and hurried him on. After a few turns more, they reached the bottom, when the panting dame confessed she was quite exhausted, and must sit down.

Every sofa was occupied, so they had to proceed to the cardroom, where they found a seat.

In the centre of this salle de jeu stood an oval table, around which a multitude of punters of both sexes was collected. Indeed, we regret to say the female gamblers preponderated. Brice Banbury officiated as tailleur at the faro-table, and Jack Brassey and Nat Mist, who had arrived that very evening-quite unexpectedly, of course at the Angel, as croupiers. Every opportunity for play was here afforded. Besides faro,-hazard, piquet, French ruff, and gleek were going on at smaller tables placed in each corner.

So fearfully catching is the fever of gaming, that the fair Spaniard could not escape it. She had not been long exposed to its baneful influence before she expressed a strong desire to approach the farotable; and once within view of the tapis vert the impulse to try her luck proved irresistible. She had never played in her life before, she assured Gage in a low, earnest tone-never!-indeed, she scarcely knew one card from another-but he should instruct her.

Our hero was not the person to baulk her inclinations. Applauding her resolve, he bade her select a card, and placed a heavy stake upon it. She lost-and he renewed the stake. Again the señora was unfortunate, and as Gage's purse was now emptied, he had to apply for more money to Mr. Fairlie, who was standing in the card-room, distinguishable from the rest of the assemblage from the circumstance of being in his ordinary attire. But Gage had no immediate occasion for the funds thus obtained. Before he could join the señora, the haughty hidalgo suddenly entered, and marching up to her with an angry gesture, took her away.

"There is

Unquestionably Gage would have interfered to prevent this uncourteous proceeding had he not been withheld by Fairlie. "Let her go, sir-let her go," the steward said. some mistake. Are you not aware that two Spaniards and two Spanish dames have gained admittance to the ball? Now I feel quite sure that the don who has just left us has got the wrong doña, and consequently there will be a diverting scene between them before long. I recommend you to follow and witness it."

"One word before I go, Fairlie.

second couple of Spaniards are?"

Have you any idea who this

"Perhaps I have, sir-but it's mere conjecture-not worth mentioning. In fact, I'm scarcely at liberty to tell."

"Well, I won't press you. But I should like to know which of the two is Miss Poynings?"

"Not the lady you brought here, you may depend, sir," Fairlie rejoined.

"By Heaven! I thought not," Gage cried, reflecting how

VOL. XXXIX.

C

tenderly his hand had been squeezed by the second señora. "How could I be so stupid! But tell me, Fairlie, where is Mrs. Jenyns? I have not discovered her

yet.'

"She was here a few minutes ago, sir."

"What sort of dress does she wear? She declared I should dance with her without finding her out."

Very likely you have done so already," the steward remarked, with a laugh.

66

Why I have only danced with one person. Ha!" Gage exclaimed, a light suddenly breaking upon him-"I see it all. That Spanish dame was Mrs. Jenyns. Ï' faith I have been nicely tricked. But who is the hidalgo?"

"Since you have made so good a guess, sir, I must needs own that her companion is Sir Randal-and the page by whom they are attended is no other than Mrs. Jenyns's maid, Lucinda. Understanding that young Poynings and his sister were about to attend the ball, Mrs. Jenyns resolved to mystify you-and apparently she has succeeded.”

"I'll have my revenge," Gage rejoined; "but I must first look after Lucy."

With this, he returned to the ball-room.

XXII.

MASQUERADE FROLICS.

By this time the real business of the evening had commenced, and the bulk of the masquers began to think it necessary to support the characters they had assumed-whether successfully or not mattered little, so that a laugh was raised. Mountebanks and jugglers performed surprising feats. Quack-doctors vaunted the wonderful merits of their nostrums. One of them, an Italian charlatan, fantastically attired in a flame-coloured robe, and having an immense pair of spectacles over his aquiline nose, ran away with all the custom. He had elixirs of long life, love-potions, and lovepowders; a collyrium made of the eyes of a black cat, that enabled you to see in the dark; an unguent that, rubbed over the lips, would compel a sleeper to answer all questions, and confess all secretsespecially useful to jealous husbands; and, above all, a precious liquid, a few drops of which in a bath would make an old woman young again. The love-potions were eagerly bought by many a sighing swain and ineffectually pressed on obdurate fair ones; but the efficacy of the elixir of youth was marvellously attested.

A phial was purchased by the antiquated dame in the tall conical hat, and she had no sooner swallowed its contents than her cloak and hat fell off as if by magic, and she appeared in the

guise of a young and lightsome columbine. Hereupon a roving harlequin, who had witnessed the transformation, bounded towards her, and bent the knee, placing his hand upon his heart, as if ravished by her new-born charms-then pointing his feet and rolling his head round rapidly, he danced off with her, hotly pursued by a couple of pierrots, screaming out that she belonged to them, and calling upon the crowd to stop her.

These pierrots, by the way, together with the scaramouches and punchinellos, seemed perfectly ubiquitous, and played all sorts of mischievous pranks-interrupting many a tender tête-à-tête— tripping up the heels of old women and grave and reverend signors-launching quips and jests, so hardy that they often brought them a buffet in answer-making love to all the prettiest masks, and running off with several of them-appropriating cloaks, swords, and scarves, and then wrangling about them with the owners-and never to be checked in their practical joking except by sharp and sounding slaps from the harlequins' wands, which, it must be owned, were very freely administered.

