for the king has given them leave; but that's all.. They don't come from no people of that name." I asked how that was.

"I'll tell you," said he, " the father of Mr. Fitz-John -or, as we must now call him, Sir John Fitz-John -was Ralph Johnson, gent., for he never called himself esquire, and hadn't need, for he was only a grazier, and drove to Smithfield Market; though he left a large fortune to this chap, who said I used him ill. The son was always a poor creature, and so to take care of him he married that lady, who was the daughter of a pawnbroker, and had a fortune too. The two fortunes together made them exceeding rich, and so as Mrs. Johnson was ashamed of her new name, though her own was Figgins, she had it altered; and by some hocus pocus with the heralds, which cost a deal of money, it was changed into Fitz-John; which, I understand, is quite the same name, only in another language. Well, this even did not satisfy her; so, he being in Parliament, they somehow got knighted, and she is now my lady, and thinks herself a woman of fashion; though I say she is nothing but Brum; for, as the saying is, I know a sheep's head from a carrot; and can tell real true fashion from counterfeit as soon as I see it. I was not so long in Squire Neville's family for nothing. Those are your true ladies."

I quite agreed to this; observing, that “ I believed I had seen some of them the day before, in the way to Mr. Pope's."

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Nothing more likely," said Gayford, "for they

often leave the park for the woods, and run about, enjoying nature, like young fawns, as they are. Ah! they are the true blood, which Mrs., or Lady FitzJohn, if she had millions, never could be. But they were not all Nevilles as you saw. One of them was

taller than the rest; was not she?" "I think so."

Aye; she be a rare one, and a genuine, or, as I say, a real lady. She is a viscountess."

"You know her, then?"

"Yes, by seeing her at Billingbere: they call her Lady Hungerford.”

I started! for what did not that name recall? The summer-house !—the bust at Foljambe! Alas! I was not cured. The mere thought, thus brought to my recollection, filled me with tremor, and I could not listen to my landlord's further dissertation about fashion, which, like Borachio, he seemed to think "a deformed thief."

One trait, however, I could not help remarking, as moving his wonder and laughter too; at which I was not surprised, for, in my then ignorance of the London beau monde, it much moved mine. It seems that he had gathered in the steward's room at Billingbere, an anecdote of a family of high pretensions to this famed distinction of being fashionable, but of moderate fortune, so that they could not go out of town at Easter, like the rest of the world.

"Would you believe it ?" said he, "they closed all the front windows of the house that looked upon the

street, and lived a fortnight in the back rooms, never stirring out, that it might be thought they were in the country. Now their country was only the back yard, and their country-house the back rooms; and I ask you, Sir, if my tapster there, in his blue apron and sleeves (and not ashamed of them), is not more respectable than such fashionables ?”

To this, without answering for Dick tapster's virtues except in his capacity of a tapster, I assented. But the interest called up by the mention of Lady Hungerford made my ear dull to the gossip of my sagacious landlord; and though he would willingly have told me many things he had observed among the great, I could not help feeling a strange longing, without any motive but restlessness, to go again to Binfield. Perhaps I may again see this superior lady, thought I, about whom so many interesting associations are thrown.

I therefore started upon my legs when the arrival of another carriage made my landlord do the same, and in about half an hour had made my way through that beautiful Asher's Wood, now well known to me, and found myself once more at the gate of the park leading to Billingbere.

Here I began to calculate the chances of again seeing its elegant inhabitants, and with them the friend of her whom I found I still loved too well. They came not, and I wound through the beautiful village, wandering I knew not where, till I came in close proximity to one of the most picturesque country churches I

had ever seen. It was placed in a retired nook, for which it seemed made, and the nook for it. Its tower, its porch, its ivy, and above all, its seclusion, suited my frame of mind. The air was in that sort of calm, that not a leaf rustled, and the only sound which was heard, was now and then of a rook cawing in an elm above, and a distant waterfall, which, from the dryness of the summer, frequently stopt.

All seemed the palace of Silence, and I sat down on a moss-grown tombstone, which covered the remains, it said, of one who had been once beautiful and gay, but always innocent, a girl of sixteen. It was erected, it added, by "the friend that loved her most in the world." Who was that friend? A father, perhaps ! Perchance a lover! Yes; a lover! and the body of Bertha, dead upon a bier, lay stretched in imagination before my eyes, which moistened much 'ere I recovered myself.

What fools does imagination sometimes make of us! My walk certainly did not cure me. Except, however, for this little burst, the musing into which the calm and sobriety of the scene threw me was any thing but unhappy for though serious, the reflections always prompted by the sight of a church, and particularly of a country church, are never sad; they separate one from this world, but they bring one to a better. Here, also, the sight of the old clock, and its large dial, surmounted with a most quaint figure of Time, would have forced me, had I not before been disposed to it, to think of the vanity of human

wishes.

In this situation and this mood I continued, in a sort of day-dream, for full half an hour, when I was awakened by the sound of female voices, one of which said, "This will be the best view of it." I looked up, and what were my sensations when I beheld the ladies I had almost expressly come in search of—the Nevilles and their distinguished guest!

Distinguished she was, both in her mien and features; both shewing the most beautiful sample of la haute noblesse. But the features I especially studied, in the minute glance I had of her without interruption; for I wished to compare them with those of the exquisite marble representation of them I had seen in Bertha's summer-house, every trait of which I remembered as if but an hour before, for Bertha's sake. She seemed, however, a few years older than the bust, and several than Bertha herself, nevertheless, fitted by her exquisite manner and most speaking countenance to be the preferred and admired friend of Miss Hastings-perhaps, thought I (and it then first occurred to me), la chère maman, of the French letter.

A yew tree intervening, gave me the opportunity of making these observations; but the change of position in the ladies brought me to sight, and I was too naturally well-bred to continue where I was, as it seemed an intrusion upon their privacy and occupation; for I found they were all sketching; and the intelligent features of Lady Hungerford were particularly lighted up by her employment.

How attractive is real refinement, as well as real