One moment now may give us more
Than fifty years of reason,

If our minds drink at every pore
The spirit of the season.

Some silent laws our hearts shall make,
Which they shall long obey,

And for the year to come, we'll take
Our temper from to-day ;*

to-day-when the skies are so blue, the breeze so mild, the flowers so fragrant! Allons! to the Bois de Bou logne and its violets! away with care!

One more week, and I shall be again in London; one more week and I shall have bidden adieu to this land of lightness and laughter, lightness we know not whence, and laughter we know not wherefore: I fancy I should enjoy Paris during the spring, when the pleasures of the great world subside, and those of the little world commence. There is an out-of-doorishness about the French, with which the English climate does not impregnate English nature. A French woman of moderate pretensions finds sufficient enjoyment in spending three or four hours a day under the shade of the orange trees, in the Tuileries gardens, exhibiting her own spring toilet and criticizing those of others; or if a bonne bourgeoise, with one eye on the strip of embroidery she holds in her hand, and the other on two or three merry little children, skipping under the chestnut trees or sporting on the gravel. Those who have an equipage, transfer the same enjoyments to the gazon of the Bois de Boulogne, and at night to Tivoli and Musard's concerts. London has grander and finer places of diversion, but none which exhibit such cheerful faces. Our English women of fashion are too much occupied with their appearance, and the terror of sinning against some minor point of etiquette, or of sitting or standing near some person of equivocal distinction. All this imparts a fretful uneasy air, a look of envy, a look of disdain. There is always some Mordecai the Jew, of whose preferment we live in terror; and the "What will Mrs. Grundy say?" of the comedy, is only dignified into "What would the Duchess of think, if she heard of my being seen at such a place ?" or "What would Lady Anne say, if she knew I visited such people?" A Parisienne is more self-assured-a

* Wordsworth.
T

Parisienne is independent of Mrs. Grundy!—a Parisienne enjoys the world with all her senses, and perhaps, with that rarest of all, common sense!

*

St. James's Place -Home, home at last!-How clean, how cheerful, how comfortable! I was shown at Mannheim the shabby, dirty-looking lodgings where the Thistledowns are economizing, in penance for the pleasure of one little year spent in this charming house. Poor people! How must they long for England! How must they miss the thousand trivial but essential conveniences devised here for the civilization of human life! What an air of decency and respectfulness about the servants, what a feeling of homishness in a house exclusively our own! The modes of life may be easier on the continent; but it is the ease of a beggar's ragged coat which has served twenty masters, and is twitched on and off till it scarcely holds together, in comparison with the decent, close-fitting suit characteristic of a gentleman.

I have been spending the day with the Herberts at Mivart's Hotel, and even the hotel has a more comfortable and domesticated aspect than the private residences of Paris. My sister is looking ten years younger than last year-Herbert, ten years younger than ten years ago. I never saw two happier people. The children are at Trentwood Park, with good nurses and a good governess, and thither, in the course of three weeks, we shall remove together. Strange to relate, Herbert has at present found nothing to blame in me. He shook his head a little on recurring to the Vinicombe affair, but admits that Lady Maria's toady has made herself the laughing-stock of society this winter at Rome, and congratulates me on having got rid of her. Since their removal into Staffordshire, the Herberts appear to have seen nothing of Lady Hartston or her son. I inquired after Sir Henry's family, and in a few words dismissed the subject. In England, however, the name of Hartston meets my eye and ear at every turn. Of Lord H. the minister, newspapers and politicians take care that enough shall be said. But in Lord H. the minister I happen unluckily to feel less interested than in Lord H. the individual.

Dear Lady Cecilia! I cannot express with what affectionate joy she has welcomed me home again! The Clackmannans are not yet arrived from the north; but she entertains sanguine hopes of being able to effect

more in Clarence's favour by a single personal interview, than by all the letters that have passed between them. Clarence is still at Vienna, and not to be recalled unless some definite arrangement is made with the marquis.

My Baden friends, the Carringtons, are staying in the · same hotel with my sister, which has procured me a visit from them more early than welcome.

"How do you do, my dear Mrs. Delaval? what a pretty house!" cried Mrs. C., as she entered my drawingroom; "how horridly bored you must have been by the mesquinerie of the Continent after being accustomed to such a charming little home!"

"I have travelled in Ireland and Scotland, and am accustomed to take things as I find them," was my reply.

"But to be detained by illness at such a miserable place as Baden, after every soul was gone!"

"I was too much indisposed to wish for society." "We got to Brighton in time for all the Christmas gayeties. But Brighton was not good this year. Such a set of people at the Pavilion; Sussex 'squires, and old Bushey and Hampton Court quizzes, who have been encouraged into notice; all horrid bores."

