I am convinced that you, my dear Mary, will rejoice at being assured of the innocence of my friend, as I know the generosity of your nature for my own part, I experience an increased attachment to her, now that I know the injustice to which she has been subjected; an injustice doubly painful to the feelings, as being exercised to an orphan, without a single male relative to defend or to avenge her. How dreadful it is to reflect that men can exist capable of the baseness of defaming the virtue they could not overcome, and ought, consequently, to defend! Pray, inform Lord Delaward of Caroline's innocence; for I would not have one, to whose good opinion I attach so much importance, continue in error with regard to my poor friend.

My dear boy continues to thrive apace, and seems every day to grow more fond of me. He is a charming child, and you would be delighted with him, he is so good-tempered and

engaging. Lord Nottingham is very partial to him, and St. Aubyn already knows him quite well, goes to him gladly, and sits on his knee. I wish I could say that Lord Annandale evinced an equal fondness; but this is far from being the case, for he betrays an indifference towards him that quite shocks and displeases me. The poor dear little fellow seems conscious of his father's want of affection, and instinctively, as it were, shrinks from him when he approaches.

The Duchess of Fitzwalter has been here, and I like the little I have seen of her extremely, notwithstanding that she appeared under disadvantageous circumstances; for when she called, the Comtesse Hohenlinden, who is evidently no favourite with her, was here, and displayed a levity, and, I may add, an indecorum, in her conversation and manner, that must have prejudiced the duchess, not only against her, but also against me, for suffering

it. I felt that a disagreeable impression was made on your friend's mind, but I had no means of removing it; for any verbal reproof of mine would have been as little heeded as are the tacit ones which I have frequently given to this incorrigible comtesse.

Lord Annandale, when informed of the visit of the Duchess of Fitzwalter, signified his desire that I should avoid all intimacy with her, or "her coterie," as he termed the persons who are precisely those whom I should prefer; and are, in fact, the very ladies with whom you most wished me to cultivate an intercourse. He observed, that the duchess was peculiarly repugnant to his taste; and, by her formality and hauteur, spread a gloom wherever she appeared. He animadverted, in terms fraught with satire and ridicule, on the line of demarcation the duchess and her friends had drawn around their circle; the cordon sani

taire, as he banteringly styled it, that was to exclude the contagion of gaiety and wit.

It is plain to me that the Comtesse Hohenlinden, piqued by the cold reception she meets with among the ladies in question, has sought to prejudice Lord Annandale against them, and has but too well succeeded. The women who frequent Annandale House are remarkable for an indescribable tone, a strange mixture of levity and fierté, as disagreeable as it is incongruous. They are all the copyists of the Comtesse Hohenlinden, but less goodhumoured; and there is not one amongst them who has excited an interest in my mind, or with whom I should wish to form a friendship.

Ah! how right were you, dearest Mary, when you prophesied that London and its pleasures would disappoint my expectations! This perpetual round of amusement, without one day of privacy or repose, fatigues me

mentally and bodily. It is like a brilliant comedy where the curtain never drops, and where both actors and audience are alike wearied. Often do I sigh for the shades of Vernon Hall, with its tranquil enjoyments, allowing one to entertain a consciousness of one's own identity; while here, one is literally rendered incapable of self-recognition, or even self-communion: thought is banished by continuous and frivolous dissipation, and the affections seem useless in an atmosphere where there is no time permitted for their exercise.

When, a few days ago, I expressed a wish that my dear father and mother would come to London, Lord Annandale asked me how it would be possible to find sufficient time to satisfy them, old people being, as he rudely said, always exigeant.

How little he knows them! I answered, that no engagements could have half such