lic give
encouragement to the muses--Mr. Keelavine, I trust your pencil is
busy--Mr. Chatterly, I have no doubt your flock improves--Dr.
Quackleben, I am sure your patients recover--These are all the especials
of the worthy company I know--for the rest, health to the sick, and
pleasure to the healthy!"

"You are not going in reality, my love?" said Lady Penelope; "these
hasty rides agitate your nerves--they do, indeed--you should be
cautious--Shall I speak to Quackleben?"

"To neither Quack nor quackle, on my account, my dear lady. It is not as
you would seem to say, by your winking at Lady Binks--it is not,
indeed--I shall be no Lady Clementina, to be the wonder and pity of the
spring of St. Ronan's--No Ophelia neither--though I will say with her,
Good-night, ladies--Good night, sweet ladies!--and now--not my coach, my
coach--but my horse, my horse!"

So saying, she tripped out of the room by a side passage, leaving the
ladies looking at each other significantly, and shaking their heads with
an expression of much import.

"Something has ruffled the poor unhappy girl," said Lady Penelope; "I
never saw her so very odd before."

"Were I to speak my mind," said Lady Binks, "I think, as Mrs. Highmore
says in the farce, her madness is but a poor excuse for her
impertinence."

"Oh fie! my sweet Lady Binks," said Lady Penelope, "spare my poor
favourite! You, surely, of all others, should forgive the excesses of an
amiable eccentricity of temper.--Forgive me, my love, but I must defend
an absent friend--My Lady Binks, I am very sure, is too generous and
candid to

'Hate for arts which caused herself to rise.'"

"Not being conscious of any high elevation, my lady," answered Lady
Binks, "I do not know any arts I have been under the necessity of
practising to attain it. I suppose a Scotch lady of an ancient family
may become the wife of an English baronet, and no very extraordinary
great cause to wonder at it."

"No, surely--but people in this world will, you know, wonder at
nothing," answered Lady Penelope.

"If you envy me my poor quiz, Sir Bingo, I'll get you a better, Lady
Pen."

"I don't doubt your talents, my dear, but when I want one, I will get
one for myself.--But here comes the whole party of quizzes.--Joliffe,
offer the gentlemen tea--then get the floor ready for the dancers, and
set the card-tables in the next room."

FOOTNOTES:

[I-15] The late Dr. Gregory is probably intimated, as one of the
c