tion as a youth in his state can get; lived upon six words
vouchsafed to him in a quadrille, or brought home a glance of the eyes
which she had presented to him in a waltz, or the remembrance of a
squeeze of the hand on parting or meeting. How eager he was to get
a card to this party or that! how attentive to the givers of such
entertainments! Some friends of his accused him of being a tuft-hunter
and flatterer of the aristocracy, on account of his politeness to
certain people; the truth was, he wanted to go wherever Miss Ethel was;
and the ball was blank to him which she did not attend.

This business occupied not only one season, but two. By the time of the
second season, Mr. Newcome had made so many acquaintances that he
needed few more introductions into society. He was very well known as a
good-natured handsome young man, and a very good waltzer, the only son
of an Indian officer of large wealth, who chose to devote himself to
painting, and who was supposed to entertain an unhappy fondness for his
cousin the beautiful Miss Newcome. Kind folks who heard of this little
tendre, and were sufficiently interested in Mr. Clive, asked him to
their houses in consequence. I dare say those people who were good
to him may have been themselves at one time unlucky in their own
love-affairs.

When the first season ended without a declaration from my lord, Lady Kew
carried off her young lady to Scotland, where it also so happened that
Lord Farintosh was going to shoot, and people made what surmises they
chose upon this coincidence. Surmises, why not? You who know the world,
know very well that if you see Mrs. So-and-so's name in the list of
people at an entertainment, on looking down the list you will presently
be sure to come on Mr. What-d'-you-call-'em's. If Lord and Lady of
Suchandsuch Castle, received a distinguished circle (including Lady
Dash), for Christmas or Easter, without reading farther the names of the
guests, you may venture on any wager that Captain Asterisk is one of
the company. These coincidences happen every day; and some people are
so anxious to meet other people, and so irresistible is the magnetic
sympathy, I suppose, that they will travel hundreds of miles in the
worst of weather to see their friends, and break your door open almost,
provided the friend is inside it.

I am obliged to own the fact, that for many months Lady Kew hunted after
Lord Farintosh. This rheumatic old woman went to Scotland, where, a