ADVENTURES OF A FIRST SEASON.

COMING TO TOWN.-LOVERS.

Six months had elapsed, and I had left the dear old home with the acacias that waved before the door. I had taken a pathetic leave of the great Newfoundland-dog-I had bid a long farewell to the copse and its verdant walks-overshadowed with shady boughs-to the desolate park and the wild gravel-pit, and I had sighed when I remembered that spring was approaching, and that the flowers would blossom in all their glorious tints, but that I should be far away, unable to admire them, or to watch the multitude of bees and gaudy butterflies as they chased each other from sweet to sweet.

I was now, in London, and, truth to tell, had somewhat forgotten my quiet life at home. Books and flowers, and the charms of spring, were temporarily obliterated by the novelty and pleasures of a first season in town, and all the delightful excitement thereunto belonging. We were established in a small house in a fashionable neighbourhood; our means being limited, as I did not come into possession of my fortune until after one-and-twenty, and my mother's was not large.

Of course all my wardrobe had undergone a thorough revision, and being delivered over into the merciless hands of a fashionable dressmaker, my garments were reformed in the most complete manner. Commencing with those necessary but unmentionable "supports," that as often destroy as improve the female figure, I was placed in the midst of whalebones, and laced until I absolutely believed myself in a prison of iron; but my loud lamentations were only met with assurances of the great improvement to my figure, and exhortations to draw in my waist rather more-advice, I need not add, I cared not to comply with. Then I was consoled by the arrival of baskets-full of new dresses-white, spotless, elegant ball-dresses-light as a zephyr. Elegant dinner costumes of silk or fancy materials, and morning toilettes, quite à ravir. My vanity was tickled, and so I patiently bore the infliction of the internal stocks, until I suppose I grew to them, for I felt them no

more.

All this display of dress was duly admired and commented on by a good-hearted little country maiden that had accompanied me in the capacity of maid; but who, poor innocent soul, knew as little about adorning a young débutante as I did myself. She could only stand by and wonder, and clap her hands at the notion of " Missy" being so smart. But she was otherwise of infinite use to me, for, being the only person as ignorant as I was myself, I could freely wonder and converse with her of the strangeness of all we saw. Then, when tired of doing company in the drawing-room, or of driving in the carriage round that wearisome Hyde Park, what romps we used to have! Good heavens! if I lived to the age of Methuselah can I forget how, retiring to the uppermost story of the house, and shutting all the doors, we fought and struggled with each other like schoolboys, by way of proving which was the strongest, or, spreading the feather beds on the floor, we made believe it was a haycock, and rolled in them until, what with the previous fight and the heat, we were so exhausted and tired that neither of us could move, but lay there

Oh!

laughing at each other like a couple of happy fools as we were. what merry jovial days of fun! One half-hour of such genuine mirth out weighs centuries of stiff-stilted amusement, where Nature has long been forgotten in favour of her rival Art, and where, like the dolls in a theatre of Fantocini, people all move on certain established and approved springs (of action).

But with all this indulgence of a certain innate hoydenism, I really was become somewhat versed in society, and should no longer have led an admiring lord into a gravel-pit by way of a pastime, or cried because he would not admire it as much as I did. No one would have recognised the débutante, whose fortune was positively stated to be 10,000l. a year (the usual figure of all heiresses before marriage), in the romp who retired to the attics in order to let off the steam of superabundant good spirits in violent romps with a little rustic. But so it was.

Then I was so molested with lovers or admirers (always remember of my fortune, for I was not such a fool as to be deceived in what was the object of their love), that I was at times driven quite beside myself, and used fairly to cut and run, leaving mamma to entertain these interesting young gentlemen; I hated them all save one-but of him more hereafter. He shall not be mixed up with the common herd.

There was always the little aristocrat grown prouder and more affected than ever. Of course all that noble family were in town, and my little gentleman was of the party, having left Eton and entered on his town career. We met occasionally-never when we could help it. But sometimes, by the united efforts of papa and the two mammas, were forced to be civil and walk arm-in-arm; a real infliction to us both; for, since the gravel-pit walk, mutual indifference had given birth to a kind of hatred, at least, I can answer for my own cordial antipathy.

The most troublesome of my swains, nearly as numerous as those of the witty Venetian, the heiress of Belmont, was a certain young clergyman of good family and high connexions, but who positively had not a penny to bless himself withal. Without any depth of character, he was agreeable and good-natured. Perfectly self-satisfied, and never dreaming that his attentions might be disagreeable, his audacity was quite curious; nothing put him down. He laughed and talked, and called and offered his arm for a walk, or as an escort at the play, with a happy assurance, that neither utter silence, cool looks, or short rejoinders, in any way affected. My mother, considered, when necessary, a kind of domestic governor, and nick-named Queen Boadicea, as being of a stern and warlike complexion, in vain brought all her artillery, and dignified reserve, and black looks against this shred of the garment of Aaron. He was invulnerable, and came in next day rubbing his hands, smiling, and offering his services, as if he were well-assured that he, and he only, was the welcome beau whom I expected. At last I really began to admire his never-failing good-nature, it was like an inexhaustible spring, that flows and flows until it becomes so troublesome that people are obliged to attend to it.

