hings he understands; but I suppose we must
leave it to the cook himself, and we have the comfort of knowing that
the criticism on his efforts will not be of a very high order."

"We dine at four, I believe," said Lady Grace, in her habitual tone of
sorrow, as she swept from the room with that gesture of profound woe
that would have graced a queen in tragedy.

Let us turn for a moment to Mr. Davenport Dunn. Lady Lackington's
invitation had not produced in him either those overwhelming sensations
of astonishment or those excessive emotions of delight which she had so
sanguinely calculated on. There was a time that a Viscountess asking him
thus to dinner had been an event, the very fact being one requiring some
effort on his part to believe; but these days were long past. Mr. Dunn
had not only dined with great people since that, but had himself been
their host and entertainer. Noble lords and baronets had sipped his
claret, right honorables praised his sherry, and high dignitaries
condescended to inquire where he got "that exquisite port."
The tremulous, faint-hearted, doubting spirit, the suspectful,
self-distrusting, humble man, had gone, and in his place there was a
bold, resolute nature, confident and able, daily testing his strength
against some other in the ring, and as often issuing from the contest
satisfied that he had little to fear from any antagonist. He was clever
enough to see that the great objects in life are accomplished less by
dexterity and address than by a strong, undeviating purpose. The failure
of many a gifted man, and the high success of many a commonplace one,
had not been without its lesson for him; and it was in the firm resolve
to rise a winner that he sat down to the game of life.

Lady Lackington's invitation was, therefore, neither a cause of pleasure
nor astonishment. He remembered having met her somewhere, some time, and
he approached the renewed acquaintance without any one of the sentiments
her Ladyship had so confidently predicted. Indeed, so little of that
flurry of anticipation did he experience, that he had to be reminded
her Ladyship was waiting dinner for him, before he could remember the
pleasure that was before him.

It may be a very ungallant confession for this true history to make,
but we cannot blink saying that Lady Lack-ington and Lady Grace both
evidenced by their toilette that they were not indifferent to the
impression they were to produce upon their guest.

The Vi