La Zelie was loudly called for-she came at once, led by the hero of the piece, the Roman lover, whose exquisite voice had for once been eclipsed. There was so much majesty in her mien that several people rose instinctively the tumult increased, handkerchiefs were waved, wreaths and bouquets flung at her feet as fast as her escort could pick them up; a bouquet and a small crown of white roses were flung from an upper box near the stage; Zelie raised her eyes to the box, smiled, bowed, and picked up both the crown and the bouquet. Augusta and Ellen looked, as did all present, towards that box, and recognised De Villeneuve and Julian in the happy beings on whom La Zelie had smiled, whose offerings she, proud queen of the night, had stooped to pick up.

The sisters' eyes met, Augusta's sparkled with sudden jealousy, and her very brow and neck reddened; Ellen grew rather pale and a tear trembled in her eyes, but recovering, in a moment she turned kindly to converse with Grunter and Fitzcribb.

It was over; the ballet was an uninteresting and oft-repeated one-Grizzy had no wish to see it. Both she and Tibby thought it no decent exhibition for modest women. Babie was tired of being confined in so small a space -Babie, an antiquated mountain romp; Annie looked ill and weary, and so all resolved to go home at once. Mr. Lindsay gave an arm to each Douglas -Fitzcribb tucked the proud Augusta under his, as if she had been an old folio; our young beauties, generally so courted, so followed, had no one to pilot them through the crush-room but Grunter and Fitzcribb!

While they were entering their carriage, Sparkleton, Dashington, and Riskwell joined them; they had been trying to get included in a select petit souper, which La Zelie, who had a duenna of great respectability, gave for the first time; for, with such men, every thing (politeness, punctuality, and even a real preference) yields to an insane worship of a fashionable idol, the acknowledged "Cynthia of the minute!" But they had failed, and then they remembered that those Lindsays had asked them to supper; but those Lindsays

had an excellent French cook, and their suppers were not often thus slighted.

Nothing would induce the still incensed Grizzy to join the supper party. She and Babie were therefore borne back in Mr. Lindsay's carriage to Pentonville. Mr. Fitzcribb too had a critique on La Zelie to write for the morrow's paper, which, as he was a very slow writer, he knew he must lose no time in preparing; so he sighed and went supperless away. Annie was ill and unhappy; even Ellen was not in her usual spirits; Augusta was all offended pride and cold reserve at the long desertion of her beaux; Mrs. Lindsay alone was all flattery, and Mr. Lindsay all hospitality; Tibby could not get over her démélé with Grizzy, and the discovery that Donald o' the brae, the moss-grown idol of that antique shrine, her heart, was a treacherous fause flirt after a'."

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The supper, from which so much had been expected, was extremely dull, enlivened only by a sad mishap occasioned by Screech, whose perch had been placed carelessly behind a curtain against which Sparkleton sat, and

who awoke out of his sleep, gently protruded his beak, and caught hold of a very bushy whisker of the ci-devant beau, which, to the surprise of all present, came off at one fell swoop, fresh from the hands of Truefit, not of nature. Sparkleton, in a violent rage, tried to wrest away the prize; but the bird, still holding it fast, flew at him with the most belligerent intentions, and then waddled consequentially across the room with the whisker in his beak.

The party was well-bred enough to suppress all but the first burst of merriment; Sparkleton knew full well that his disaster would be made, by his dear friends Dashington and Riskwell, the joke par excellence, and the subject of sallies in all the papers; he therefore took the wise part of laughing at it himself; but, spite of this, the party was dispirited, and in short quite a failure. Julian and De Villeneuve came not at all; ere long the trio departed, and Augusta hastened to her own room. There the bandeau and the sleeve were thrown angrily aside; a sense of bitter mortification

swelled the breast of the young beauty; and, for the first time since her arrival in town,

"Her heart desponding asked if this were joy."

while a few bitter tears fell upon her pillow.

As she indulged in the useless and painful reveries of disappointed vanity, she heard a light step, and presently a gentle hand drew aside the curtain, and a soft voice whispered, "Augusta, are you awake?" At first, Augusta made no answer; she wished Ellen to fancy that she slept, and Ellen thought so, and gently sank on her knee by her sister's bed. "May Heaven bless you, my own sister, and make you happier than I......" she sighed. The words were so faintly spoken, they scarcely passed Ellen's lips, yet they reached and sank into Augusta's heart. She sat up, extended her arms, folded Ellen to her bosom, and burst into a passion of tears. It was a beautiful sight, those young sisters-Ellen, with her dewy looks of love, gazing like the fair and holy Madonna on a weeping passionate child of earth.