The worst of the matter was, that this hero had a mamma, a venerable lady whom I really loved. But she loved her son, her youngest, her penniless; the eldest was a baronet, and well-married to a rich widow; as she loved him with all the doting fondness of age, she fancied all the world must love and admire him as much as she did; the consequence of which was, that all my affection and all my attentions

shown to her were construed by them both as a plain, though covert encouragement of" dear Charles.

If I pressed her to visit me often (which I did, as I delighted in her calm gentle conversation, anecdotes, and reflections about by-gone years, like a chapter out of an amusing memoir; for she was a woman of considerable acquirement, and had mixed a great deal with the wits of her day, and had been on terms of intimacy with many a celebrated character, whose name is canonized in the world's breviary)-well, if I pressed her to visit me, straightway was this construed into a decided, though delicately expressed, desire on my part to see her " dear Charles.” So, accordingly, to my great annoyance, no sooner had I greeted my agreeable old friend, than I perceived the tall figure of the darling boy advancing behind her, and saw the happy gratified look with which the kind old soul turned towards him, saying-" Dear Charles could not think of letting me come here alone (with an emphasis), and has accompanied me. I know he will be welcome."

Who could have the heart to undeceive her, or sadden by one look her maternal pride? Not I, at any rate. So I smiled a false smile of false welcome to the tall parson, and impressed a true kiss of real affection on the sunken cheek of his aged parent.

She used on these occasions to look so happy! Already by those very false optics (more deceptive than the most partially coloured spectacles), "the mind's eye," all very well for the guidance of such a genius as Hamlet, but quite delusive to poor old Lady C- she saw her son already possessed of 10,000l. a year, my positively stated fortune (not a groat less, my dear fellow, I assure you, Miss has a round

10,000l., said Captain to his friend Jack Spanker at the club). She saw him emancipated from the humiliating trammels of a poor country curacy of 100%. a year, where he was forced to catechize dirty children who won't learn, scold their mammas, and exhort their papas, who delighted in cursing rather than in blessing, and loved the beer-shop far better than the church. Where he had to christen young children in cold and frosty seasons at inconvenient hours; which, as they always roared, and he hated babies, was a sad infliction. To marry dirty clod-hoppers to rustic Nancys, perhaps the very day, the very hour at which he was invited to join in a battue at a great duke's some four miles off. Which was a grievous bore, for who knew what such a man as dear Charles might do? what impression he might make on some magnificent peer possessed perhaps of first-rate patronage, to say nothing of my lord duke himself, who, after seeing him a few times, could not fail to be struck with his superior attainments, and determine on making the fortune of so talented a young man. All this was vexing in the highest degree, but nothing to being called away from the county ball, where he might be dancing with the belle of the room, and flirting as well as dancing; for dear Charles, according to his mother, was such a sad flirt that, as she told me, she really was wretched when she thought of all the hearts he had broken. To be called away, I say, in the very hour of glory to pray beside the bed of some wretched pauper, long an inmate of the parish poorhouse, whose soul, fluttering between time and eternity, desired consolation, yet lay so steeped in ignorance, as scarcely to comprehend the gracious message that was conveyed to it. For even the frivolity of Charles could not impair the grandeur, the sublimity of that beautiful service appointed by our church to soothe the dying hours of the peasant who

delves in the damp ditch, and the mighty monarch who holds three kingdoms in her sway!

This was bad enough, in Charles's opinion, and it did seem very hard that Goody Jones should have got worse that very night, and that the matron, taking it into her stupid head she was dying (when he was sure it was all a false alarm), should send for him away from the ball which was held only four times a year in the county hall at R

But this was a trifle to what dear Charles had to endure at the burials, which were pretty frequent in his parish. Sometimes, for instance, in a cold, mizzling, wet day in January, Charles had martyrdom to endure, according to his mother. With ice and melting snow all around, and a thin rain falling that penetrated the skin and froze on the hair and clothes in small icicles, which, melting with the breath, gave a double wetting; one of those regular English winter days in that cold wretched month in which the New-year insists on being born in the present century.

