Even little Blanche, living in one of the best houses in Grosvenor Square, and going to Court under a peeress’s “wing,” sighed while she thought of Newton-Hollows and its shrubberies, and her garden just blooming into summer luxuriance. As they toiled slowly down St. James’s Street, envying the privileged grandees with the _entrée_ through St. James’s Park, our pretty heiress would fain have been back in her garden-bonnet, tying up her roses, and watching her carnations, and idling about in the deep shades of her leafy paradise. Not so the chaperon. She was full of the important occasion. It was her pleasure to _present_ Miss Kettering, and her business to arrange how that maidenly patronymic should be merged in the title of Mount Helicon: for this she was herself prepared to lapse into a _dowager_. Who but a mother would be capable of such a sacrifice? Yet it must be; none knew better than her ladyship--excepting, perhaps, the late lord’s man of business, and certain citizens of the Hebrew persuasion, collectors of noblemen’s and gentlemen’s autographs--how impossible it was for “Mount” to go on much longer. His book on the Derby was a far deeper affair than his “Broadsides from the Baltic”--where the publisher lost shillings on the latter, the author paid away hundreds on the former--and the literary sportsman confessed, with his usual devil-may-care candour, that “between black-legs and blue-stockings he was pretty nearly told-out!”--therefore must an heiress be supplied from _the canaille_ to prop the noble house of Mount Helicon--therefore have the Mount Helicon arms, and the Mount Helicon liveries, and the Mount Helicon carriage, been seen day after day waiting in Grosvenor Square--therefore does their diplomatic proprietress speak in all societies of “_her_ charming Miss Kettering,” and “_her_ sweet Blanche,” and therefore are they even now arriving in company at St. James’s, followed by the General in his brougham, who has come to pay his respects to his sovereign in _the tightest_ uniform that ever threatened an apoplectic warrior with convulsions. “My dear, you look exquisite,” says the chaperon, “only mind how you get out, and don’t dirty your train, and recollect your feathers; when you curtsey to the Queen, whatever you do, don’t let them bob in her Majesty’s face.” Blanche, albeit somewhat frightened, could not help laughing, and looked so fresh and radiant as she alighted, that the very mob, assembled for purposes of criticism, scarcely forbore from telling her as much to her face. “Don’t be nervous, my dear,” and “_Pray_ don’t let us get separated,” said the two ladies simultaneously, as they entered the palace; and Blanche felt her knees tremble and her heart beat as she followed her conductress up the stately, well-lined staircase, between rows of magnificent-looking gentlemen-officials, all in full dress. The kettle-drums of the Life Guards booming from without did not serve to