in
disparagement of those foreigners who brought a scandal upon his
court by habits and manners which would not be tolerated in their own
countries. Divorce, or even separation, met his heavy reprobation;
and while his code of morality, on the whole, exhibited very merciful
dispositions, he bestowed unmitigated severity upon all that could shock
the world's opinion.

To this Lady Hester had to listen as best she might, a task not the
less trying and difficult from the ill-suppressed looks of malice and
enjoyment she saw on every side. From all these causes put together,
the occasion, however flattering to her vanity, was far from being
pleasurable to her feelings, and she longed for it to be over. The
Prince looked wearied enough, but somehow there is nothing like royalty
for endurance; their whole lives would seem to teach the lesson, and
so he sat on, saying a stray word, bowing with half-closed lids, and
looking as though very little more would set him fast asleep.

It was the very culminating point of the whole evening's austerity; one
of those little pauses which now and then occur had succeeded to the
murmur of conversation. The whist party had been broken up, and the
Cardinal was slowly advancing up the room, the company, even to the
ladies, rising respectfully as he passed, when the folding-doors were
thrown wide, and a servant announced Mr. Scroope Purvis.

If the name was unknown to the assembled guests, there was one there
at least who heard it with a sensation of actual terror, and poor Kate
Dalton sank back into her chair with a kind of instinctive effort at
concealment. By this time the door had closed behind him, leaving Mr.
Purvis standing with an expression of no small bewilderment at the
gorgeous assembly into which he had intruded.

Lady Hester's quick ear had caught the name, even from the furthest end
of the room; but while she attributed it to the mispronunciations of
which foreign servants are so liberal, looked out with some curiosity
for him who owned it.

Nor had she to look long, for, his first moment of surprise over, Purvis
put up his double eye-glass and commenced a tour of the rooms, in that
peculiarly scrutinizing way for which he was distinguished. The fact
that all the faces were unknown to him seemed to impart additional
courage to his investigations, for he stared about with as little
concern as he might have done in a theatre.

Most men in his situation would have been egoist