Arriving late at Dr. Molyneux's assembly, the energetic dowager was fain to content herself with a resting-place in one of the broad window-seats, where she installed herself very comfortably, but much to the discomfiture of a young lady in pink _tulle_, spotted and festooned with innocent white daisies. The damsel in pink had been working the destruction--in a clubbable point of view--of an aristocratic Guardsman of six feet two and a half, but the advent of the Scottish widow scared her covey, and the irrevocable word remained unspoken. The dowager, who read almost every thing that was to be read, had fallen on a new view of some important feature in the science of physiology, and insisted upon discussing her theories with a distinguished surgeon; while Cecil, very weary and indifferent, found her way to a seat on the broad flight of stairs leading to an upper floor, and sat there above an animated group of pretty girls who were eating ices and talking through the banisters to the gilded youth upon the lower stairs. Sitting here, enthroned above the rest, as on a daïs, and fanning herself listlessly, Lady Cecil was seen by the man who was to make himself the master of her destiny. Scarcely ten minutes had elapsed since the arrival of Mrs. MacClaverhouse and her niece, when the gilded youth upon the staircase were fluttered by the advent of a sturdy stranger, whose broad shoulders made a passage through the elegant crowd very much as a blundering collier might cut her way athwart a fleet of prize wherries; while a massive forehead, and a bush of straight brown hair arose above all those beautiful partings and ambrosial locks of exactly the same pattern. The gilded youth, turning indignantly upon the pushing stranger with the stalwart shoulders and resolute elbows, beheld a man who was known to most people by sight, and to all England by the record of his doings and sayings in the newspapers. The pushing stranger was no other than Mr. O'Boyneville, Queen's Counsel, one of the most popular men at the English Bar, and the man whose reckless audacity and ready cleverness had won more causes than were ever gained by the eloquence of a Berryer or the splendid declamation of an Erskine. The loungers on the staircase were almost reconciled to being pushed when they discovered how popular a man had elbowed them; and several claimed acquaintance with the great O'Boyneville. "Read your speech in that breach of promise case," said one; "never read any thing so jolly." "I should like to have seen you and Valentine pitching into each other in the Common Pleas yesterday. It isn't every man who can shut up Valentine," said another.