the gay society of Paris, have formed the happiness of us both. Mais, à quoi bon ces tristes reflexions? And yet our position is well calculated to give rise to such, Florestan the inmate of a prison, where evil example corrupts and debases the mind, rendering vicious companionship and loose indulgences, which at first disgusted him, habitual; and I driven with insult from the shelter of his aunt's roof, to seek one beneath that of his mistress! To be sure my present abode never proved otherwise than disagreeable; still I would prefer it to that of Madame de Hauteforte's, whose coldness and hauteur of late have displeased me. Do you know, ma chère, that malgré all my boasted philosophy, I could sit down and weep at the painful embarrassment in which I find myself, but I am preserved from this unavailing weakness by the reflection that, were I to weep until I became a second Niobe, my position would not be ameliorated: au contraire, I should only spoil my eyes, which are one of the few advantages still left to me, and few people are disposed to serve ugly or larmoyantes women. Having lost my fortune, I must not also lose my good looks; and though I am your affectionate, must not become your ugly friend, DELPHINE, MARQUISE DE VILLEROI. THE COUNTESS OF ANNANDALE TO NEVER, chère Delphine, shall I forget what I have endured this evening, in the society of that miscreant, De Carency! He presented himself, dressed perfectly à-la-mode; and, strange to say, has resumed the air and tone of good company so completely, that, on listening to, and regarding him, I could scarcely imagine that he was the coarse and brutalised ruffian I beheld in the country. He approached me without the slightest symptom of embarrassment; delivered several amiable messages purporting to come from you; and referred to our ancient friendship in Italy, in a manner to induce the persons present to suppose that he must be one of my chosen friends. How I felt my cheeks glow at his allusion life my my ac to the most fatal event of quaintance with this monster! But, instead of being diverted from the subject by my evident distress, he seemed to have a pleasure in exercising this species of torture over me, probably in revenge for the marked coldness of my manner towards him. We had several people to dinner, to many of whom Lord Annandale presented him; and he acted the agreeable so effectually, that I saw, with secret horror, that he was establishing an acquaintance with them by the most assiduous attentions and animated con versation. He sat next Lady Godalming-the fastidious and hypercritical Lady Godalming and displayed so much tact in the judicious compliments rather implied than expressed to her, that I heard her offer him a ticket for Almack's, and invite him to her next soirée. Good heavens! could she but imagine the crimes of this man, how would she shrink from the possibility of meeting him! During dinner, more than once I anxiously and stealthily observed the servants, to endeavour to infer from their looks whether, like my femme de chambre, they suspected, if they had not detected, the identity of the welldressed man of fashion before them and the unsightly ruffian whose ferocity had filled them with fear and disgust: but, fortunately, they seemed to entertain no suspicions. When cards were introduced in the evening, he made one of the whist-table of the Marquess of Haverfordwest, whose opinion he conciliated by approving his play, and referring, with a deferential air, to his judgment. He lost; and, when paying, displayed a case well stocked with notes to a large amount, the sight of which seemed to establish his claims to the consideration of not a few of those around him. Lord Haverfordwest immediately invited him to his house; and Lord Derbyshire, in his most insinuating tone, told him that he would get him elected an honorary member of the Travellers' Club, where, as he evidently liked a rubber of whist, he might find one every night. "Le Chevalier is a very agreeable man," said Lord Haverfordwest to me; "but a very |