The season was approaching when, in good old times, the heads of great families left the metropolis, and in the retirement of their country seats or villas devoted the precious hours of the solemn festival of Easter to reflection, apart from busy scenes of public life in the bosoms of their families—thus setting an example worthy of imitation: and overcoming, in some degree, the difficulty with which we know a rich man shall enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

How widely different is it at the present day with those who call themselves The Ton. They go indeed, at this holy season, to villas, and country seats, but take with them there all the follies, and vices, and habits of that daily idleness and dissipation which can suffer no pause in its riot, no diminution in its intoxication.

Lady Ellersby had invited to Restormel Lady Tilney and the more select of her coterie. Some there were, the subalterns of their corps Élite, who, however subservient and ready they had proved themselves to adopt the follies of exclusiveness, had as yet failed in establishing themselves in its full rights and prerogatives, and who, after the sacrifice of their own true dignity, still found themselves but as tools in the hands of others. These, often overlooked in the more recherchÉ amusements, heard of the party at Restormel, but only heard, and were not among the invited. To be excluded on such an occasion was a mortification of the severest kind, and it became a matter of the greatest importance to have their names inserted, if possible, on the select list. To obtain this point, the infinite pains and ingenuity employed were worthy of a better cause. The Baskervilles were of the number overlooked; and, addressing his wife on the subject with as much eagerness as it was permitted one of his dignified refinement to display, Lord Baskerville said:

"Imagine what Boileau has just told me; Lady Ellersby has a party at Restormel next week! I do think we had a right to be asked; don't you?"

"Oh certainly, love," replied Lady Baskerville, a sweet-sounding epithet of affection which but on few occasions passed between them: "Certainly: and if we are not, I shall think it quite rude; but I will arrange the matter."

That night Lady Baskerville went to the Opera with Lady Boileau; as soon as an opportunity presented itself, Lady Baskerville turned suddenly round, and said, "Oh, there is Lady Ellersby, I see, in her box: how well she looks—of course you are going to Restormel at Easter?" and she kissed her hand the while, in her most smiling manner, to the lady of whom she spoke.

"No, I am not invited," replied Lady Boileau. "Are you?"

"Yes," rejoined Lady Baskerville, (determined to hazard the lie at all events, and trust to chance, or her own devices, to make it true afterwards.) "But how very odd she should have left you out; it must be some mistake."

"Oh, no, it is not a mistake—it cannot be; for Lady Ellersby, you know, makes all her invitations on these occasions de vive voix." Lady Baskerville almost betrayed herself as she felt Lady Boileau's penetrating eyes fixed upon her's, with a scrutiny she did not wish to prolong; however she rallied dexterously, and turned off the discourse into some other channel; but Lady Boileau returned to the charge, saying:

"Well, my dear Lady Baskerville, as you are asked, do you not think you could get us invited also? You know I hardly ever break my rule of running the risk of compromising a friend by tormenting her to procure invitations, but for this once I think I may venture, considering our long friendship, to entrust you with the secret (for you know I would not have it said for the world), that I wish to be of the number of the PriÉes to Restormel—now as I intend giving my first ball immediately after Easter, I shall consult her to-night about certain persons whom I am rather doubtful whether I shall ask or not, and then by appealing to you, throw the conversation into your hands, and give you an opportunity of naming those who are invited to Restormel, which will bring about the subject in such a natural way, that either I must be asked or she will commit herself by a rudeness which she generally avoids."

Lady Baskerville sat on thorns, but during the length of this speech she had leisure to collect her scattered senses, and began a reply equally elaborate, professing herself to be exceedingly attached and obliged to Lady Boileau, and for that very reason declining all interference on the present occasion—"for you know," she said, "it makes one so very nervous to put a friend under the unpleasant predicament of being refused. Besides, the moment one lets the world know that one has a friend who wants any thing, people begin immediately to conclude that they may want many things, and directly look shy, and make an excuse, and get off, and probably cut both the asker and the person for whom they ask. However you know I will do what I can do, but only I entreat you will leave me at liberty to chuse the mode of managing this business."

"Yes," rejoined Lady Boileau, "most certainly; but perhaps the best way of all will be to say nothing about it, beforehand, and then for me to arrive unexpectedly, and say you had asked me, and had forgotten to mention to Lady Ellersby that you had done so."

