triot of yours, I'd bet; look at his
sanctified visage and stiff choker--a Church of England man, eh?"

"The devil!" muttered Vaughan, turning round; "deuce take him, it's my
cousin Ruskinstone! What in the world does _he_ do in Paris?"

The man he spoke of was the Rev. Eusebius Ruskinstone, the Dean's
Warden of the cathedral of Faithandgrace, a tall, thin young clerical of
eight or nine-and-twenty, with goodness enough (it was generally
supposed) in his little finger to make up for all Ernest's sins, scarlet
though they were. He had just sat down and taken up the carte to blunder
through "Potage au Duc de Malakoff," "Fricassee de volaille a la
Princesse Mathilde," and all the rest of it, when his eye lit on his
graceless cousin, and a vinegar asperity spread over his bland visage.
Vaughan rose with a lazy grace, immensely bored within him: "My dear
Ruskinstone, what an unanticipated pleasure. I never hoped Vanity Fair
would have had power to lure _you_ into its naughty peep-shows and
roundabouts."

The Rev. Eusebius reddened slightly; he had once stated strongly his
opinion that poor Paris was Pandemonium. "How do you do?" he said,
giving his cousin two fingers; "it is a long time since we saw you in
England."

"England doesn't want me," said Ernest, dryly. "I don't fancy I should
be very welcome at Faithandgrace, should I? The dear Chapter would
probably consign me to starvation for my skeptical notions, as Calvin
did Castellio. But what _has_ brought you to Paris? Are you come to
fight the Jesuits in a conference, or to abjure the Wardenship and turn
over to them?"

Eusebius was shocked at the irreverent tone, but there was a satirical
smile on his cousin's lips that he didn't care to provoke. "I am come,"
he said, stiffly, "partly for health, partly to collect materials for a
work on the 'Gurgoyles and Rose Mouldings of Mediaeval Architecture,' and
partly to oblige some friends of mine. Pardon me, here they come."

Vaughan lifted his eyes, expecting nothing very delectable in
Ruskinstone's friends; to his astonishment they fell on his beauty of
the Francais! with the outlying sentries of father, governess, and two
other women, the Warden's maiden sisters, stiff, manierees, and prudish,
like too many Englishwomen. The young lady of the Francais was a curious
contrast to them: she started a little as she saw Vaughan, and smiled
brilliantly. On the spur of that smile Ernest greeted his cousins with a
degree of _