marriage for which she had no predilectionpauvre petite! Mais, it will be all the same in a year hence; for she will then, probably, feel less indifference towards her husband than if she had loved him when she married; and will be spared all the annoyances to which women who love their husbands are subjected.

Heigh-ho! Do you remember how jealous I used to be of Florestan? Never shall I forget my despair at discovering his first infidelity. I thought I should die—ay, and wished it too, simpleton as I was; and now, I can see him lavish on another those attentions that were once all mine, and see it without a pang. We are the best friends in the world; and, after all, this is the next best thing to being lovers. It took me a long time, however, to make this discovery; nor do I think I should have arrived at it had not the duc come to my aid.

B 2

Nothing helps to make us forget an old love so much as a new; and I feel such an attachment to the duc, that it is only when I recall to memory the still more vivid and wild one I once entertained for Florestan, that I am forced to recollect the melancholy truth, that love can change.

Marry some très riche et puissant seigneur, ma chère Caroline, and come to Paris, where

you will be joyfully welcomed by

Votre amie affectionnée,

DELPHINE, MARQUISE DE Villeroi.

Mon mari vous dit mille choses aimables.

11

THE COUNTESS OF ANNANDALE TO THE
COUNTESS OF DELAWARD.

You will be glad to hear, my dear Mary, that
the poor child I have adopted thrives apace,
His
and is really a source of comfort to me.
fondness of me, too, dear little fellow, in-
creases; and he claps his hands, and crows
with joy, when I appear. One half-hour spent
in playing with him in my dressing-room, is
worth whole hours spent in crowded soirées
and balls; which, if it were not for Lord Not-
tingham, who has kindly undertaken to initiate
me into the modes, customs, and persons of the
new world into which I am launched, I should
find, insupportable indeed. Lord Annandale
insists on my being present at all their fêtes,
rallies me on my preference for solitude, and
seems desirous to fill up every moment with
some new pleasure, — the search after which

-

I find as tiresome as he appears to think it

agreeable.

He told me this morning, that I must be guarded in my observations in society, and not display my rusticity with regard to its general usages, under penalty of being exposed to its ridicule," a penalty," he added, looking most seriously, "more to be dreaded than all others, being one which is never overcome."

I asked to what he alluded, wondering what I could have said, to subject myself to so grave an exordium.

"Did you not observe," he replied, "how Lord Henry Mercer laughed when you made that very naïve speech about Lady Harlestone? a few more such speeches will render you the talk of all the clubs; nay, more, the subject of their merriment. I thought the Comtesse of Hohenlinden would never have ceased laughing, when Mercer told her of it."

I felt my anger a little excited, at learning that I had been ridiculed, while ignorant as to the cause; and my reflections led to his making me a disclosure that has shocked and disgusted me. Yes, Mary; the man who has vowed to love and protect me, and whom I have vowed to love, honour, and obey, has torn the bandage from my eyes, by informing me, that nearly all the women in the circle in which I live that circle into which he has led me-are supposed to have attachments with the men whom I, in the simplicity of my heart, believed to be their husbands, judging from the familiar attentions I witnessed and which at

tentions I thought, even from husbands, too familiar for public exhibition!

66

And, knowing the conduct of these women," said I, "you could permit them to approach me!"

"You must, really, my dear Augusta,"