Lady Hamlet Vernon smiled, with constrained complacency, saying, "you may tell the fact, Mr. Vernon, if you chuse to take the trouble, which is simply this;--that on returning home my coachman was drunk, and upset my carriage; and the accident happened close to Lord Albert D'Esterre's door, so that I was borne into his house, and received there every kind attention." "But," enquired Mr. Temple Vernon, who had listened with evident eagerness to the recital, "where were you going?--whence were you coming?--for all these particulars are of importance." "Oh! home." "Good heavens, home! and at the early hour of twelve?" "Yes." "But where were you coming from?" "Oh! we had been dining at Sir William Temple's." "Ah, and is that really so? was all that Temple said at the clubs yesterday morning really true? Did you, and the Tilney, and the Leinsengen, and I don't know who else, dine with him? Well, that is really too good--why no room in London will hold Temple after this. He was always insufferable, even before he was promoted in the world; and now that affairs have taken this favourable turn, heaven knows what he will become; why he'll burst like the frog in the fable. But I am very sorry, for his dinners were good dinners in their way; now, however, they will be intolerable, for they will consist in every course of _réchauffés_ of what Lady Tilney admired, or did, or said--do tell me how the affair went off." "Indeed, Mr. Temple Vernon, I cannot talk more to-day; rather I pray you tell me some news--how did the D'Hermanton's party end?" "Well then, if you so command it, let us turn to my note book"--affecting to read, as he counted over his fingers, "Lady Tilney was _not_ at the Duchess of D'Hermanton's; Lady Ellersby _was_, but only walked through the apartments; Lady Boileau went no further than the first room; item, Mr. Pierpoint did not either; neither did Comtesse Leinsengen, who sat all the evening by Lord Baskerville, but spoke little; the Duke of Mercington only shewed his waistcoat, and then departed: all of which I hold to be signs that portend dark doings in the court of Denmark. Now this I think is a correct _résume_ of the Hermanton 'at home.' As to the politics of the last evening, it is confidently stated that the Duke of ---- has some famous bird-lime, called expediency, which will catch a vast number of young birds," turning at the same time to Lord Albert, "is it not so, my Lord?" "Mr. Temple Vernon seems so perfectly master of every body's intentions and affairs, that I scarcely know, in his presence, whether or not I am master of my own." "The fact is, my good Lord, that nobody knows what they are going to do (if they will only confess the truth) for two minutes together." "In one sense that is true enough, Mr. Temple Vernon, for we intend many things which we never do, and _vice versâ_; nevertheless our will is free, and fortunately not always under the direction of others to guide it for us."