"My dear Jane," faltered Mr. Algernon Carrington, convulsively, "recollect yourself; or, if not yourself, remember me !"

"Oh!

"You have nothing to do with the court, have you?" inquired the giddy little woman, addressing me. yes, I forgot, Lady Southam is your bosom friend. Pray don't betray me; or, if you do, it is of no great consequence. It is but losing a stupid ball or so. How did you like Paris ?"

"Very much; but on the whole I prefer London." "So do I, when I am a thousand miles away from it; I can't understand how it is. We go to Brighton for the winter, we come to London for the season, we go abroad, we go everywhere; yet every place which other people find amusing, bores me to death. In Italy, I died of the heat; in Germany, of the dulls; London is very well: but one never sees the people one wants to see. Last night I was at Devonshire House; there was a concert, and Mr. Carrington managed to plant me beside old Mrs. Chesterfield, a Derbyshire dowager, deaf as a post, and talking at the top of her voice the whole time

Malibran was singing. Imagine how I was bored! Had you much music in Paris?"

"In society, very little. But there was the Italian Opera, and, for real amateurs, the Conservatoire."

"Poor Princess Dragonitski writes me word that Paris is detestable."

"The princess finds herself reduced to a less important rôle than she has played elsewhere. Paris is the worst place in the world for assumed importance. Tell people with a grave face in London that you are Grand Duchess of Timbuctoo, and they will perform kotoo and imperial highness you accordingly, In Paris, no honours are given à crédit. In Paris, Princess Dragonitski was only Princess Dragonitski. It was useless for her to proclaim that she had exercised autocracy in other places that she was good for quint to a king. They made her show her cards-piqued, repiqued, and capotted her -and, of course, she writes you word that Paris is detestable."

"Don't you find us all shockingly ill-dressed ?"

I find many shockingly over-dressed. I see fine ladies in their carriages, shopping or paying morning visits in the same toilette we wore in Paris for the opera."

"True-French women cannot afford to be fine more than four months in the year; the rest of the time they dress like chiffonnières. It bores me to see my maid better dressed than myself, so I follow the mode Anglaise. By-the-way, is it true that you refused the Duke of Merioneth the other day at Paris ?"

"Jane, Jane," remonstrated Mr. Carrington, "shall I never be able to inspire you with a little discretion?"

"Oh, if it is a secret, I am sure I don't want to know. Only the duke is remainin in the country so late this season, and everybody says it is because he has a passion malheureuse for Mrs. Delaval. I suppose you have heard that Mrs. Percy is gone off?"

"Jane, my dear Jane," resumed her husband, “you know very well that Lady Grace Gosling saw Mrs. Percy get out of her carriage at her own door this morning. It was merely a scandalous rumour, and is already universally contradicted.".

"Well, if she did not go off, she might as well have done so, for every one says things cannot go on. Lord Penrhyn was actually-"

"Mrs. Carrington, I must really beg you to have more

"God

regard for yourself and me," cried her spouse; knows what may be the consequence of your putting such reports into circulation. If you intend me to accompany you to Somerset House, pray lose no further time."

"Oh! I had forgotten Somerset House. What a bore this hot day! We shall positively be stifled! But perhaps the sooner we get it over, the better. Good-by, Mrs. Delaval, you must come soon and dine with us." And right glad was I to be delivered from the ennuyée and the ennuyante! What right has a woman like Mrs. Algernon Carrington, who adds nothing to society but the weight of her own uselessness and inanity, to find so much fault with the tediousness of the world and its ways?

Armine assures me that Herbert has never exhibited a single moment of ill-humour since he became rich and independent. How many people, whom the world calls fractious and disagreeable, are debarred from the free use of their faculties by the cause that rendered him morose. How easy for those on whom the claw of care has never imprinted its withering clutch, to be cheerful, chatty, witty, wise! The embarrassed man is absent, his mind is elsewhere; and those pleasures which serve to excite the spirits of the prosperous are to him an importunate interruption. My brotherin-law's brow is now unbent; his wife and children are provided for; and I am everywhere saluted with compliments on the agreeableness of Sir Henry Herbert.

"We are becoming quite the fashion," said Armine yesterday, laughing heartily at my congratulation on her husband's altered demeanour. "Your friend Lady Mardynville has invited us to dinner. The only person, perhaps, not quite satisfied with my promotion is my Hollybridge neighbour, Lady Tarrington, who, as she can no longer call me 'poor dear Mrs. Herbert,' has omitted the dear,' and I am become 'Lady Herbert,' tout court. However, she was most kind to me throughout our cottage days; and, when she has passed a sociable week or two at Trentwood Park in the autumn, I hope we shall be as good friends as ever. She will want to give me advice about my establishment, my gardens, my schools, and my ignorance will, perhaps, restore me to favour."