dreaded lest my father should disapprove of my conduct before I had an
opportunity of showing him how little I had been to blame throughout.
The noise and din of the carriages, the oaths and exclamations of the
coachmen, and the uproar of the streets turned my attention from these
thoughts, and I asked what was the meaning of the crowd.

'A great ball, sir, at Lady Charlotte Hinton's.'

This was a surprise, and not of the pleasantest. I had wished that my
first meeting with my father at least should have been alone and in
quietness, where I could fairly have told him every important event of
my late life, and explained wherefore I so ardently desired immediate
employment on active service and a total change in that career which
weighed so heavily on my spirits. The carriage drew up at the instant,
and I found myself once more at home.

What a feeling does that simple word convey to his ears who knows the
real blessing of a home--that shelter from the world, its jealousies
and its envies, its turmoils and its disappointments; where, like some
landlocked bay, the still, calm waters sleep in silence, while the storm
and hurricane are roaring without; where glad faces and bright looks
abound; where each happiness is reflected back from every heart and ten
times multiplied, and every sorrow comes softened by consolation and
words of comfort! And how little like this is the abode of the great
leader of fashion; how many of the fairest gifts of humanity are turned
back by the glare of a hundred wax-lights, and the glitter of gilded
lackeys; and how few of the charities of life find entrance where the
splendour and luxury of voluptuous habits have stifled natural feeling,
and made even sympathy unfashionable!

It was not without difficulty I could persuade the servants, who were
all strangers to me, that the travel-stained, dusty individual before
them was the son of the celebrated and fashionable Lady Charlotte
Hinton, and at length reach my room to dress.

It was near midnight. The rooms were filled as I entered the
drawing-room. For a few moments I could not help feeling strongly the
full influence of the splendid scene before me. The undoubted evidences
of rank and wealth that meet the eye on every side in London life are
very striking. The splendour of the women's dress, their own beauty, a
certain air of haughty bearing peculiarly English, a kind of conscious
superiority to the rest of the world mark them; and in thei