much cordiality
paid to the account of the Sir Miles whom he had never seen, and seated
himself, colouring slightly under the influence of the fixed, pleased,
and earnest look still bent upon him.

Searching for something else to say, Percival asked Mrs. Mivers if she
had lately seen John Ardworth.

The guest, who had just reseated himself, turned his chair round at that
question with such vivacity that Mrs. Mivers heard it crack. Her chairs
were not meant for such usage. A shade fell over her rosy countenance as
she replied,--

"No, indeed (please, sir, them chairs is brittle)! No, he is like Madame
at Brompton, and seldom condescends to favour us now. It was but last
Sunday we asked him to dinner. I am sure he need not turn up his nose at
our roast beef and pudding!"

Here Mr. Mivers was taken with a violent fit of coughing, which drew off
his wife's attention. She was afraid he had taken cold.

The stranger took out a large snuff-box, inhaled a long pinch of snuff,
and said to St. John,--

"This Mr. John Ardworth, a pert enough jackanapes, I suppose,--a limb of
the law, eh?"

"Sir," said Percival, gravely, "John Ardworth is my particular friend.
It is clear that you know very little of him."

"That's true," said the stranger,--"'pon my life, that's very true.
But I suppose he's like all lawyers,--cunning and tricky, conceited and
supercilious, full of prejudice and cant, and a red-hot Tory into the
bargain. I know them, sir; I know them!"

"Well," answered St. John, half gayly, half angrily, "your general
experience serves you very little here; for Ardworth is exactly the
opposite of all you have described."

"Even in politics?"

"Why, I fear he is half a Radical,--certainly more than a Whig,"
answered St. John, rather mournfully; for his own theories were all the
other way, notwithstanding his unpatriotic forgetfulness of them in his
offer to assist Ardworth's entrance into parliament.

"I am very glad to hear it," cried the stranger, again taking snuff.
"And this Madame at Brompton--perhaps I know her a little better than
I do young Mr. Ardworth--Mrs. Brad--I mean Madame Dalibard!" and the
stranger glanced at Mr. Mivers, who was slowly recovering from some
vigorous slaps on the back administered to him by his wife as a
counter-irritant to the cough. "Is it true that she has lost the use of
her limbs?"

Percival shook his head.

"And takes care of poor Helen Mainwaring the orphan? Well, well, tha