true philosopher's stone, turning all to gold. Into what saints and deities can you transform those that approach us now? Let me introduce my aunt, Mrs. Lindsay, and my cousin, Miss Tibby Maxwell."

De Villeneuve bowed, and scarcely smiled at Mrs. Lindsay's Anglo-French exhortation

"Ne troublez vous pas, monsieur," nor at Miss Tibby's formal curtsey, her hands crossed in front, and her curious head-dress, in which she had been trying to reproduce that in which she had first seen Donald of the brae.

"I've had the honour of meeting several French gentlemen in Edinbro,'" said Miss Tibby, who always liked to take the lead in conversation. "It was just before the revolution I met a very fine old count —I wish I could remember his name-perhaps he was a friend of yours

De Villeneuve bowed, Julian laughed. "A friend of his! What a man who was old before the revolution! why, he would be a Methuselah now!"

"And what if he were, Mr. Julian? Do

ye think a' young men despise auld age? I can tell ye it was na sae when I was young, sir; the aulder a mon is, the more o' a mon he is in good breeding and the like; and we young lassies at Edinbro' was a' a pulling caps for the auld French count; but it was na long before I was his favourite, I ween."

"That I can well believe," said Alphonse. "We Frenchmen are the very slaves of wit and grace."

"I'm sure, sir, you're the very soul of politeness and civility, sir," said Miss Tibby, "and give me a much higher idea of French breeding than I'd formed from a young relative of mine, who shall be nameless."

Miss Tibby then offered her snuff-box, and "the count" took a pinch of Scotch mixture, which quite upset his delicate Parisian nerves. After a little while he began to inquire, in English, whether Mrs. Lindsay found herself quite well.

Qui très," replied the lady, very anxious to be thought a French scholar.

Julian, feeling for De Villeneuve as he

vainly tried not to smile, exclaimed, "Aunt, my friend is an elegant English scholar, son of an English lady, and, partly educated in England, he prefers our language."

"In that case, I will sacrifice my own taste, dear Julian, which is for speaking French."

"I fear I've forgotten my French," said Tibby. "In my younger days I might jist have passed for a Frenchwoman born. No one could beat me in the verbs avoir and ètre-"

Here Mr. Lindsay and Mr. Grunter came in, the one, his bald head shaded only by a few soft silver locks, displaying organs of benevolence and piety, his mild blue eyes, bright with cheerfulness, and his form upright with conscious integrity; extreme neatness, and cleanliness, the only personal charms of age, distinguished him, and a noble cordiality, becoming to old or young, was mixed in him. with a majestic grace.

He welcomed De Villeneuve with a warmth that made him feel at once at home, and introduced, with a kind of habitual respect, and

as if presenting a superior being, his old usher, Mr. Grunter, whose ferocious wig seemed to have been filched from a negro, so black and woolly did it look. With some personal vanity, which he displayed, not by an acceptable attention to soap and water, but by gay colours, which had a charm for his purblind eyes—a bright blue coat, with brass buttons, a huge frill to his shirt, a yellow waistcoat, a cornelian brooch, and a huge ring on each fore-finger. He was proud of a very showy, but not a really good, leg, and always appeared for dinner in silk-stockings and the lower garment which had been the fashion on dancing-days, when he was usher. He made a formal bow, which he had surreptitiously caught up from the dancing-master, who taught the "boys." And the young ladies having appeared, and dinner being announced, he handed Miss Tibby down stairs.

CHAPTER XI.

"On ne hait jamais la flatterie, on ne hait que la manière de flatter." La Rochefocault.

"La flatterie est une fausse monnoie, qui n'a du courant que par notre vanité."

Idem.

De Villeneuve was enchanted with his new acquaintances, and most anxious to be liked by them. A man of genius and eloquence, he was not very likely to fail in winning the favour of a warm-hearted and simple English family.

His noble sentiments found an echo in Mr. Lindsay's nobler heart. He won the cidevant usher by appearing to defer to him in all matters of learning and critical acumen; and Miss Tibby, by listening to her stories of