the visited wishes to make agreeable. All is show, all false, and all made up. Coterie succeeds coterie, equally smiling—the explosions take place in his absence. Even a grand passion, which teaches a man more, perhaps, than anything else, is not very easily excited by the traveller. The women know that, sooner or later, he must disappear; and though this is the case with all lovers, they do not like to miss the possibility of delusion. Thus the heroines keep in the background, and the visitor, who is always in a hurry, falls into the net of the first flirtation that offers.     

       The Duke of St. James had, however, acquired a great knowledge; if not of mankind, at any rate of manners. He had visited all Courts, and sparkled in the most brilliant circles of the Continent. He returned to his own country with a taste extremely refined, a manner most polished, and a person highly accomplished.     

  

       CHAPTER III.     

      The Duke Returns 

       A SORT of scrambling correspondence had been kept up between the young Duke and his cousin, Lord St. Maurice, who had for a few months been his fellow-traveller. By virtue of these epistles, notice of the movements of their interesting relative occasionally reached the circle at Fitz-pompey House, although St. Maurice was scanty in the much-desired communications; because, like most young Englishmen, he derived singular pleasure from depriving his fellow-creatures of all that small information which every one is so desirous to obtain. The announcement, however, of the approaching arrival of the young Duke was duly made. Lord Fitz-pompey wrote and offered apartments at Fitz-pompey House. They were refused. Lord Fitz-pompey wrote again to require instructions for the preparation of Hauteville House. His letter was unanswered. Lord Fitz-pompey was quite puzzled.     

       ‘When does your cousin mean to come, Charles?’ ‘Where does your cousin mean to go, Charles?’ ‘What does your cousin mean to do, Charles?’ These were the hourly queries of the noble uncle.     

       At length, in the middle of January, when no one expected him, the Duke of St. James arrived at Mivart’s.     

       He was attended by a French cook, an Italian valet, a German jäger, and a       

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