deceive, and more than once repeated, because the question was reiterated. There could, therefore, be no doubt about it, in the opinion of Lord Castleton, who was at the party, and told me the occurrence.

I passed a sleepless night in consequence; my whole mind in nubibus; the conduct of the cousins was more and more a riddle.

CHAPTER XVII.

I MEET LORD ALBANY IN THE WORLD.-ITS CONSEQUENCES.

Know my name is lost;

By treason's tooth bare gnawn, and canker bit :

Yet am I noble as the adversary

I come to cope withal.

Thou art a traitor;

A most toad-spotted traitor! Say'st thou no?
This sword, this arm, and my best spirits are bent,
To prove upon thy heart, whereto I speak,
THOU LIEST.

SHAKSPEARE.-King Lear.

THE day after the queen's party, Prince Adolphus embarked for Germany. So said the tattling papers, this time, without a comment.

I, at least, breathed more freely for that event. Still, however, I was in a tumult of unsatisfied doubt, which I felt nothing could allay, but a certain assurance from the other quarter, either that the engagement did not exist, or that the prince, for private reasons, had misled even the queen in regard to it.

Yet, how was I to obtain the information I panted for? Lady Hungerford had positively refused it; Granville seemed to have told me all he knew; and the still most precarious state of Mr. Hastings, which detained those friends at Foljambe, precluded all opportunity of succeeding in personal inquiries.

In the midst of this embarrassment an event arose, the

most important of my life, even if it had not given, as it did, a colour to it, of the very utmost consequence to my reputation and after proceedings. As it gave rise, therefore, to much discussion, both public and private, at the time, and was differently represented according to the feelings upon it by very different parties, I will set it down in all simplicity and plainness as the facts arose, without an attempt at varnish or comment, leaving the reader to judge for hinself.

Lord Albany, of whom no mention has been made since the unhappy issue of his quarrel with poor Foljambe Hastings, left England as soon as his recovery from his own wound would permit him. Whether he felt himself so much to blame in having, in so trifling a case, exposed his own life, and cause the loss of that of his friend, that he feared the censure of society, and so absented himself from it till the matter should be blown over (all which, from his character, is not probable), or whether a career of impetuous pleasure in which he embarked abroad, at first, as he said, to make him forget this lamentable catastrophe, but which at last laid such hold of him, that he cared not to return to his sober country; certain it is, that for near four years he had remained a sort of exile from his native land. The interval he had passed in visiting the remotest, as well as the neighbouring parts of Europe, and after traversing Greece, the Archipelago, and Turkey, had extendend his travels over Mount Caucasus, Circassia, and Georgia. These examined, he seated himself alternately at Vienna and Paris, with what profit to his manners or character the sequel will shew.

On his return to London, he found the gossip of the town employed upon the handsome Adolphus, who had made a kind of sensation at the palace; and as the papers had put the beau monde upon the scent, everybody, for a day or two, was inquiring into the story of the two cousins. All were convinced that they had been, some that they were still, betrothed; some that the contract was broken off; all anxious to know or explain why.

I had listened rather uneasily for two days, at dinners where I was present, to these discussions, but held my peace ;when, on the third, I had the misfortune to meet Lord Albany.

It was at Lord Hartlebury's, a valued friend of Lord Castleton's, a veteran general officer of known gallantry, and

of high character for honour and good sense, that I met the marquess. Not knowing of his return home, I was surprised to see him enter the drawing-room before dinner, with a visage and manner of even increased ferocity and haughtiness. I knew him directly;-indeed there was no mistaking his look of reckleness and disdain. Whether he recognised me, though he perused me with his glass, I don't know. He certainly acted as if he did not; and having seen me not above three or four times, and that when I was a comparative stripling, five years before, I acquit him (not having been introduced) of all knowledge of my person.

Nothing particular passed during the actual dinner, and if (not having been presented to him) he shewed me no civility, it was no more than he did by his known friends, who were nearer to him, and over whom he seemed to domineer with a most imperious and offensive air. It was easy to see he was not popular, and Lord Hartlebury himself, though he shewed deference to his quality, was evidently anuoyed by his manner.

No one had yet mentioned the common topic of the day, when he himself led to it, by asking if any body had seen the illustrious stranger, whom the queen and the whole bedchamber had not yet done talking of.

