over it; Wardour-Street Rubenses and apocryphal ancestors on the walls. Behind this the library in dark oak, splendid writing-table, quaint old carved Davenport desk from a Carmelite monastery; wonderful collection of books, the result of the blending of two library sales at Hodgson's,--one the gathering of a bibliomaniacal _virtuoso_, the other of a sporting nobleman,--and before-letter proofs, after Landseer. The drawing-rooms I should utterly fail in endeavouring to describe, so content myself by remarking that they were halls of dazzling light,--allowed by their worst enemies, the critics, to be "delicious;" by their most captious, to be "effective,"--splendidly furnished, and opening on to conservatories and boudoirs and canvas-covered balconies. Mr. Schröder was not the man to hide his candle under a bushel; nor, having spent a vast amount of money on his house and its decorations, to keep them solely for the contemplation of himself and his wife: so it was at his suggestion that the dinner-party and reception were organised. Mrs. Schröder at once gave her acquiescence; indeed, just at this period of her life, she was in too dazed a state to do any thing more than follow suit. She knew her father to be wealthy, and always had lived in good style; but she also knew that her parent was a great tyrant--one of those "stern" persons so popular in novels; and she had had many visions of resisting him; of flying from his roof with some young lover not overburdened with riches; of love in a cottage, and other maniacal ideas of the same description; and now she found that the time had come and passed; that she had not resisted at all; and that she was settled down with a gray-headed, elderly husband, who was one of the richest men in London. It was not her childhood's dream, perhaps; but it was by no means uncomfortable; and Mrs. Schröder wisely determined, to accept the riches, and to forget the grayness of the head; and went in for the dinner-party with spirit. Husband and wife furnished about an equal complement of friends to the banquet, which was very splendid, but at first rather dull. Old Heinrich Schröder, who had not yet returned to Frankfort, was present; and as he spoke scarcely any English, he did not enliven the conversation; which, however, was often polyglot. The magnates from the City and their wives ate a good deal, and talked very little; while some of the younger and more aristocratic people brought in by Mrs. Schröder were silent as becomes "swells," and only occasionally worked eyebrow or shoulder telegraphs to each other, in silent wonder at, and depreciation of, their neighbours. Mr. Beresford began to be awfully bored, and tried topic after topic without meeting with the least success. At last, however, he seemed to have stumbled on one that awoke a certain amount of general interest. "Seen your newly-elected brother-director of the Terra-del-Fuego Company yet, Mr. Schröder?" he asked.