Those who have lived in London when melancholy circumstances have excluded them from participating in its amusements, will enter into Emmeline’s feelings when, during the first, and on many an ensuing dismal evening, which she spent alone, she heard the carriages hurry past her door in the constant bustle of pleasure. Often, as she sat in the dusk of the now long-protracted spring evenings, Emmeline was only roused from some deep reverie to a consciousness of the lateness of the hour, by the glare of the lamps and flambeaux of some of these gay equipages passing her darkened windows, and hastening to some general resort of diversion. For it was now the high tide, the carnival of London. Every one was there——and every one went every where—hurrying and crowding after each other, although caring for no one. What a wretched, humiliating picture of human nature does London present during the months of May, June, and July! Affection, friendship, all the social virtues, and charities, disappear before folly, dissipation, and selfishness. And so infectious is the disease, that almost the best hearts are, at least for the moment, tainted; the steadiest heads turned. It is a constant hurry, a perpetual bustle, in which no one has leisure to care, or feel for another, whatever may be the inclination; and scarcely is there time to drop a tear over the grave of a friend. If an uncle, cousin, or some such near relation, is so inconsiderate as to choose these interesting, busy moments to depart this life, it is looked upon as an almost unpardonable act of selfishness on the part of the defunct, by which so much time, perhaps many entertainments and balls, are lost to his surviving family. On the other hand, the demise of some mere nightly companion in the resorts of dissipation is generally hailed with joy, not for their own demerits, but that not only _their_ opera-box and ticket at Almacks, but that of all those nearly connected with them will thereby become disposable; a short retirement being considered necessary both to dry their tears, and give time to a fashionable tailor or mantua-maker to send home the becoming mourning, in which they can again sally forth to make up for the time they have lost, by returning with renovated spirits to their dissipated duties. In the mean time, anxious notes fly about town as soon as the death is announced in the papers; and the doors of all the patronesses of fashion are beset by the dear friends of the deceased, anxious to be the first to apply for the vacated subscription, which happily can neither be carried away from this world by the selfish, nor be disposed of by will by the obliging. And this was the world into which poor Emmeline had to carry a breaking heart! After Fitzhenry had joined her in town, although nothing further had ever passed,—no dispute, no difference had taken place,—yet, they appeared mutually to consider themselves as more than ever, in short, totally estranged.