CHAPTER II.

CARRIES THE READER BOTH TO RICHMOND AND GREENWICH.

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Poor Foker found the dinner at Richmond to be the most dreary entertainment upon which ever mortal man wasted his guineas."I wonder how the deuce I could ever have liked these people," he thought in his own mind."Why, I can see the crow's-feet under Rougemont's eyes, and the paint on her cheeks is laid on as thick as clown's in a pantomime! The way in which that Calverley talks slang, is quite disgusting. I hate chaff in a woman. And old Colchicum! that old Col, coming down here in his brougham, with his coronet on it, and sitting bodkin between Mademoiselle Coralie and her mother! It's too bad. An English peer, and a horse-rider of Franconi's! It won't do; by Jove, it won't do. I ain't proud; but it willnot do!"

"Twopence-halfpenny for your thoughts, Fokey!" cried out Miss Rougemont, taking her cigar from her truly vermilion lips, as she beheld the young fellow lost in thought, seated at the head of his table, amidst melting ices, and cut pine-apples, and bottles full and empty, and cigar-ashes scattered on fruit, and the ruins of a dessert which had no pleasure for him.

"Does Foker ever think?" drawled out Mr. Poyntz."Foker, here is a considerable sum of money offered by a fair capitalist at this end of the table for the present emanations of your valuable and acute intellect, old boy!"

"What the deuce is that Poyntz a talking about?" Mrs. Calverley asked of her neighbor."I hate him. He's a drawlin', sneerin' beast."

"What a droll of a little man is that little Fokare, my lor," Mademoiselle Coralie said, in her own language, and with the rich twang of that sunny Gascony in which her swarthy cheeks and bright black eyes had got their fire."What a droll of a man! He does not look to have twenty years."

"I wish I were of his age," said the venerable Colchicum, with a sigh, as he inclined his purple face toward a large goblet of claret.

"C'te Jeunesse. Peuh! je m'en fiche," said Madame Brack, Coralie's mamma, taking a great pinch out of Lord Colchicum's delicate gold snuff-box."_Je n'aime que les hommes faits, moi. Comme milor Coralie! n'est ce pas que tu n'aimes que les hommes faits, ma bichette?"

My lord said, with a grin,"You flatter me, Madame Brack."

"Taisez vous, Maman, vous n'ètes qu'une bête," Coralie cried, with a shrug of her robust shoulders; upon which, my lord said thatshe did not flatter at any rate; and pocketed his snuff-box, not desirous that Madame Brack's dubious fingers should plunge too frequently into his Mackabaw.

There is no need to give a prolonged detail of the animated conversation which ensued during the rest of the banquet; a conversation which would not much edify the reader. And it is scarcely necessary to say, that all ladies of thecorps de danse are not like Miss Calverley, any more than that all peers resemble that illustrious member of their order, the late lamented Viscount Colchicum. But there have been such in our memories who have loved the society of r