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not seem that his approach to the ministerial character was at all hastening on.

The Beauty, in a sort of dream, had wandered into the drawingroom, bringing with him all the savours of Araby. It was a pleasure to the eye to see this dainty man, or rather half man, among the gilded appointments and bright stuffs of that room. The ladies tolerated him, and even the stately Louisa Mary Countess of Seaman approved and pronounced him "an elegant creature." The Ladies Mariner quite snubbed him, and literally did not waste more than a couple of "no's" and "yes's" during their whole stay. A married man, forsooth! One other reason for the Countess's approbation might have been her sudden dislike to that widow who had come among them, and before whom she would almost have paid money to have a red danger signal carried, to warn off the men, or have employed a spare daughter to nurse her," as do the rival omnibus companies. She called him to her side, and was pleasantly chatting with him over some "dear Lady Minton," when Mrs. Labouchere appeared at the door in all the coquetry of widowhood, and standing there said, calmly,—

"Oh, Mr. Talbot, about your song. Will you come to the music

room ? "

By that desertion the Beauty lost for ever the patronage of the Countess.

Mrs. Labouchere, without waiting for his decision, had walked on down the corridor, her face looking on the ground, her hands joined behind. As she turned the angle she said, aloud and quite careless who heard her,

"Yes, that is my mission. It is too tempting, and she herself has put him into my hands."

There was no one in the music-room.

"Would you redeem your promise,” she said, " and sing me your song, calmly and without the fuss of people listening and talking?"

The Beauty, enchanted, sat down and sang, a little nervously, his favourite, "He gave one last and lingering smile." She was not rapturous in praise, but judicious.

"It is good music, and I like it better each time. Just one more, Mr. Talbot."

He gratified her with the one "now on the stocks."

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This," he said, "I am now composing. It is in rather a raw state; but I assure you no one else has heard it."

He also gave her "ideas" of others, and in short spent a most delightful half-hour. Suddenly she said,

"What a pity! It is like a fatality, and so hard on that good

natured Lord Bindley. It is most unfortunate!"

"What, about the concert?

O yes, so provoking! But you know I couldn't well-O, they'd never forgive it,—she and Livy. O, out of the question!"

"How would any one think of asking you? Alas! I once could put myself in their place; now I cannot. But we owe something

to Lord Bindley. Could you not write to them? Birthdays are often postponed-kept on the day following; and if you said you'd be at home by the first train on Sunday morning, no reasonable people

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"Oh, I declare, yes!" cried the Beauty, in delight, on whom the dreadful sacrifice had been weighing.

"You must think it over," she said, coldly; "and find some way of managing it. In a house like this we are all bound to make a few sacrifices, and at least an exertion. Would you mind singing another song? I have not heard a note of music for months." So the Beauty sang again. Such a happy morning it proved for him.

(To be continued.)

NOTES & & INCIDENTS.

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ABLE to devise new and good expedients in all cases of difficulty, is said to be the gift of a happy vivacity of thought that nothing can embarrass or disturb. Some men think a long time, and even after that serious intellectual effort, overlook the very things they were anxious to find; while others find expedients for every situation with a perspicacity that cannot be denied even by those to whom they may be least agreeable.

A large majority of the thinking public will be disposed to recognise the display of this "happy vivacity of thought," by the Right Honourable Mr. Lowe, in his last addenda of persons and things which he opines should fairly contribute their quota to the national exchequer. To renovate one's reputation from time to time has long been a guiding maxim with all judicious statesmen. With none, perhaps, is it so requisite, yet difficult, as with a fiscal administrator. It cannot be doubted that Mr. Lowe is quite alive to the fact that excellence, however great, is subject to grow old, and consequently, reputation with it; for custom always diminishes admiration; and a novelty, however insignificant it be, will generally induce forgetfulness of the excellence that is dulled by time. In like manner, as after a long privation of the sun's light, its return is again admired as an agreeable novelty, so the right honourable gentleman sagaciously feels the necessity of a re-exhibition of the fiscal light that is in him, and of his public worth.