After sitting shaking in a miserable vestry without a fire, where the walls had become green with damp, for upwards of an hour, while the mournful and squalid procession, bearing poverty to its last home, was slipping and sliding through the snow in the neighbouring lanes, Charles at last was informed that the corpse was in sight. Upon which enlivening announcement, rising from the old arm-chair where he had vainly striven to catch a nap in order to forget the cold, Charles, with many a sigh and a most dolorous countenance, proceeded to clothe himself in the orthodox garments, assisted by the clerk. Then, book in hand, he must perforce proceed to the porch, and, after one dismal look on the dreary scene around, emerge bare-headed into the chilling rain, and proceeding down the path, receive the procession with those inspired words of divine promise and never-dying hope, that speak the immortal quality of our internal essence. Any heart, but one so vain and foolish as that of Charles, would have forgotten self, the past, and the present, in the future, which, looming through the chances and changes of this mortal life, rises in gigantic form aloft; visions might have been evoked by such a scene as should have raised his spirit towards those everlasting realms whither had already fled the soul of this poor peasant. But Charles of the "earth earthly" possessed not a mind of this stamp. He looked at the rain dripping on his book and pouring on his head; he felt that he was cold and chilled, and dreaded intensely having an attack of influenza: all which thoughts passing through his mind, caused him to read ill and hurriedly. So he concluded as he had begun, without attention, and, hastening to the grave, closed the scene of earth to earth, and dust to dust, with irreverent precipitation, and, shutting his book, hurried home.

Who on such occasions can describe the solicitude of his mamma-the lamentations with which she received her darling! how she grieved over him, and actually abused the cause of his sufferings! Who can describe the care with which she prepared his dry clothes, and pressed him to bathe his feet in hot water, or the inexpressible comfort of the snug little parlour at the vicarage, where, after discussing a simple, but wellcooked dinner, Charles having imbibed with much relish a glass of brandyand-water, prepared by his mother's own hand, and rather stiff in quality, he sank to sleep in a comfortable arm-chair, under the united influence of a blazing, cheerful fire, a good dinner, and a most soporific beverage!

No one can wonder that with such a mother, and leading the life of

indulgence he did, Charles's naturally generous heart should become clouded with selfishness, and all noble aspirations or manly impulses were dwarfed, and finally destroyed by selfish frivolity and worldliness. He looked on himself at last as a victim, because his mother (whose naturally strong sense was clouded by maternal affection) was everlastingly pitying and pampering him.

Such was the husband whom this mother had selected for me; nor could I blame her, for she firmly believed him to be the first of his sex, a very Grandison, or, if my readers are not acquainted with that antique and inimitable novel, and the perfections of its super-human hero, let me seek in the catalogue of modern romance for an example, and say a Bertram-Harry Bertram, alias Vanbeest Brown, the pupil of the renowned Dominie Sampson, and the lover of that delicious, romanceloving shrew, Julia Mannering.

Lady C saw her son, as I have said, possessed of that magic sum of 10,000l. a-year, the same as appropriated by the celebrated Tittle Bat Titmouse of immortal memory, delivered from all the torments of that dreadful, insufferable parish-rid of births, marriages, and burials, and placed as a bright particular star in his own sphere of life, moving in the society of his grand relations, from which he was now per force much excluded, and attracting universal admiration. She also saw me his happy wife, delighted at having been able, at what shopkeepers call "a ruinous sacrifice," to secure such a jewel for a husband, and proud and delighted to display my choice before the world. So fixed was the good old lady in this idea, that nothing could undeceive her short of a flat refusal; so that now, when Charles had temporarily disposed "of that bore his parish," and come up to town principally to see me, and prevent any London beau from running away with me, I never could accomplish seeing her alone. Spite of my coolness and evident annoyance, and mamma's ominous distance and reserve, she would insist on always bringing "dear Charles ;" and when he positively could not come, she then contented herself with incessantly talking of him to me. Never was such a dead set made at an unhappy girl; and what with love for the old lady, who was delightful with all her foibles, and distress at the idea of her bitter disappointment, I really think she would have ended by working on my goodnature, and making me, nolens volens, marry her "dear Charles " after all.

But events intervened which made me soon forget this nonpareil, whose bachelor career unhappily ended by marrying a country miss as penniless as himself; an imprudence that necessitated his continuing in the galling trammels of clerical country practice all his life, to the eternal extinction of those brilliant visions formed by the poor old lady, who did not long survive this disappointment; added to the rapid birth of two or three grandchildren, who, to her mind, ensured the poverty and ruin in store for her "dear Charles."

As yet I had not been presented, but as mamma was only awaiting the pleasure of our all gracious lady the Queen to please to have a drawing-room, on which occasion she was to present me, I was considered eligible to make my appearance in public so far as to go to parties, &c. It was about this time that I went to my first London ball, and great was my trepidation on finding myself entering with my mother an immense saloon, at midnight, brilliantly illuminated, and filled with a