n_, like that of Chiffinch and his fair one, inferred
little scandal; and such was his influence, as prime minister of his
master's pleasures, that, as Charles himself expressed it, the lady whom
we introduced to our readers in the last chapter, had obtained a
brevet commission to rank as a married woman. And to do the gentle dame
justice, no wife could have been more attentive to forward his plans, or
more liberal in disposing of his income.

She inhabited a set of apartments called Chiffinch's--the scene of many
an intrigue, both of love and politics; and where Charles often held
his private parties for the evening, when, as frequently happened, the
ill-humour of the Duchess of Portsmouth, his reigning Sultana, prevented
his supping with her. The hold which such an arrangement gave a man
like Chiffinch, used as he well knew how to use it, made him of too
much consequence to be slighted even by the first persons in the state,
unless they stood aloof from all manner of politics and Court intrigue.

In the charge of Mistress Chiffinch, and of him whose name she bore,
Edward Christian placed the daughter of his sister, and of his confiding
friend, calmly contemplating her ruin as an event certain to follow; and
hoping to ground upon it his own chance of a more assured fortune, than
a life spent in intrigue had hitherto been able to procure for him.

The innocent Alice, without being able to discover what was wrong either
in the scenes of unusual luxury with which she was surrounded, or in the
manners of her hostess, which, both from nature and policy, were kind
and caressing--felt nevertheless an instinctive apprehension that all
was not right--a feeling in the human mind, allied, perhaps, to that
sense of danger which animals exhibit when placed in the vicinity of the
natural enemies of their race, and which makes birds cower when the
hawk is in the air, and beasts tremble when the tiger is abroad in the
desert. There was a heaviness at her heart which she could not dispel;
and the few hours which she had already spent at Chiffinch's were like
those passed in prison by one unconscious of the cause or event of his
captivity. It was the third morning after her arrival in London, that
the scene took place which we now recur to.

The impertinence and vulgarity of Empson, which was permitted to him as
an unrivalled performer upon his instrument, were exhausting themselves
at the expense of all other musical professors, and