f the Lord Charleses and the Honorables, who looked up
to a paternal Government for their support; but now there was actually a
run against them. Beecher argued himself so warmly into this belief,
that he said aloud, "If I asked for something to-morrow, they 'd refuse
me, just because I 've a brother a Peer!"

The reader is already aware what a compensation he found for all his
defeats and shortcomings in life by arraigning the injustice of the
world. Downing Street, the turf, Lackington, Tattersall's, the Horse
Guards, and "the little hell in St. James's Street" were all in a league
to crush him; but he'd show them "a turn round the corner yet," he said;
and with a saucy laugh of derision at all the malevolence of fortune, he
set about dressing for dinner. Beecher was not only a very good-looking
fellow, but he had that stamp of man of fashion on him which all the
contamination of low habits and low associates had not effaced. His
address was easy and unaffected, his voice pleasantly toned, his smile
sufficiently ready; and his whole manner was an agreeable blending of
deference with a sort of not ungraceful self-esteem. Negatives best
describe the class of men he belonged to, and any real excellence
he possessed was in not being a great number of things which form,
unhappily, the social defects of a large section of humanity. He was
never loud, never witty, never oracular, never anecdotic; and although
the slang of the turf and its followers clung to him, he threw out its
"dialectics" so laughingly that he even seemed to be himself ridiculing
the quaint phraseology he employed.

We cannot venture to affirm that our readers might have liked his
company, but we are safe in asserting that Lizzy Davis did so. He
possessed that very experience of life--London life--that amused her
greatly. She caught up with an instinctive quickness the meaning of
those secret springs which move society, and where, though genius and
wealth are suffered to exercise their influence, the real power is alone
centred in those who are great by station and hereditary claims. She saw
that the great Brahmins of fashion maintained a certain exclusiveness
which no pretensions ever breached, and that to this consciousness of
an unassailable position was greatly owing all the dignified repose
and serenity of their manner. She made him recount to her the style of
living in the country houses of England,--the crowds of visitors that
came and went, the f