and even a boa-constrictor has
an end. Hunger satisfied, his next strongest feeling, simple vanity,
remained to be contented. As the last morsel went in out came:

"'Bright being, thou whose ra--'"

"No! no!" said she, who fancied herself (and not without reason) the
bright being. "Mr. Vane intended them for a surprise."

"As you please, madam;" and the disappointed bore sighed. "But you
would have liked them, for the theme inspired me. The kindest, the most
generous of women! Don't you agree with me, madam?"

Mabel Vane opened her eyes. "Hardly, sir," laughed she.

"If you knew her as I do."

"I ought to know her better, sir."

"Ay, indeed! Well, madam, now her kindness to me, for instance--a poor
devil like me. The expression, I trust, is not disagreeable to you,
madam? If so, forgive me, and consider it withdrawn."

"La, sir! civility is so cheap, if you go to that."

"Civility, ma'am? Why, she has saved me from despair--from starvation,
perhaps."

"Poor thing! Well, indeed, sir, you looked--you looked--what a shame!
and you a poet."

"From an epitaph to an epic, madam."

At this moment a figure looked in upon them from the garden, but
retreated unobserved. It was Sir Charles Pomander, who had slipped away,
with the heartless and malicious intention of exposing the husband to
the wife, and profiting by her indignation and despair. Seeing Triplet,
he made an extemporaneous calculation that so infernal a chatterbox
could not be ten minutes in her company without telling her everything,
and this would serve his turn very well. He therefore postponed his
purpose, and strolled away to a short distance.

Triplet justified the baronet's opinion. Without any sort of sequency
he now informed Mrs. Vane that the benevolent lady was to sit to him for
her portrait.

Here was a new attention of Ernest's. How good he was, and how wicked
and ungrateful she!

"What! are you a painter too?" she inquired.

"From a house front to an historical composition, madam."

"Oh, what a clever man! And so Ernest commissioned you to paint a
portrait?"

"No, madam; for that I am indebted to the lady herself."

"The lady herself?"

"Yes, madam; and I expected to find her here. Will you add to your
kindness by informing me whether she has arrived? Or she is gone--"

"Who, sir? (Oh, dear! not my portrait! Oh, Ernest!)"

"Who, madam!" cried Triplet; "why, Mrs. Woffington!"

"She is not here," said Mrs. Vane, who remembere