boy; and if you go on as you have begun, you are in a fair way to get yourself hanged, shot, or made a field-marshal of. My son-in-law tells me, what indeed I very well knew without his telling, that your heart is all on fire for activity and new scenes. Now, with Monsieur de Villardin, it is probable that you will have as much as you could well desire; for he is one of those men who let no moment fly by them unmarked by some deed or some event. He is in the midst of all the Parisian factions, too; and, if one-half of the rumours of the day be true, they will soon bring down Spanish cunning to aid French intrigue, and make a mess of it fit for the palate of the devil himself. So, now you will be in your right element, urchin, and I will only give you one piece of advice before you go. Never let your zeal for any one's service make you act ill, even to his greatest enemy."

I felt myself turn as red as fire, for, to say the truth, the good old lord had touched upon a tender point; and, though I was young enough to think of such matters lightly, yet, during the nine months which I had lately passed in a much more contemplative manner than pleased me, a suspicion would now and then come across my mind, that one or two things in my past life might as well have been left undone. Lord Langleigh observed me colour, and adding, with a nod, "It is worth your thinking of," he left me, and returned to the house. I did think of his advice long and eagerly; and his words sunk down into my heart, producing therein the first of many changes which I shall yet have to notice in my principles and conduct, as in passing through life I every now and then gained a lesson or an admonition, which taught me my own weaknesses, or restrained my wild passions. It was in vain, I soon felt, to look back and regret the past; but from that moment I formed my determination for the future, and tried never to forget, that no cause could ever justify an evil action.

All after arrangements were soon concluded. My dress was already more splendid than was at all necessary. My purse was well furnished by the liberality of my kind benefactors; and a pass having been procured for me to enter Paris, I took leave of the family at St. Maur three days after the conversation I have just detailed, and was delivered over into the hands of Monsieur de Villardin himself by the chief écuyer of Lord Langleigh, who accompanied me into Paris.

My new lord received me very graciously, and promised me great things if I attached myself to him as zealously as I had done to Lord Masterton. His countenance, I have already said, had pleased me from the first; and it certainly was one well calculated to command both respect and regard. Nevertheless, as I came to know him better, I remarked occasionally two expressions which I had not at first observed, but which were strongly indicative of his real character, or, rather, of his faults. The first was a quick, sharp, inquiring, perhaps fierce expression, when anything was said in an under tone by the persons around him. This, however, passed away in a minute; but the second, which consisted in a tremendous gathering together of the brows when any one seriously offended him, would last for some hours, and it was evidently with difficulty that he could reassume his usual gay and cheerful manner, through the whole of the rest of the day.

I had early learned to watch people's countenances as the weather-glasses of their minds, and thence to judge, not only of what was passing within at the moment, but also of their habitual feelings and inherent disposition. This had been taught me by my father, who had established his criterions for judging by long experience; and I had not seen the fierce, sharp look, and the deep, heavy scowl, upon the face of the Duke more than twice, when I established it in my own mind, as a fact beyond doubt, that he was both suspicious and revengeful. At the same time I discovered, by other circumstances, that he was highly sensitive to ridicule; and that, knowing well to how many jests he would expose himself if he suffered his irritable jealousy to appear, he laboured strenuously to cover it by the same light and witty manner of treating everything, which in that day was universally affected by all Frenchmen. In this he was not particularly successful; for, though his mind was quick and brilliant enough, his heart was too full of deep and powerful feelings to harmonise well with that playful badinage which alone affects the surface.

So much for my new master; but there are other members of his family who yet remain to be noticed. The first of these, of course, is Madame la Duchesse, to whom he led me immediately after I had been presented to himself, and introduced me as his new page, of whom she had heard so much. She was a very lovely woman, and at heart a most amiable one; considerably younger than her husband, perhaps about four-and-twenty years of age; and though, I believe, it would be doing Diana herself no injustice to compare her to Madame de Villardin in point of chastity, yet at the time I was first presented to her, ere sorrow or domestic discomfort had tamed the light heart and banished the vanities of youth, she had decidedly that love of admiration which has often, in this world, done more harm to a woman's character than half-a-dozen faux pas. It mattered not with whom she was in company--rank, station, age, made no difference--admired she was determined to be by every one who came within the sphere of her influence: a thousand little airs would she assume to excite attention; and bright and sparkling was the triumph which lighted up her eyes when she had succeeded in captivating or attracting. In the case of myself even, a boy of twelve years old, she could not resist the desire of displaying the same graces which she spread out before others; and when her husband brought me forward to her, the smile that played around her lips, the flash that glistened from her fine eyes, and the elegant attitude with which she held me by the arm, and gazed for a moment in my face, were all a little more than natural, and very, very different from the calm, sweet manners of the beautiful Emily Langleigh.