The admirable Emily de Pentonville trembled with all a mother's solicitude at the distinctions and honors which thus suddenly descended on her boy. She engaged an excellent clergyman of the Church of England to superintend his studies; to accompany him on foreign travel when the proper season arrived; to ward from him those dangers which dissipation always throws in the way of the noble, the idle, and the wealthy. But the Reverend Cyril Delaval died of the measles at Naples, and henceforth the young Earl of Bagnigge was without a guardian. What was the consequence? That, at three-and-twenty, he was a cynic and an epicure. He had drained the cup of pleasure till it had palled in his unnerved hand. He had looked at the Pyramids without awe, at the Alps without reverence. He was unmoved by the sandy solitudes of the Desert as by the placid depths of Mediterranean's sea of blue. Bitter, bitter tears did Emily de Pentonville weep, when, on Alured's return from the Continent, she beheld the awful change that dissipation had wrought in her beautiful, her blue-eyed, her perverted, her still beloved boy! “Corpo di Bacco,” he said, pitching the end of his cigar on to the red nose of the Countess of Delawaddymore's coachman--who, having deposited her fat ladyship at No. 236 Piccadilly, was driving the carriage to the stables, before commencing his evening at the “Fortune of War” public-house--“what a lovely creature that was! What eyes! what hair! Who knows her? Do you, mon cher prince?” “E bellissima, certamente,” said the Duca de Montepulciano, and stroked down his jetty moustache. “Ein gar schones Madchen,” said the Hereditary Grand Duke of Eulenschreckenstein, and turned up his carroty one. “Elle n'est pas mal, ma foi!” said the Prince de Borodino, with a scowl on his darkling brows. “Mon Dieu, que ces cigarres sont mauvais!” he added as he too cast away his Cuba. “Try one of my Pickwicks,” said Franklin Fox, with a sneer, offering his gold etui to the young Frenchman; “they are some of Pontet's best, Prince. What, do you bear malice? Come, let us be friends,” said the gay and careless young patrician; but a scowl on the part of the Frenchman was the only reply. “Want to know who she is? Borodino knows who she is, Bagnigge,” the wag went on. Everybody crowded around Monsieur de Borodino thus apostrophized. The Marquis of Alicompayne, young De Boots of the Lifeguards, Tom Protocol of the Foreign Office; the gay young Peers, Farintosh, Poldoody, and the rest; and Bagnigge, for a wonder, not less eager than any one present. “No, he will tell you nothing about her. Don't you see he has gone off in a fury!” Franklin Fox continued. “He has his reasons, ce cher prince: he will tell you nothing; but I will. You know that I am au mieux with the dear old duchess.” “They say Frank and she are engaged after the duke's death,” cried Poldoody. “I always thought Fwank was the duke's illicit gweatgwandson,” drawled out De Boots.