"Oh! not for the world, my dearest Lady Boileau, not for the world,—besides,—I just recollect—Lord Baskerville had some idea we should not go at all;"—at that instant arrives Lord Baskerville himself, and forgetting his acquired manner, he opened the box-door somewhat abruptly, and in his natural gay agreeable way, such as is his own when he ceases to remember he is an exclusive, he said, addressing Lady Baskerville,

"I have this instant had an invitation for you, which I am sure you will accept with pleasure: it is from Lady Ellersby to go to Restormel."

"Dear! la! Lord Baskerville, how odd you are—that is so like you—to have forgot—and Lady Ellersby too, she must have forgotten, don't you know we were asked a fortnight ago."

"Ah—hem! very true," and taking the hint which Lady Baskerville had given him by an expressive glance, "hem! I had really forgotten, I always forget those sort of things, hem!"

"Yes, and you said then, if you remember, that you would not go, for that you thought of visiting Tunbridge, as you always conceived Restormel to be a dull, damp place, and so unwholesome, with its quantity of trees and stagnant water."

"Ay—so I did,—hem! very true, and so it is, and now you put me in mind, I rather suppose we, that is I, shall not go, for of course your ladyship will do as you chuse."

Lady Boileau, though young in years, was too old a bird of fashion to be caught with chaff, she saw through this matrimonial manoeuvre, but was too prudent to let her perception be seen; and in regard to Lady Baskerville's refusal on the subject of Restormel, she pretended to take it as the latter intended it should be taken, and her outward appearance remained unruffled, but at the same time it was marked in the tablets of her memory, as a token of friendship not to be forgotten.

"Indeed," replied Lady Boileau, in answer to Lord Baskerville's last remark, "you are both quite right, Restormel is a dull place, and I advise you to secure a party for Tunbridge, in which I shall be most happy to join you."

"I will think about it, hem!" replied Lord Baskerville, "and consult the Comtesse Leinsengen," and thus he bowed out of the box. Shortly after, Lady Baskerville feigned a very bad head-ache and retired before the end of the ballet. Not so Lady Boileau; she watched Lady Ellersby's movements, and contrived to meet her in the room just at the very moment when the crowd prevented her escaping.

"What do you think I have been doing all night?" Lady Boileau asked?

"Not listening to the Opera," replied Mr. Spencer Newcomb, who was handing Lady Ellersby.

"As if any body ever really came to attend to or listen to it!" she observed; "it is the very last thing one comes to the Opera for," yawning.

"I have been much better employed," rejoined Lady Boileau, "for I have been defending the agrÉmens of Restormel against Lord and Lady Baskerville's assertion of its being the dullest place in the world; they both declared it always gave them the vapours."

"So it does me," replied Lady Ellersby, again yawning, "and that is precisely the reason why I take such special care never to go there, without having it well filled. But then all places in the country are alike, and one must go out of town at Easter."

"Well, Lady Ellersby, that may be true enough: all country places are insufferably dull except it be to give a fÊte during the lilac and laburnum season; but I think your friends might make some distinction between you and your place, and as far as I could observe there was none made by the Baskervilles."

"Oh was there not, he, he! Oh if such is the case I am sorry I asked them to-night."

"To-night! did you not make Lady Baskerville the invitation long before to-night? you will pardon my asking the question; I have a particular reason, which I will explain to you hereafter, for doing so."

"La, dear, no," yawning, "I never thought of asking any body long ago." This, though in contradiction to her former declaration of taking care to secure a party, she was obliged to say in order to avoid a marked rudeness to Lady Boileau, "and," she continued, "now I have the good fortune to meet you, dear Lady Boileau, will you and Lord Boileau have the charity to join us; and, notwithstanding Lady Baskerville's terrific account of Restormel, venture to come and egayer its melancholy bowers; at all events it will be better than remaining in town, and we will try to do what we can to render ourselves agreeable to you."

"I shall be delighted; we shall have the greatest pleasure in waiting upon you, and am certain we shall be extremely well amused."

The great object of Lady Boileau's day was now successfully attained, and doubtless she laid her head upon her pillow that night with all the satisfaction which such success ought to confer. Lady Baskerville, on her part rejoiced in having as she thought so completely outmanoeuvred her friend, and enjoyed the triumph which her superior skill in the management of such matters, as well as her superior knowledge of the world, had afforded her. Yet these women called each other friends! How is that sacred name profaned, that name which can have no embodied existence, but with the sincere and good, yet which is polluted in the world's mouth at every instant.

