dians, as if nothing remarkable had happened
in his life. Lord Montfort had inherited a celebrated stud, which the
family had maintained for more than a century, and the sporting world
remarked with satisfaction that their present representative appeared to
take much interest in it. He had an establishment at Newmarket, and his
horses were entered for all the great races of the kingdom. He appeared
also at Melton, and conducted the campaign in a style becoming such
a hero. His hunters and his cooks were both first-rate. Although he
affected to take little interest in politics, the events of the time
forced him to consider them and to act. Lord Grey wanted to carry his
Reform Bill, and the sacrifice of Lord Montfort's numerous boroughs was
a necessary ingredient in the spell. He was appealed to as the head
of one of the greatest Whig houses, and he was offered a dukedom. He
relinquished his boroughs without hesitation, but he preferred to remain
with one of the oldest earldoms of England for his chief title. All
honours, however, clustered about him, though he never sought them, and
in the same year he tumbled into the Lord Lieutenancy of his country,
unexpectedly vacant, and became the youngest Knight of the Garter.

Society was looking forward with the keenest interest to the impending
season, when Lord Montfort would formally enter its spell-bound ranks,
and multiform were the speculations on his destiny. He attended an early
levee, in order that he might be presented--a needful ceremony which had
not yet taken place--and then again quitted his country, and for years.
He was heard of in every capital except his own. Wonderful exploits
at St. Petersburg, and Paris, and Madrid, deeds of mark at Vienna, and
eccentric adventures at Rome; but poor Melton, alas! expecting him
to return every season, at last embalmed him, and his cooks, and his
hunters, and his daring saddle, as a tradition,--jealous a little
of Newmarket, whither, though absent, he was frequently transmitting
foreign blood, and where his horses still ran, and were often
victorious.

At last it would appear that the restless Lord Montfort had found his
place, and that place was Paris. There he dwelt for years in Sybaritic
seclusion. He built himself a palace, which he called a villa, and which
was the most fanciful of structures, and full of every beautiful object
which rare taste and boundless wealth could procure, from undoubted
Raffaelles to jewelled toy