afoot by the De Mogyns to get the Duchess of Buckskin to her parties, would strike a Talleyrand with admiration. She had a brain fever after being disappointed of an invitation to Lady Aldermanbury's THE DANSANT, and would have committed suicide but for a ball at Windsor. I have the following story from my noble friend Lady Clapperclaw herself,—Lady Kathleen O'Shaughnessy that was, and daughter of the Earl of Turfanthunder:—

   'When that odious disguised Irishwoman, Lady Muggins, was struggling to take her place in the world, and was bringing out her hidjous daughter Blanche,' said old Lady Clapperclaw—(Marian has a hump-back and doesn't show, but she's the only lady in the family)—'when that wretched Polly Muggins was bringing out Blanche, with her radish of a nose, and her carrots of ringlets, and her turnip for a face, she was most anxious—as her father had been a cowboy on my father's land—to be patronized by us, and asked me point-blank, in the midst of a silence at Count Volauvent's, the French Ambassador's dinner, why I had not sent her a card for my ball?

   '"Because my rooms are already too full, and your ladyship would be crowded inconveniently," says I; indeed she takes up as much room as an elephant: besides I wouldn't have her, and that was flat.

   'I thought my answer was a settler to her: but the next day she comes weeping to my arms—"Dear Lady Clapperclaw," says she, "it's not for ME; I ask it for my blessed Blanche! a young creature in her first season, and not at your ball! My tender child will pine and die of vexation. I don't want to come. I will stay at home to nurse Sir Alured in the gout. Mrs. Bolster is going, I know; she will be Blanche's chaperon."

   '"You wouldn't subscribe for the Rathdrum blanket and potato fund; you, who come out of the parish," says I, "and whose grandfather, honest man, kept cows there."

   '"Will twenty guineas be enough, dearest Lady Clapperclaw?"

   '"Twenty guineas is sufficient," says I, and she paid them; so I said, "Blanche may come, but not you, mind:" and she left me with a world of thanks.

   'Would you believe it?—when my ball came, the horrid woman made her appearance with her daughter!

   "Didn't I tell you not to come?" said I, in a mighty passion. "What would the world have said?" cries my Lady Muggins: "my carriage is gone for Sir Alured to the Club; let me stay only ten minutes, dearest Lady Clapperclaw."

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