shionable--it is their only
ambition--they try hard for it; and it is generally the case that those
who devote themselves to any pursuit have some success in it, and only
right that it should be so. Then they are hopelessly good-natured folks,
that you can't insult or quarrel with." Sedley had so little of this
quality himself that he looked on the possession of it as a weakness
rather than a virtue. "Then they are very fond of good living."

"Yes, I remember hearing Benson say that he always liked to feed Mrs.
Robinson at a ball,--it was a perfect pleasure to see her eat; and that
when Loewenberg, in the pride of his heart, gave a three-days'
_dejeuner_, or lunch, or whatever it was, after his marriage, she was
seen there three times each day."

"And he might have told you that they are as liberal of their own good
things as fond of those of others. Old Robinson has some first-rate
Madeira, better by a long chalk than that Vanderlyn Sercial that Harry
Benson is always cramming down your throat--metaphorically, I mean, not
literally. The young men like to drop in there of an evening, for they
are sure to find a good supper and plenty of materials ready for punch
and polka. Then they always manage to catch the newest lions. When I
first saw you in their carriage along-side of Miss Julia, I said to
myself, "That Englishman must be somebody, or the Robinsons would not
have laid hold of him so soon." But their two seasons in Paris were the
making of them,--and the unmaking, too, in another sense; for they ate
such a hole in their fortune--or, rather, their French guests did for
them--that it has never recovered its original dimensions to this day.
They took a grand hotel, and gave magnificent balls, and filled their
rooms with the Parisian aristocracy. My uncle, who is an _habitue_ of
Paris, was at the Jockey Club one day, and heard two exquisites talking
about them. "_Connaissez-vous ce Monsieur Robinson?_" asked one.
"_Est-ce que je le connais!_" replied the other, shrugging his
shoulders. "_Je mange ses diners, je danse a ses bals; v'la tout." Voila
tout_, indeed! That is just all our people get by keeping open house for
foreigners."

Just then Benson and Ludlow came up, the former under much excitement,
and the latter in a sad state of profanity. As they both insisted on
talking at once, it was some time before either was intelligible; at
length Ashburner made out that the excursion had met with a double
check. In th