our peers and princes are shabby and shapeless heaps of brick. But
what of all this? the spirit of London is in her thoroughfares--her
population! What wealth--what cleanliness--what order--what animation!
How majestic, and yet how vivid, is the life that runs through her
myriad veins! How, as the lamps blaze upon you at night, and street
after street glides by your wheels, each so regular in its symmetry, so
equal in its civilization--how all speak of the CITY OF FREEMEN.

Yes, Maltravers felt his heart swell within him as the post-horses
whirled on his dingy carriage--over Westminster Bridge--along
Whitehall--through Regent Street--towards one of the quiet and
private-house-like hotels that are scattered round the neighbourhood of
Grosvenor Square.

Ernest's arrival had been expected. He had written from Paris to
Cleveland to announce it; and Cleveland had, in reply, informed him
that he had engaged apartments for him at Mivart's. The smiling waiters
ushered him into a spacious and well-aired room--the armchair was
already wheeled by the fire--a score or so of letters strewed the table,
together with two of the evening papers. And how eloquently of busy
England do those evening papers speak! A stranger might have felt that
he wanted no friend to welcome him--the whole room smiled on him a
welcome.

Maltravers ordered his dinner and opened his letters: they were of no
importance; one from his steward, one from his banker, another about the
county races, a fourth from a man he had never heard of, requesting the
vote and powerful interest of Mr. Maltravers for the county of B------,
should the rumour of a dissolution be verified; the unknown candidate
referred Mr. Maltravers to his "well-known public character." From
these epistles Ernest turned impatiently, and perceived a little
three-cornered note which had hitherto escaped his attention. It was
from Cleveland, intimating that he was in town; that his health still
precluded his going out, but that he trusted to see his dear Ernest as
soon as he arrived.

Maltravers was delighted at the prospect of passing his evening so
agreeably; he soon despatched his dinner and his newspapers, and walked
in the brilliant lamplight of a clear frosty evening of early December
in London, to his friend's house in Curzon Street: a small house,
bachelor-like and unpretending; for Cleveland spent his moderate though
easy fortune almost entirely at his country villa. The familiar fac