ell, do not let us have a quarrel about Cadurcis,' said Lady
Monteagle. 'All you men are jealous of him.'

'And some of you women, I think, too,' said Mr. Pole.

Lady Monteagle faintly smiled.

'Poor Cadurcis!' she exclaimed; 'he has a very hard life of it. He
complains bitterly that so many women are in love with him. But then
he is such an interesting creature, what can he expect?'

'Interesting!' exclaimed Mr. Pole. 'Now I hold he is the most
conceited, affected fellow that I ever met,' he continued with unusual
energy.

'Ah! you men do not understand him,' said Lady Monteagle, shaking her
head. 'You cannot,' she added, with a look of pity.

'I cannot, certainly,' said Mr. Pole, 'or his writings either. For my
part I think the town has gone mad.'

'Well, you must confess,' said her ladyship, with a glance of triumph,
'that it was very lucky for us that I made him a Whig.'

'I cannot agree with you at all on that head,' said Mr. Pole. 'We
certainly are not very popular at this moment, and I feel convinced
that a connection with a person who attracts so much notice as
Cadurcis unfortunately does, and whose opinions on morals and religion
must be so offensive to the vast majority of the English public, must
ultimately prove anything but advantageous to our party.'

'Oh! my dear Mr. Pole,' said her ladyship, in a tone of affected
deprecation, 'think what a genius he is!'

'We have very different ideas of genius, Lady Monteagle, I suspect,'
said her visitor.

'You cannot deny,' replied her ladyship, rising from her recumbent
posture, with some animation, 'that he is a poet?'

'It is difficult to decide upon our contemporaries,' said Mr. Pole
dryly.

'Charles Fox thinks he is the greatest poet that ever existed,' said
her ladyship, as if she were determined to settle the question.

'Because he has written a lampoon on the royal family,' rejoined Mr.
Pole.

'You are a very provoking person,' said Lady Monteagle; 'but you do
not provoke me; do not flatter yourself you do.'

'That I feel to be an achievement alike beyond my power and my
ambition,' replied Mr. Pole, slightly bowing, but with a sneer.

'Well, read this,' said Lady Monteagle, 'and then decide upon the
merits of Cadurcis.'

Mr. Pole took the extended volume, but with no great willingness, and
turned over a page or two and read a passage here and there.

'Much the same as his last effusion, I think' he observed, as far as
I can judge from