“We dine at four, I believe,” said Lady Grace, in her habitual tone of sorrow, as she swept from the room with that gesture of profound woe that would have graced a queen in tragedy. Let us turn for a moment to Mr. Davenport Dunn. Lady Lackington's invitation had not produced in him either those overwhelming sensations of astonishment or those excessive emotions of delight which she had so sanguinely calculated on. There was a time that a Viscountess asking him thus to dinner had been an event, the very fact being one requiring some effort on his part to believe; but these days were long past. Mr. Dunn had not only dined with great people since that, but had himself been their host and entertainer. Noble lords and baronets had sipped his claret, right honorables praised his sherry, and high dignitaries condescended to inquire where he got “that exquisite port.” The tremulous, faint-hearted, doubting spirit, the suspectful, self-distrusting, humble man, had gone, and in his place there was a bold, resolute nature, confident and able, daily testing his strength against some other in the ring, and as often issuing from the contest satisfied that he had little to fear from any antagonist. He was clever enough to see that the great objects in life are accomplished less by dexterity and address than by a strong, undeviating purpose. The failure of many a gifted man, and the high success of many a commonplace one, had not been without its lesson for him; and it was in the firm resolve to rise a winner that he sat down to the game of life. Lady Lackington's invitation was, therefore, neither a cause of pleasure nor astonishment. He remembered having met her somewhere, some time, and he approached the renewed acquaintance without any one of the sentiments her Ladyship had so confidently predicted. Indeed, so little of that flurry of anticipation did he experience, that he had to be reminded her Ladyship was waiting dinner for him, before he could remember the pleasure that was before him. It may be a very ungallant confession for this true history to make, but we cannot blink saying that Lady Lack-ington and Lady Grace both evidenced by their toilette that they were not indifferent to the impression they were to produce upon their guest. The Viscountess was dressed in the perfection of that French taste whose chief characteristic is freshness and elegance. She was light, gauzy, and floating,--a sweeping something of Valenciennes and white muslin,--but yet human withal, and very graceful. Her friend, in deep black, with a rich lace veil fastened on her head behind, and draped artistically over one shoulder, was a charming personification of affliction not beyond consolation. When they met, it was with an exchange of looks that said, “This ought to do.”