The butler stood on the steps of the grand portico overlooking the park, exhibiting his broad red face and broad white waistcoat; while, with an outspread hand overshading his eyes, he peered out upon the distant domain, in hopes of obtaining a glimpse of my lord, who had sauntered out after luncheon with his dogs. But no Lord Hillingdon was to be seen! Divers menials of the house, from the standard footman in his plush and tags to the stable-helper in his fustian suit, were vainly despatched in search of him; and it was not till his return two hours afterwards, at the summons of the dinner-gong, that his lordship was apprized by a portly dame, arrayed in dimity and valenciennes, that he was father of a son and heir, and that my lady was "as well as could be expected."

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My lord" expected, apparently, that she should be as well as usual; for instantly

rushing to her apartment, without regard to

the admonitions of the nurse or the warning of closed window-shutters and muffled doors, he signified in his usual robust and sportsmanlike tones to the invalid his joy that all was over, and his gratitude at being blest with a boy.

Lady Hillingdon was too languid either to remonstrate or reply; but the stately dame in dimity hastened to conduct him into the adjoining chamber; where, attended by half-a-dozen smiling, chattering ladies of the bedchamber, the new-born babe, half smothered in lace and cambric, lay nestling in a costly crib, as fine as silk, gilding, and rosewood could render the first receptacle of a creature of clay, newly struggled into a world of care and tribulation.

All made way for the happy father; who was requested to admire his own dimple on the chin of his little son, and my lady's

sweet smile upon lips which were just then a recent dose of physic into an

distorted by

expression of considerable distaste for the ways of this world. But Lord Hillingdon, if less enthusiastic than the nurses, was too much gratified by the birth of an heir to his estate to care about its claims to the personal beauty of either parent. The village bells were about to be rung and bonfires to blaze in the park, though the dimple in the chin might be apocryphal, and Lady Hillingdon's sweet smile decidedly supposititious.

The value of this acquisition to the family was, in fact, exceedingly enhanced by having been four years waited for. Lord Hillingdon, after succeeding to the family title and estates in early boyhood, and going through the usual aristocratic routine of Eton and Oxford, had fallen desperately in love at the first ball of his first season in town, with the sweet face of a certain Emma Corbet, displayed there for the express purpose of being fallen in love with; the daughter of

parents of moderate fortune, ambitious of forming good matches for their children.

They had made a dash beyond their means, in order to introduce the lovely Emma into society; and thought themselves sufficiently rewarded for their risk when, within a week of his first introduction, young Hillingdon made proposals in form; and, within six, was honoured with their daughter's hand at the altar.

So fashionable a wedding naturally called forth the comments of the newspapers and the envy of many of their readers. Mr and Mrs Corbet, though they could give no fortune to the bride, chose to dazzle the eyes of the world by a splendid trousseau; and Emma, the appliances and means of whose vanity had hitherto been limited, was justified in the inference that the grand object of matrimony is to exchange tiffany for velvet, and jacconot for brocade. During the month that preceded her nuptials, she

was continually summoned from the side of her adoring Hillingdon, to try on dresses or decide upon the comparative shades of a satin. She heard of nothing but finery!—and the point lace of her wedding-gown was far more voluminously discussed in her hearing than the duties of the holy estate into which she was about to enter.

Her mother exulted loudly, indeed, in the excellence of the match, while her father protested that Emma was a devilish lucky girl; but as no mention of Lord Hillingdon's personal qualities entered into their enumeration of the advantages of the connexion, the bride was left to conclude that the chief part of her good fortune consisted in the coronet embroidered on her cambric handkerchiefs and pincushion covers, and the case of family jewels reported to be resetting for her use.

Emma Corbet was not yet eighteen; and her first season in town, which was to be her last, had not destroyed the simplicity of mind