“I beseech your ladyship’s interest to get me invited. It will be such a new thing to see lord F—— on the stage. Of course he will play the heroes to his wife’s heroines. Whatever may have been hitherto, he will scarcely like, I should think ... he is scarcely the man.... Faith! if she is proud and high-spirited, as you say, she has met her match.” Lady Frances smiled; and as she was led away to supper, assured her partner that nothing could be pleasanter than the terms they were all on with lady F——; for she was, after all, a noble creature; which information was received with a deferential bow. In every group of talkers, lady F——’s merits were canvassed. Some ladies would give any thing in the world for her courage, till reminded by their mammas that she had been trained to self-confidence, when they suddenly became contented with their own timidity. Others would have supposed her not out of her teens, by the girlish enjoyment she seemed to feel; but these were reminded that this kind of scene was as new to her as if she had not been seen and heard of in public for nearly four years. Everybody agreed that she was beautiful, and very amiable, and astonishingly simple, and conducting herself with wonderful propriety: and everybody admired the good-natured earl’s manner towards her, and wondered whether it was lady Frances’s own choice to come with her, and conjectured what lord F——’s happiness must be to witness his bride’s flattering welcome to the rank he had given her. Lord F——’s happiness, though as great as these kind friends could wish, was not altogether of the character they supposed. “You have enjoyed yourself, Letitia,” he observed, as they were going home in the grey of the morning, and when she made the first pause in her remarks to let down the glass, as a market cart, laden with early vegetables and flowers, passed for a few moments alongside the carriage. “How sweet!—O how sweet those violets are!” she exclaimed, as a whiff of fragrance was blown in. “Enjoyed myself! Yes,—it is a new page,—quite a new page of human history to me.” “Your passion is for turning over such pages. What next?” “If I had a market-woman’s cloak and bonnet, I should like to step into that cart and go to Covent-Garden, to see the people dressing it up against sunrise. I should like, some morning, to go into the city when the sun is just touching the steeples, and see life waken up in the streets.” “I wonder you did not stand in the door-way to-night,” said her husband, smiling, “to see the contrast between speculating life on the pavement and polished life in the saloon.”