make out the duke, he will, indeed, be a great Apollo."

She said this as the duke passed out of the room to his carriage, which was called, and we heard him saying to his satellite (for such he seemed), " Hoskyns, I am going to White's, and will drop you by the way;" upon which they both disappeared.

"I think," said Granville, addressing Lady Hungerford, "I can answer the call you make upon me without any great boast of an insight into the characters of men, though, as you truly hint, my penetration in regard to women may be questionable."

"I am glad you at least see your errors,” returned the lady, with some quickness, “after your rudeness this morning. By the way, I had forgot I had resolved not to speak to you."

Granville bowed, and with an air of melancholy, though also of gallantry, replied:

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May you ever forget such cruel resolves. I was almost afraid of venturing here to-night, in the fear that you would execute them, and I shall ever feel obliged to the duke for having occasioned this forgetfulness."

"Well," replied she, " as I have been surprised into it, I may as well forgive you, but only provided you retract."

"For such an object I certainly will," answered Granville, "all but the last line.”

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Very prettily said," observed the lady ;" and I thought her colour heightened as she smiled; and she smiled beautifully.

Meantime I was in nubibus, and could only see there was something particular between them, which, thinking I had no business with, I walke to another part of the room, where the belle of the season, a Miss Falconer, with the mien of a sultana, and eyes like basilisks, outshining the many diamonds that adorned her, had, as usual, gathered a large portion of the company to gaze, criticize, and admire her.

"I hope you are one of the adorers," said Lady Hungerford, when I rejoined her. "Here is Mr. Granville will not stir a step towards her, I suppose knowing and fearing the danger, like a discreet man as he is."

"There may be mettle more attractive," observed Granville, looking with great feeling at Lady Hungerford, "which may better account for it; for, as for discretion, I wish I was what you have been so good as to call me. I fear I am too fond of the last line to deserve it."

Puzzled again with this sort of watchword, I no more joined in the conversation, which, however, Granville explained, and enlightened me as to the duke, in a conference I had with him the next day. For walking by White's in my way to Whitehall, I saw the Duke of Glenmore installed

at the window amid a throng of aristocrats, and seemingly much in his element. Of a sudden, Hoskyns, and a man apparently still more ordinary than himself (both in looks and manners), passed by, and the duke instantly darted after them into the street, abandoning all his fine friends to engage in an eager conversation with them, which lasted long after they had got into the park, whither I had followed them, in my way to the office.

In the morning papers I had read that the duke had the day before given a grand political dinner, over which he presided "with his usual grace and popularity," and at which, among many lords and gentlemen, were Mr. Hoskyns, M.P., and Mr. Gubbins, M.P. Mr. Gubbins, I afterwards found, was this other companion whom the duke had joined, and seemed most familiar with them both.

I own I wished much to make out this riddle; but Granville, whom I found waiting for me at the office, solved it a few minutes afterwards. " Upon my observing that I wondered the duke could be reckoned proud when he seemed so familiar with such ordinary persons as I had just seen him with, and that the papers even talked of his popularity

"Yes; he is popular," said Granville, "but then it is in his own way, for he is proud as Lucifer at the same time."

"Can that be?" asked I.

"In appearance, not," said he, "and yet compatible; for it depends upon what is the character of the popularity, and what of the pride. For example, his popularity is all of a public, his pride of a private, nature. He will attend all public meetings, and be very condescending with his party and followers, will even flatter them in speeches, and give them dinners. The duke's fort indeed is the management of a party, and his highest ambition parliamentary influence; for which purpose he would rather be the arbiter of an election than of the fate of Europe. His dinners, therefore (of one of which you saw the account), are all party dinners, got up for the occasion; sometimes at the Clarendon; not in his house: or if there, no one can penetrate from the dining-room into the interior. Even the leaders among his supporters know him not in domestic life, unless they are of his own class. He has his room of business, but all his other rooms are closed even to the men; but as to their wives and daughters, did anybody ever know the duchess open her saloon to them, or notice them anywhere but at the saturnalia of an election ball? Though they even happen to be of a class to go to court, if not of the initiated, to speak to them would be horror; to look at them, loss of caste. With all his smiles, in this the duke is as impenetrable as his wife; who, with her daughters, in regard to his most zealous friends (except, as I say,

they are of his own rank), is as closely sealed to them as if in a harem."

"He pays, then, it should seem," said I, “a high price for his popularity ?"

"Every man pays for an expensive hobby,” returned Granville, "and this is his. I have seen him, like Bolingbroke, on his horse—

'Who his aspiring rider seemed to know—'

riding with a knot of political club-men in the park, and seemingly hail-fellow-well-met with them all. Perhaps that very night he met some of them at the Opera, and avoided them, or was suddenly struck blind, for fear of being forced to recognise them."

"How ridiculous," cried I, with a laugh, “and how contemptible; I would rather dig in my garden, and live upon potatoes."

I own all this astonished me, though I began to remember what the sagacious Fothergill had told me to the same effect, and it soon grew too familiar a custom among what are called public men ever to be noticed again.

Indeed, one of the first things I remarked in this world of fashion and politics, so new to me, was, that it by no means followed from the closest intimacies, nay apparent attachments, between leaders and subalterns, that there should be the smallest approach to even acquaintance between their families. Going once with Lord Castleton to dine with