Lady Westhope was the eldest lady present. The two Miss Elwicks were beauties--decided beauties, and in the first bloom of youth, with gay and lively manners, high spirits, light hearts, and vanity enough to thoroughly enjoy the admiration they were in the habit of exciting. Mrs. Courtney Astwell was very pretty, and, being married, and a coquette, of course commanded the attentions of the gentlemen still more supereminently than any of the other ladies, whatever their claims might be. Lady Westhope was, for the first time, quite in the background--nearly on the shelf. Lord Glenrith was devoted to Lady Blanche; Sir Charles Weyburn was decidedly struck with Miss Elwick; Lord James Everdon and Miss Eliza Elwick were so merry, that another joke succeeded, long before the laugh produced by the first had subsided. Mr. Stapleford, the sharp, sarcastic, clever _diplomate_, did Mrs. Courtney Astwell the honour of giving her his arm; while Lord Faversham walked on the other side and joined in the conversation, and the stripling Lord Elmington hovered on the flank or in the rear, as opportunity might serve. Mr. Wroxholme alone remained for Lady Westhope. He was a new addition to the society whose claims to notice had not yet been ascertained. He was in the law, and he looked clever. He might be nearly thirty, and he was presentable in appearance and gentlemanlike in manners. Notwithstanding the dignity and reserve of Lady Westhope's deportment, she had never before found herself overlooked. Her rank, her respectability, her beauty, in the usual routine of dinners, parties, and balls, secured for her the attentions of some one of the first persons in the company. She never before had found herself the most _passée_ of a party--and on an occasion, too, when the usual forms of precedence are not attended to. Though she had never sought or valued attention, she did not half like the absence of it. She never wished for it while she had to repel it,--it was not till it was withheld, that she found she attached to it any value whatever. Mr. Wroxholme, however, was well informed and agreeable. By degrees she found he was acquainted with several acquaintances of hers, and the scenes which they were viewing together afforded matter of conversation. At the breakfast, or luncheon, or by whatever name the repast might be designated, the pictures which adorned the walls of the gallery were discussed. Among others, that of Madame de Maintenon, with Madame de la Vallière's daughter at her knee. Lady Blanche exclaimed with energy, "The only redeeming point about that hypocritical old woman is her having been so good-natured to poor dear Madame de la Vallière's child!"