full costume of porter, informed us that Lady
Charlotte Hinton resided. While I endeavoured to pass on, he interposed
his burly person, informing me, in very short phrase, that her ladyship
did not receive before four o'clock.

'Arrah, hould your prate!' cried Corny; sure it's the woman's son you're
talking to. Two pair of stairs to your left hand, and the first door
in the passage. Look at the crowd there, the lazy craytures! that has
nothing better to do than follow a respectable man. Be off! bad luck to
yez! ye ought to be crying over the disgrace ye're in. Be the light that
shines! but you desarved it well.'

Leaving Corny to his oration before the mob, of which, happily for the
safety of his own skin, they did not comprehend one word, I took the
direction he mentioned, and soon found out the door, on which a visiting
card with my mother's name was fastened.

We were now introduced into a large and splendidly furnished saloon,
with all that lightness and elegance of decoration which in a foreign
apartment is the compensation--a poor one sometimes--for the more
comfortable look of our English houses. The room was empty, but the
morning papers and all the new publications of the day were scattered
about with profusion. Consigning my friend for a short time to these, I
followed the _femme de chambre_, who had already brought in my card
to my mother, to her ladyship's dressing-room. The door was opened
noiselessly by the maid, who whispered my name. A gentle 'Let him come
in' followed, and I entered.

[Illustration: 3-147]

My mother was seated before a glass, under the hands of a coiffeur,
and dared not turn her head. As I approached she reached me her hand,
however, which having kissed dutifully, I drew my chair, and sat down
beside her. 'My dear boy!' said she, as her eyes turned towards me, and
a tear fell from the lid and trickled down her cheek. In spite of the
unnatural coldness of such a meeting, the words, the accents, and the
look that accompanied them came home to my heart, and I was glad to hide
my emotion by again pressing my lips to her hand. Having kindly informed
me that the ceremony she was then submitting to was imperative,
inasmuch as if she had not M. Dejoncourt then, she could not have him at
all--that his time was so filled up, every moment of it, from eight in
the morning till eleven at night, that the Emperor Alexander himself
couldn't obtain his services, if he wished for them--she proceed