"I have," said Lord Hartlebury, "and I am not surprised at the impression he made, for he is as soft and graceful in manner, particularly to women, as he is decidedly handsome." "Indeed!" said Lord Albany. "Then how came he to fail in carrying his point with that pert damsel, his cousin, my old flame and acquaintance? To be sure, she is a devlish coquette, and bas jilted not a few; poor Harry Melford and me, you know, among them."

Here he looked round with a sardonic laugh, as if to shew either that the fact was not true, or that he was perfectly indifferent to it.

"If you mean Miss Hastings," said Lord Hartlebury, "I did not know you had been one of her admirers, much less that she had jilted you."

"No" cried Lord Albany (seeming to think he had disclosed more than was necessary); I thought everybody knew that. But I could not long occupy myself with such a country cbit, though an enormous coquette, who would flirt with

anybody that would flirt with her. Melford, me, her cousin Mansell, and-"

"That too is new to me," said Lord Hartlebury, interrupting him.

"But yet," continued Lord Albany, "I am surprised, that to be married to a prince, though a poor one, had not charins enough for a person whose father is always boasting, on the mere strength of his name, of a high descent, which I believe he caunot make out. At any rate, the prospect of such an alliance ought to have cured her of flirting; particularly as they say the family is ruined, and that supposed fine fortune of hers most cruelly attenuated. She will, at least, not be able to jilt many more."

Had this insolent nobleman stabbed me to the heart with a dagger, he could not have given me more pain than he did by this speech, in which he was by no means countenanced by any one of the party. On the contrary, all looked aloof, some resentful, and one generous one, the young Sir William Wentworth, to whom I had been introduced by Granville, and the neighbours in Yorkshire, though little known to Mr. Hastings, had risen to express what he thought of this slander, when I prevented him, for my heart was full, and my blood boiled.

"Lord Albany," said I, "one would have thought, that having taken the life of the brother, in revenge for your disappointment with the sister, you might have spared that sister, and been satisfied without slandering a lady as irreproachable as heaven. You have, too, in what you have said, disparaged and spoken disrespectfully of a gentleman of known worth, and who, though not equal to you in title, is of a birth far superior to your own. The good taste of such sneers against those whose alliance you once courted, though without success, I will not inquire into, any more than the bravery of it, in their absence, and that of all their relations; but when you come to a positive imputation of the crime of levity and jilting to this young lady, as proved in your own instance, as a friend, though a humble one, of the family, and knowing the circumstances, I am bound to tell you, you have been guilty of a wilful violation of the truth."

The whole company was startled at this reproof; yet more, seemingly, from apprehension of the consequences, than be

cause they disapproved it. The young Sir William, too, of an ardent spirit, and who had just got his commission in the guards, absolutely clapped his hands, and exclaimed, "Quite right, quite right."

All the rest preserved a profound silence, though it was easy to perceive they were much moved; when Lord Albany, after eying Sir William, said, with more coolness than I expected,

"I perceive I have two challengers upon my hands, to whom I am expected to give battle. One of them I knowSir William Wentworth, a gentleman at least; but you, Sir, of whose very name I am ignorant, who the devil are you?" The whole company seemed again moved by this insolence, and Lord Hartlebury rose to interfere, but before he could speak, I replied,

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My name is lost; yet it was once well known as bonourable and noble in the history of my country, long before your lordship's had emerged from obscurity."

Lord Albany looked mad with rage, and the table seemed struck with still more interest at this answer, which was increased when I went on :

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My name is De Clifford, once owned by the lords of Clifford Castle, whose resentments, when they had any, never stooped to calumniate a defenceless lady in her absence." Right again, by G—!” cried Sir William, who could not repress his feelings.

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"I believe I now recollect you," answered Lord Albany, almost suffocated with pride. "I think you were a servitor, or some such thing, when I was at Oxford, and a follower of the Hastings family. It seems that at least you have not forgot your duty to them, and earn your wages.'

"My lord," now interposed Lord Hartlebury," this must not go on. Were Mr. De Clifford not the gentleman I know him to be, he is my guest, and I cannot permit such taunts to proceed. But what Mr. De Clifford has said of himself I know to be true; and as a gentleman, even if he were not in high confidential office under the king, in all but rank he is fully your lordship's equal."

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My lord," returned the Marquess, rising from his chair, "you may permit, or not permit, what you please. I take this speech of yours as an order to be gone, and I obey. For