As he extolled their characters and perfections, and spoke of the charms which their society had always possessed for him, Lady Hamlet Vernon listened with increased attention, as if she would have gathered from his discourse the individual sources of that satisfaction, which he professed in so lively a manner to have found. "You are warm and enthusiastic in your eulogiums," she said: "I hope that in England, also, you may find those whom, with the same reasons, and an equal ardour of attachment, you will be disposed to admit to your friendship." There was something in the tone in which these words were addressed to him, that made Lord Albert D'Esterre for a moment fix his eyes on the speaker; but they were as quickly withdrawn, when he saw Lady Hamlet Vernon blush, apparently confused, and then pluck a flower from a vase near her, while she endeavoured to hide her face by inhaling the perfume. There was an awkwardness in the pause which ensued, which neither seemed at the moment able to surmount; when fortunately Lady Hamlet Vernon's carriage was called, and as Lord Albert handed her to it, he received an invitation to her house in the evening, when Lady Tilney's _coterie_ were to assemble there. CHAPTER V. "NEWSPAPERS"--"THE PARK." The newspapers of the following morning had devoted columns to the description of Lady Borrowdale's entertainment, and the numbering of the distinguished persons assembled there; the dresses, the apartments, the decorations, the viands, and every minute arrangement, were all detailed with an accuracy which an eye-witness of the scene would readily have acknowledged, and which none but an eye-witness could possibly have succeeded in giving. In a far less conspicuous and pretending manner, did the announcement figure in the same paper, that "Lady Tilney yesterday evening received a select circle of her friends at her house in ---- Street, where the Sontag gave several specimens of her unrivalled talents." An uninstructed reader would have been misled by these harbingers of public events; and from the tone of the respective _affichés_ feel justified in the conclusion, that the one must have been the production of Lady Borrowdale's own pen, or at least from her dictation, while the other appeared naturally as the result of that publicity, to which the actions of the great are always subjected. But this would have been far from the fact, or rather the very opposite to it; it was to the milliners, the confectioners, the musicians, the _maître d'hotel_, and the other individuals interested in affording publicity to the dresses and entertainments of their employers, that the long and circumstantial details of Lady Borrowdale's, or any other great assembly, are to be attributed; free from any petty interference, or the gratification of a silly vanity on the part of the principals themselves.