him, in the triumph of being the husband of a

beautiful woman.

After the first homage of admiration had passed away, there were other beautiful women also who obtained their share; and, like every thing of the same evanescent nature, Lady Frances found the transport had subsided, and left her in quiet possession of her husband's arm much longer than suited her inclinations: she looked round the room in vain for Lady Dashwood-that lady was nowhere to be seen; and Lady Frances had recourse to all the ingenuity of her brain to unlink herself from her companion. He, on the contrary, really enjoyed an honest feeling of happiness.

"Observe the decorations of this room, my dear Frances. This is something like what I should wish for your drawing-room at Llewellyn, in Caernarvonshire, only the hangings should be of a soberer hue, for the sake of the pictures; and then, you know, the old tapestry would look so admirably in the Ebony Hall."

"Oh! don't talk to me of tapestry; I hate it; with the great men wielding their scimitars, as though they would cut one's head off, and the goggle-eyed princesses kneeling to them. Oh, you make me shudder to think of it!"

"Well, dear Frances, your own suite of apartments shall be fitted up entirely in your own way."

"You are very good" (yawning); “but in that savage country, that horrid desert, it does not much signify how any thing is fitted up: no taste to commend, no eyes to see. In short, where none are beaux, 'tis vain to be a belle.'

6

"Then you count my eyes for nothing?"

“Ah, ah, ah!” with an affected laugh; "a husband's eyes looking through the spectacles of matrimony-you cannot count them for eyes. Why, my dear Bellamont, we see each other all day long, and all night long. We must want a little variety, you know."

"Would to Heaven we did see each other as constantly as you describe! but since we have

been in London, count up, I pray you, the hours we have spent alone together, and you will find how few they have been; or if an evening has surprised us in each other's company, owing to the fatigue of past dissipation, or a preparatory beauty rest, for that which was to come, you have fallen asleep, and left me to commune with my own melancholy reflections. Frances, is this as it should be? Is this as you promised, and wrote it would be ?"

He might have gone on some time longer, had not Lady Frances replied, yawning through the sticks of her fan, " Mercy on me! a curtain lecture in public! besides, I believe, if I went to sleep once, you have four times:" and again she yawned.

"You are tired, I am afraid," said Lord Bellamont with a sigh!

"Yes-no-that is to say, a sort of pain in my back-really this is a very stupid place after all; nobody one knows here—such a set !” "Well then, Frances, if you find no amuse

ment, I am sure I do not: shall we return

home ?"

"Oh! as Lady Dashwood is not here, you find it mighty dull, I suppose."

"Have a care, Frances, I could retort; but we are overheard. Let us be gone; I will call our carriage:" and he went out for that pur

pose.

Just at that moment, Mr. Carlton entered the room, and coming up to Lady Frances, as though she were the only person in the apartment worthy of being spoken to by him,—“ Ah, by all the loves and graces," he exclaimed, "what good fortune to find you here, Lady Frances! why I did not know you were in town. You are like Mahomet's tomb, never to be seen by the sons of men:" and he fixed his rude gaze of effrontery on her person.

Lady Frances coloured, moved on her tiptoes in a sort of dancing fashion, tossed her head about, and played off divers and sundry airs. The pain in the back was forgotten; the yawning languor discarded, and a pleased animation overspread her features.

"And pray, Mr. Carlton, may I ask where you have been? with Dian and her nymphs

awaking Echo, no doubt: in plain English, hunting and shooting with dogs and gamekeepers. Well, I am glad you are tired of that at last. I do not care if a man takes a little inspiring field-exercise, but there may be too much of it."

"There is always too much of any thing which keeps me from admiring your bright eyes such an air, such taste, how you are dressed! Well, certainly, there is nothing like you; and that ornament in your head-dresshow exquisite ! But I see Bellamont's face coming towards you: upon my honour, it is not fair, this monopoly; it is perfectly ridiculous; he is quite a rustic; we must teach him better manners. What does he mean by locking you up and following you about like your shadow? why we must all make league against such tyranny. Lepel, come and assist me; a joust, a tournay, a feat of arms, is to be performed here; we must break a lance with Bellamont, and rush to the rescue of a persecuted fair one.”

So saying, several coxcombs clustered round Lady Frances, who stood, nothing loth, simper