growth of any thing. I am for every thing starting into full-blown perfection at once."

"Yes, you say true," said Mrs St Clair, significantly, as she caught her daughter's last words,

"art seems to carry the day with you in all things, Gertrude; 'tis well you are beginning to discover your own foible."

Colonel Delmour bit his lip, and the Countess blushed with wounded feeling, as she bent her head to pick up some of the scattered rose leaves.

CHAPTER IX.

Une personne à la mode n'a de prix et de beauté que ce qu'elle emprunte d'un caprice léger qui nait et qui tombe presque dans le même instant : aujourd'hui elle est courue, les femmes s'en parent; demain elle est négligée, et rendue au peuple. LA BRUYERE.

LADY ROSSVILLE's departure from the home of her fathers called forth the regrets and the lamentations of the poor; for although her attentions towards them had somewhat relaxed since Colonel Delmour's arrival, yet she had done enough under Lyndsay's auspices, to render herself completely beloved by them. The various works, too, which she had begun, all in the spirit of profuseness and self-gratification, contributed for the present to her popularity, and she flattered herself, that she was equally actuated by beneficence and humanity, although they had taken a different direction under her lover, from what they had done under her cousin's guidance.

She sent splendid rather than suitable gifts, to her aunts, and her cousin Anne, and directed that the former should be constantly supplied with the choicest of fruits and flowers from Rossville. She felt unwilling to depart without sending some remembrance to Lyndsay-some little token of her gratitude for all she owed him of generous interference of time, and trouble, and kindness hitherto but ill requited; yet she feared to mention the subject before Colonel Delmour, aware of the jealous irritability it might excite. At length the thought struck her, to send him a picture of his mother, which was the most admired and conspicuous of any of the family portraits. It was a Sir Joshua, and done at a time when the subject was in all the graces of early beauty, and the artist in all the fulness of his perfection. The picture was, therefore, not merely precious as a portrait, but was valuable in itself, as most of that great master's works are, on account of its own intrinsic beauty. "There is something of Lyndsay in the half-melancholy, half-smiling expression of those dark eyes," thought Gertrude, as she looked on the picture; "something, too, of his reproachful look," added she, with a sigh,

as her heart told her he had cause to reproach her.

She wrote a few lines to accompany the picture, which was to be packed and sent, after she was gone; and then, all being arranged, she bade adieu to Rossville, and the tears stood in her eyes as she looked on its budding woods and sparkling waters, in the soft rays of vernal sunshine.

Mrs St Clair had peremptorily refused permission to Colonel Delmour to accompany them to London, and Gertrude had at once conceded that point to her mother. However much chagrined, he was, therefore obliged to acquiesce, and as his rate of travelling was rather more rapid than theirs, he preceded them by several days, and (apprised by a note from the Countess of their approach to the metropolis) was at the hotel ready to receive them on their arrival.

The following day, he brought his mother and sisters to introduce them to Gertrude. She had anticipated the meeting with that trepidation natural to one so situated, but her timidity was soon dispelled by the pleasant social manners of Lady Augusta, and the lively, good-humoured frankness of her

daughters. There was much to attract, and no. thing to be afraid of, and before they had been half an hour together, Gertrude felt as though she were already one of themselves. They were pressed to dine with Lady Augusta in Brook Street, but Mrs St Clair declared herself too much fatigued with the journey for such an exertion, and Gertrude resisted their entreaties, out of compliment to her mother. They were however, to meet the following day, when something was to be fixed, and after much talking, and a great display of affection on both sides between the cousins, they parted. Even Mrs St Clair was more pleased with them than she cared to admit to herself, for they had paid her more attention than she was accustomed to receive, and had they not been Colonel Delmour's mother and sister, she would have been loud in her praises of them. Gertrude spoke of them to her lover with all the warmth she felt, but he appeared but little gratified by her commendations: "You do not seem sufficiently sensible how charming they are," said she; " you did not say half enough in their praise."

"I told you you would find Lady Augusta a