veril answered him in
French, that he was a foreigner, and spoke no English; glad to escape,
though at the expense of a fiction, from the additional embarrassment of
a fool, who was likely to ask more questions than his own wisdom might
have enabled him to answer.

"_Etranger_--that means stranger," muttered their guide; "more French
dogs and jades come to lick the good English butter of our bread, or
perhaps an Italian puppet-show. Well if it were not that they have a
mortal enmity to the whole _gamut_, this were enough to make any honest
fellow turn Puritan. But if I am to play to her at the Duchess's, I'll
be d--d but I put her out in the tune, just to teach her to have the
impudence to come to England, and to speak no English."

Having muttered to himself this truly British resolution, the musician
walked briskly on towards a large house near the bottom of St. James's
Street, and entered the court, by a grated door from the Park, of which
the mansion commanded an extensive prospect.

Peveril finding himself in front of a handsome portico, under which
opened a stately pair of folding-doors, was about to ascend the steps
that led to the main entrance, when his guide seized him by the arm,
exclaiming. "Hold, Mounseer! What! you'll lose nothing, I see, for want
of courage; but you must keep the back way, for all your fine doublet.
Here it is not, knock, and it shall be opened; but may be instead, knock
and you shall be knocked."

Suffering himself to be guided by Empson, Julian deviated from the
principal door, to one which opened, with less ostentation, in an angle
of the courtyard. On a modest tap from the flute-player, admittance was
afforded him and his companions by a footman, who conducted them through
a variety of stone passages, to a very handsome summer parlour, where a
lady, or something resembling one, dressed in a style of extra elegance,
was trifling with a play-book while she finished her chocolate. It would
not be easy to describe her, but by weighing her natural good qualities
against the affectations which counterbalanced them. She would have been
handsome, but for rouge and _minauderie_--would have been civil, but
for overstrained airs of patronage and condescension--would have had an
agreeable voice, had she spoken in her natural tone--and fine eyes, had
she not made such desperate hard use of them. She could only spoil a
pretty ankle by too liberal display; but her shape, though she could
not yet