In addition to all this buffoonery and fun, grotesque dances were executed, in which Jews, Turks, courtiers, shepherds and shepherdesses, gentlemen of the long robe, friars, and even pontiffs took part, producing a very droll effect. Perhaps the best of these was a clog-dance, by a couple of peasants, which elicited loud applause. But it must not be supposed that all the company were engrossed by such gamesome performances, or cared for the boisterous frolics of the mimes. Many of the young gallants liked the uproar because it favoured their own designs, and consequently added to it, encouraging the scaramouches in their tricks; but they always contrived to come up in the nick of time to assist a distressed damsel, or ease a credulous duenna of her timid charge.

Introductions were unneeded. Everybody asked anybody he pleased to dance, and rarely met with a refusal. Hitherto, the harmony of the assemblage had been uninterrupted. If a quarrel seemed likely to ensue from some practical joke, it was instantly put down, and the brawlers separated and laughed at.

Flirtations were frequent and desperate. Several couples who kept aloof from the crowd, or took possession of the sofas and settees, were evidently far gone in the tender passion; while others plunged into the thickest of the motley throng, thinking they were securest there from observation.

Amid a scene of so much confusion, it was not easy to discover those you sought, and no wonder many careless husbands and chaperons, who had trusted their spouses and protégées out of sight, never found them again during the whole evening. Like difficulty might have been experienced by Monthermer in his search for Lucy Poynings, if the page had not unexpectedly come to his aid and volunteered to conduct him to his mistress.

"Is your mistress unattended?" Gage inquired, in surprise. "She is in the ante-chamber," the page replied.

"Are you sure you are not an ignis-fatuus?" Monthermer said, regarding the young coxcomb with some distrust.

"I don't know what that is," the page rejoined; "but I am not a dupe, as some one is whom I could mention."

"Do you venture to apply that term to me, sirrah?" Gage

cried.

"No, you apply it to yourself, but it is not undeserved. Since we met, I have ascertained that Mrs. Jenyns has assumed the same dress as my lady, and my lady's brother has ascertained it too. I told you Mrs. Jenyns would listen to him if he made love to herand I was right. Look there!"

"'Sdeath! what do I behold?" Monthermer exclaimed.

Glancing in the direction indicated by the page, he perceived a couple reclining on a settee at the opposite side of the room, evidently engaged in amorous converse. To all appearance they were the señora and hidalgo who had recently quitted the cardroom. The lady's manner left no doubt on Gage's mind that she was much interested by her companion, and the lively gestures and the quick movements of her fan, with which she seemed almost to converse, proclaimed what was passing between them.

"Well, do you now confess yourself a dupe?" the page inquired, in a tone of mockery.

"I must be satisfied that yon pair really are Mrs. Jenyns and Arthur before I answer," Gage cried, angrily.

"And expose yourself to the ridicule of the whole room by making a disturbance," the page rejoined, arresting him. "What good will that do? You are too much a man of the world to care for so trifling a matter as the loss of a mistress, and ought to congratulate yourself rather than repine. You are well rid of her."

"On my soul, I think so!" Gage said, in accents that rather belied his words. "Take me to Miss Poynings."

"This way," the page replied,-muttering as he plunged into the crowd, followed by Monthermer. "If we can only keep him in this humour for an hour, he is won."

FALSEHOODS AND REALITIES OF THE WAR.

SEBASTOPOL, it is well known, was captured by a Tartar long before the Allies penetrated within its precincts. The processes of Vauban had, some were cruel enough to say, been superseded by the pitchers of Gideon. The "Fr-r-rançais, vainqueur à perpétuité," to quote a Franko-Muscovite writer, "and to whom victory would never dare to play tricks," instead of being astounded at having captured one of the most formidable fortresses in the world in less time than it requires to make an emperor, took the news quite as a matter of course.

Barbanchu said to Tartempion: "So, old one, we have taken Sebastopol, killed eighteen thousand Russians, and taken twenty-two thousand prisoners." To which Tartempion condescended to reply, "Well! if we attacked it, what else could be expected?"

Balls and illuminations were extemporised to celebrate the event. Vaillance was made to rhyme with France, and Français with succès, in transparencies illustrating the fall of the Russian Gibraltar. Official bards proclaimed in their lyrics that the avuncular glory was effaced in Napoleon III., and the capture of Sebastopol was the most astonishing feat of arms recorded in history. The Univers announced that the fall of Sebastopol was a victory for the Church: "The Greek schism, once so arrogant, had received a mortal blow. Russia was not conquered, it was dissipated. Her courage, like her doctrines and her policy, was a falsehood." In Dunkerque there arose a triumphal arch, on which was inscribed,

Capture of Sebastopol-France-England-Turkey.

Glory to the Great Nation and to its Immortal Emperors.
Charlemagne-Napoleon III.-Napoleon I.

The nineteenth century, the age of the electric telegraph, of steam, gas, lucifers, photography, electro-galvanic pens, and turning-tables, has not, however, been more mystified by a Tartar despatch, than it has been by Muscovite intrigues and falsifications, all of which have been again surpassed by the happy idea of a telegraphic report of a sudden and "unexpected" attack to be made upon the Allies, and which important mystification, re-telegraphed to the Crimea, put the last extinguisher upon the campaign of 1855. These mystifications had not their origin solely on the Continent. A power that employs agents to excite discord and rebellion in Ireland by burning Bibles in public, would not fail to assail England at a variety of weak points. A morning paper having announced that on the occasion of the investiture of the Emperor Napoleon with the order of the Garter, the insignia of the Emperor of Russia as a member of the same order would be removed from their place, the philo-Russians declared that an august personage had remarked thereon to Napoleon III.,

"Eh bien, mon petit! voilà une jarretière qui t'empêchera désormais de perdre Théba (tes bas!)."

The astute punster leaves it undecided in the original whether the august mother-in-law meant that a garter, by strengthening the alliance of France and England, would prevent an emperor losing his empress,