flame--they must come the first time, nothing could prevent them; and eventually, by what Charley called 'jockey-ship' And Mrs. Chadwick 'diplomacy,' the boilermaker's wife had the pleasure of receiving one duchess, two marchionesses, four countesses, and a great number of lords and ladies at the first representation of her tableaux. From that time forth Mrs. Chadwick's course was easy. After her second season, now just concluded, she was honoured by the presence of royalty at her tableaux, and a garden-party which she gave at the villa on the Thames was pronounced the most perfect fête seen for many years; the description of it and of the company assembled filled a column of the _Sluice_, a journal not generally given to reporting such matters; and old Lord Quoch wrote a poem about it, which was made to do duty as letter-press to a fanciful river-side illustration, and published in the _Albert-gate Magazine_. By this means Mrs. Chadwick was fully established as one of the personages of the day, and her movements were duly chronicled among the 'fashionable arrangements' advertised by the fashionable journal. With all her frivolity and her hankering after great society, the woman was kindhearted, as she had proved by her treatment of her sister. When in the days gone by it was proposed by Mr. Irvine that Eleanor should be sent upon the stage, the plan was rather approved of than otherwise by Fanny, who thought it time that her sister should be earning her own livelihood, and saw nothing to be complained of in the means by which it was proposed she should do so. After her marriage, indeed, while enlarging on her own experiences in the concert-rooms, she would aver it to be a very different arena from the stage, would shake her head at the mention of ladies of the theatrical profession, of whom not more than two (who were supposed to have certificates of character from the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Editor of _Punch_) were admitted into Mrs. Chadwick's society. But formerly, when there had seemed to be a chance of thirty shillings a week being added to the general income, Fanny not merely had felt no scruple at Eleanor's following this despised profession, but had rated her sister soundly when the girl expressed her horror at the career in store for her; nor while she was still toiling in concert-rooms was she best pleased that Eleanor should be leading a comparatively easy life in that very society to which she, Fanny, had always aspired. After her marriage, however, all was very different. Mrs. Chadwick then thought it scarcely right that her sister should be 'dependent on a fine lady,' more especially a fine lady who could not be induced to take any notice of Mrs. Chadwick, although that worthy woman had what children call 'spelled' for it in every possible way; and when Mr. Irvine died, Fanny took her sister from her father's poor lodging, to which she had returned after May Dunmow's marriage, and bade her be happy at