to serve his country in a post of good emoluments, unaccompanied by any trouble or responsibility. In a well regulated body politic, this natural desire on the part of a spirited young gentleman so highly connected, would be speedily recognized; but somehow William Buffy found when he came in, that these were not times in which he could manage that little matter, either; and this was the second indication Sir Leicester Dedlock had conveyed to him, that the country was going to pieces.

The rest of the cousins are ladies and gentlemen of various ages and capacities; the major part, amiable and sensible, and likely to have done well enough in life if they could have overcome their cousinship; as it is, they are almost all a little worsted by it, and lounge in purposeless and listless paths, and seem to be quite as much at a loss how to dispose of themselves, as anybody else can be how to dispose of them.

In this society, and where not, my Lady Dedlock reigns supreme. Beautiful, elegant, accomplished, and powerful in her little world (for the world of fashion does not stretch all the way from pole to pole), her influence in Sir Leicester’s house, however haughty and indifferent her manner, is greatly to improve it and refine it. The cousins, even those older cousins who were paralysed when Sir Leicester married her, do her feudal homage; and the Honourable Bob Stables daily repeats to some chosen person, between breakfast and lunch, his favourite original remark that she is the best groomed woman in the whole stud.

Such the guests in the long drawing-room at Chesney Wold this dismal night, when the step on the Ghost’s Walk (inaudible here, however) might be the step of a deceased cousin shut out in the cold. It is near bedtime. Bed-room fires blaze brightly all over the house, raising ghosts of grim furniture on wall and ceiling. Bed-room candlesticks bristle on the distant table by the door, and cousins yawn on ottomans. Cousins at the piano, cousins at the soda-water tray, cousins rising from the card-table, cousins gathered round the fire. Standing on one side of his own peculiar fire (for there are two), Sir Leicester. On the opposite side of the broad hearth, my Lady at her table. Volumnia, as one of the more privileged cousins, in a luxurious chair between them. Sir Leicester glancing, with magnificent displeasure, at the rouge and the pearl necklace.

“I occasionally meet on my staircase here,” drawls Volumnia, whose thoughts perhaps are already hopping up it to bed, after a long evening of very desultory talk, “one of the prettiest girls, I think, that I ever saw in my life.”

“A protégée of my Lady’s,” observes Sir Leicester.

“I thought so. I felt sure that some uncommon eye must have picked that girl out. She really is a marvel. A dolly sort of beauty perhaps,” says Miss Volumnia, reserving her own sort, “but in its way, perfect; such bloom I never saw!”

Sir Leicester with his magnificent glance of displeasure at the rouge, appears to say so too.

“Indeed,” remarks my Lady languidly, “if there is any uncommon eye in the case, it is Mrs Rouncewell’s, and not mine. Rosa is her discovery.”

“Your maid, I suppose?”

“No. My anything; pet — secretary — messenger — I don’t know what.”

“You like to have her about you, as you would like to have a flower, or a bird, or a picture, or a poodle — no, not a poodle, though — or anything else that was equally pretty?” says Volumnia, sympathising. “Yes, how charming now! And how well that delightful old soul Mrs Rouncewell is looking. She must be an immense age, and yet she is as active and handsome! — She is the dearest friend I have, positively!”