He has again brought the irradiating effulgence of the former to bear upon some few persons and things which have hitherto escaped our most lynx-eyed chancellors of the exchequer; and that it will tell upon some of the petty impertinences of the day will go far to prove that a vivacious ingenuity of thought is neither incompatible with, nor unserviceable to a philosophical cast of mind.

Pages and pageantry are henceforth to be subjected, in the persons of those who keep the one and make a display of the other, to the tax collector's "Notes of Demand" and "Last Notices."

"Buttons" is doomed-if not to utter extinction, at least to a consider

able diminution of his kind-unless Mr. Lowe's estimate of the kind of people who keep a "Buttons" is shrewdly founded upon that knowledge of the popular sentiment in this country, that the more a thing costs the more highly it is thought of. Should such prove to be the fact in this instance also, so much the better for " Buttons," and for the revenue.

The tax on hair-powder is to be taken off; but in this case it is doubtful that "her grace" or their "ladyships" will permit their picked servitors of the race of Anak to discontinue (though untaxed) the use of a so farcically-imposing a symbol of British patrician dignity.

Ponies, together with the undersized human articles denominated "Tigers," are to be considered as equine and human adult types of their respective genera, and as rateable appurtenances of their owners as a

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horse of sixteen hands high, or a "Jeames" of six foot without his shoes. Yet, as considerately lenient with the one hand as he is acquisitive with the other, Mr. Lowe relieves the proprietors of large studs, by reducing the tax upon each horse to a moiety of the previous duty. Stable-boys are, nevertheless, made to recoup somewhat this reduction in the equine impost, inasmuch as they will henceforth be taxed as full-grown grooms. The custom to consider that stable-boys never aged, as well as their masters' horses-being (old) boys ever-is now to be abolished as one better honoured in the breach than the observance, and armorial bearings are to be made doubly subservient to the exigencies of the exchequer.

The duplication of this tax will not so much discomfit the equanimity of those who are both entitled and expected to display them, as of those whose right to disport them would be barred even by a herald's college, much less punctilious now than the heralds of old in view of the official fees for research, and justified grant thereof. But it will cause no small consternation among the quack heralds, and "Heraldic Studio" keepers -the blatant dealers in blazonry-griffins rampant, guardant crocodiles, and cockatrices of every hue, who accommodate aspirants to crests and escutcheons with a zeal and urbanity equalled only by an exorbitance of

charge in the end, frequently exceeding the fees of the college of heralds itself. The more astute among the lovers of this kind of display will doubtless resort now to the saddler's imitation of a thing that answers all the purpose in the eyes of the multitude, while it evades the tax collector, who, when he comes to inspect it, is "sold." The original, from which this is taken, is a bona fide example, which when done in white metal and freely dispersed over harness produces an effect without in any way interfering with the action of a showy screw, or dulling the treacly varnish on a lustrous pannel.

Talking of coats of arms brings us to the device of a well-known "Schneider für herren" much reputed in the present day, who has adopted heraldic sem

blances with great effect, and expects to evade the tax collector by taking "Trade mark" as his motto.

As a landed gentleman we will say, therefore, that it decorates the brougham of Herr von Schneider, of S- Row, and the Snuggery, Brompton, and displays a shield sable, bearing un chou, vert, draped with

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a mantling, and supported by two rampant geese, habited en habit noir gilet blanc, pantalons bleu, billed, or bearing bills proper,-crest, a huge thimble within a wreath of glory; motto, "Marque de Fabrique." For this "wrinkle" we make "no charge," and offer it to an enlightened and aspiring gentry, who have only to forego the hall mark of nobility for the trade mark of commerce, to evade taxation.

Of course old signet rings, snuff boxes, stained glass, panels, and other heirlooms bearing heraldic devices, will, if simply preserved or displayed as memorials of the past, bear no duty. Though it would be very proper if the Earl Marshal of England would prevent the prostitution of the arms of our nobility on the hack cabs of London-for there will be found the strangest jumble of ridiculous blazonry, Dukes, Earls, and Barons

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