“I heard that he doctored her Blenheim, and used to bring her wigs from Paris,” cried that malicious Tom Protocol, whose mots are known in every diplomatic salon from Petersburg to Palermo. “Burn her wigs and hang her poodle!” said Bagnigge. “Tell me about this girl, Franklin Fox.” “In the first place, she has five hundred thousand acres, in a ring fence in Norfolk; a county in Scotland, a castle in Wales, a villa at Richmond, a corner house in Belgrave Square, and eighty thousand a year in the three-per-cents.” “Apres?” said Bagnigge, still yawning. “Secondly, Borodino lui fait la cour. They are cousins, her mother was an Armagnac of the emigration; the old Marshal, his father, married another sister. I believe he was footman in the family, before Napoleon princified him.” “No, no, he was second coachman,” Tom Protocol good-naturedly interposed--“a cavalry officer, Frank, not an infantry man.” “'Faith you should have seen his fury (the young one's, I mean) when he found me in the duchess's room this evening, tete-a-tete with the heiress, who deigned to receive a bouquet from this hand.” “It cost me three guineas,” poor Frank said, with a shrug and a sigh, “and that Covent Garden scoundrel gives no credit: but she took the flowers;--eh, Bagnigge?” “And flung them to Alboni,” the Peer replied, with a haughty sneer. And poor little Franklin Fox was compelled to own that she had. The maitre d'hotel here announced that supper was served. It was remarked that even the coulis de dindonneau made no impression on Bagnigge that night. II. The sensation produced by the debut of Amethyst Pimlico at the court of the sovereign, and in the salons of the beau-monde, was such as has seldom been created by the appearance of any other beauty. The men were raving with love, and the women with jealousy. Her eyes, her beauty, her wit, her grace, her ton, caused a perfect fureur of admiration or envy. Introduced by the Duchess of Fitzbattleaxe, along with her Grace's daughters, the Ladies Gwendoline and Gwinever Portcullis, the heiress's regal beauty quite flung her cousins' simple charms into the shade, and blazed with a splendor which caused all “minor lights” to twinkle faintly. Before a day the beau-monde, before a week even the vulgarians of the rest of the town, rang with the fame of her charms; and while the dandies and the beauties were raving about her, or tearing her to pieces in May Fair, even Mrs. Dobbs (who had been to the pit of the “Hoperer” in a green turban and a crumpled yellow satin) talked about the great HAIRESS to her D. in Bloomsbury Square.