I, as I took up the latter, "it can't be one of Jeremy Bentham's." No! it was the "Cheltenham Guide." I turned to the head of amusementsDress-ball at the Rooms every "some day or other, which of the seven I utterly forget; as that which witnessed my first drawing-room of the Hotel.

"

but it was the same arrival in the small

"Thank Heaven!" said I to myself, as Bedos entered with my things, and was ordered immediately to have all in preparation for "the dress-ball at the rooms," at the hour of half-past ten. The waiter entered with the bill. "Soups, chops, cutlets, steaks, roast joints, etc., etc. lion, birds."

"Get some soup," said I, a slice or two of lion, and a half-a-dozen birds."

"Sir," said the solemn waiter," you can't have less than a whole lion, and we have only two birds in the house." "Pray," asked I, "are you in the habit of supplying your larder from Exeter 'Change, or do you breed lions here like poultry?"

"Sir," answered the grim waiter, never relaxing into a smile, "we have lions brought us from the country every day."

"What do you pay for them?" said I.

About three-and-sixpence a-piece, sir."

"Humph! market in Africa over-stocked," thought I. "Pray, how do you dress an animal of that description?"

"Roast and stuff him, sir, and serve him up with currant jelly."

"What! like a hare!"

"A lion is a hare, sir." "What!"

"Yes, sir, it is a hare! but we call it a lion, because of the game laws."

"Bright discovery," thought I; "they have a new language in Cheltenham; nothing's like travelling to enlarge the mind. And the birds," said I, aloud, "are neither humming-birds nor ostriches, I suppose?"

"No, sir; they are partridges.

"Well, then, give me some soup, a cutlet, and a 'bird,' as you term it, and be quick about it."

"It shall be done with despatch," answered the pompous attendant and withdrew.

Is there, in the whole course of this pleasant and varying life, which young gentlemen and ladies write yerses to prove same and sorrowful, is there in the whole course of it one half hour really and genuinely disagreeable?—if so, it is the half hour before dinner at a strange inn. Nevertheless, by the help of philosophy and the window, I managed to endure it with great patience; and, though I was famishing with hunger, I pretended the indifference of a sage, even when the dinner was at length announced. I coquetted a whole minute with

my napkin before I attempted the soup, and I helped myself to the potatory food with a slow dignity that must have perfectly won the heart of the solemn waiter. The soup was a little better than hot water, and the sharpsauced cutlet than leather and vinegar; howbeit, I attacked them with the vigor of an Irishman, and washed them down with a bottle of the worst liquor ever dignified with the venerabile nomen of claret. The bird was tough enough to have passed for an ostrich in miniature; and I felt its ghost hopping about the stomachic sepulchre to which I consigned it, the whole of that evening, and a great portion of the next day, when a glass of Curaçoa laid it at rest.

After this splendid repast, I flung myself back on my chair, with the complacency of a man who has dined well, and dozed away the time till the hour of dressing.

"Now," thought I, as I placed myself before my glass, "shall I gently please, or sublimely astonish the 'fashionables' of Cheltenham ? Ah, bah! the latter school is vulgar; Byron spoiled it. Don't put out that chain, Bedos; I wear the black coat, waistcoat, and trousers. Brush my hair as much out of curl as you can, and give an air of graceful negligence to my tout ensemble."

-

"Oui, Monsieur, je comprends," answered Bedos.

I was soon dressed, for it is the design, not the execution, of all great undertakings which requires deliberation and delay. Action cannot be too prompt. A chair was called, and Henry Pelham was conveyed to the rooms.