understand how any but military men could wear mustachios; and then she looked fondly and archly at her uncle, and said she liked none that were not grey. Clive set her down as a very haughty, spoiled, aristocratic young creature. If he had been in love with her, no doubt he would have sacrificed even those beloved new-born whiskers for the charmer. Had he not already bought on credit the necessary implements in a fine dressing-case, from young Moss? But he was not in love with her; otherwise he would have found a thousand opportunities of riding with her, walking with her, meeting her, in spite of all prohibitions tacit or expressed, all governesses, guardians, mamma’s punctilios, and kind hints from friends. For a while, Mr. Clive thought himself in love with his cousin; than whom no more beautiful young girl could be seen in any park, ball, or drawing-room; and he drew a hundred pictures of her, and discoursed about her beauties to J. J., who fell in love with her on hearsay. But at this time Mademoiselle Saltarelli was dancing at Drury Lane Theatre, and it certainly may be said that Clive’s first love was bestowed upon that beauty: whose picture of course he drew in most of her favourite characters; and for whom his passion lasted until the end of the season, when her night was announced, tickets to be had at the theatre, or of Mademoiselle Saltarelli, Buckingham Street, Strand. Then it was that with a throbbing heart and a five-pound note, to engage places for the houri’s benefit, Clive beheld Madame Rogomme, Mademoiselle Saltarelli’s mother, who entertained him in the French language in a dark parlour smelling of onions. And oh! issuing from the adjoining dining-room (where was a dingy vision of a feast and pewter pots upon a darkling tablecloth), could that lean, scraggy, old, beetle-browed yellow face, who cried, “Ou es tu donc, maman?” with such a shrill nasal voice—could that elderly vixen be that blooming and divine Saltarelli? Clive drew her picture as she was, and a likeness of Madame Rogomme, her mamma; a Mosaic youth, profusely jewelled, and scented at once with tobacco and eau-de-cologne, occupied Clive’s stall on Mademoiselle Saltarelli’s night. It was young Mr. Moss, of Gandish’s to whom Newcome ceded his place, and who laughed (as he always did at Clive’s jokes) when the latter told the story of his interview with the dancer. “Paid five pound to see that woman! I could have took you behind the scenes” (or “beide the seeds,” Mr. Moss said) “and showed her to you for nothing.” Did he take Clive behind the scenes? Over this part of the young gentleman’s life, without implying the least harm to him—for have not others been behind the scenes; and can there be any more dreary object than those whitened and raddled old women who shudder at the slips?—over this stage of Clive Newcome’s life we may surely drop the curtain.