Restormel was, as it had been described by Lady Baskerville, an exceedingly gloomy place, but all within the house was luxury; beyond its walls, however, there were none of those moral circumstances which can give interest even to the dullest spot. The scenery was monotonous and insipid; but there might have been an enlivening character thrown over the gloom, in the happy countenances and cheerful looks of dependents and retainers, if such had been the will of the possessors of Restormel. But this was not the case, the cold calculating system of employment of the poor, merely when the purpose of keeping up the grounds or other improvements made it necessary, and then taking no further charge whatever of the beings so employed, regarding them only as the labourers of the hour, conspired to give the place a moral, as well as a natural gloom.

No peasant's abode in these domains was ever cheered by Lady Ellersby's presence; no sufferer in sickness or distress alleviated beyond the donation of money, and that but seldom;—none of those heart-interests in short were ever evinced, on her, or her Lord's part, which confer a mutual delight on those who receive, and on those who bestow them, and which maintain that link between the higher and lower classes, which is at once so beautiful and so beneficial, and without which all the luxuries in the world will never produce any thing but a melancholy and unsatisfying grandeur.

There certainly, however, were the means, if they had been resorted to, for every laudable gratification of interest and entertainment at Restormel. And where is the country place in which, if its possessor fulfil the various duties the possession entails on him, the means are wanting; and even as it was, if that sickly appetite for excitement which characterised its present inhabitants could ever have been satisfied, it must have been here, where every thing connected with their system of life was found in profusion; but the factitious smiles which gild the exterior of such a circle as was generally to be met with at Restormel is not the sunshine of real happiness.

Easter was now arrived and the party assembled at Restormel, consisted of the Tilneys, the Tenderdens, the Baskervilles, the Leinsengens, Luttermannes, Lord Tonnerre, Lady Hamlet Vernon, Lord Albert D'Esterre (who was asked on trial), Lord and Lady Boileau, by the manoeuvre which has been described, and one or two single men like Mr. Leslie Winyard, Mr. Spencer Newcomb, &c. &c.

These persons all met on the first night of their arrival at an eight o'clock dinner. Lord Albert D'Esterre had been invited at Lady Tilney's suggestion, who considered a country house a good stage for the display of a new debutant, and as affording no unpropitious opportunity of forwarding her wishes in regard to Lord Albert's political bias. These wishes, however, were soon doomed to disappointment; Lord Albert had accepted the invitation under the impression that in the country there was more leisure and tranquillity than the hurry of a London life allowed; but whether in the country or town, he might have known, had not the fatal mist of delusion which comes over all who enter on a tortuous path began to blind him, that reflection and serenity of mind do not depend on time or place; that power, that calm, may be destroyed or may be nurtured in cities, as in lonely wilds, it is true; but had he thought for a moment, he would have felt that the gay assemblage in which he was to mix at Restormel, was not calculated to restore him to that state of mind which he believed himself anxious to regain.

In the course of Lord Albert D'Esterre's acquaintance with Lady Hamlet Vernon, he had discovered much to charm, to dazzle, and to lead a mind so young as his into a maze of error. Sophistry had gradually drawn its veil before his perception of truth; through this he viewed her character; and under the same delusive influence, he persuaded himself that the interest he took in her arose from the purest motive, namely that of endeavouring to free from error, one whose nature was naturally endowed with capabilities for becoming truly estimable. He listened to all her dangerous and seductive opinions, while he gazed on her beauty, bewildered with the false conviction that he did so to prove to her the error of the one, and to point out the peril which, with such unfixed tenets, the other would most probably lead her into.

What a melancholy prospect, he inwardly exclaimed, lies before that beautiful creature, whose principles have never been formed to virtue, and who has been cast among those whose every axiom is contrary to the laws of purity and truth! What delight in the reflection, what a good action it will be, to disentangle such a being from the snares that surround her, and restore her to a life of usefulness and happiness. My heart aches for her, when I think how in early youth, before she could know her own wishes, she was married to an unprincipled husband, one who could never have known her worth; she must not be abandoned without an effort to save her. Thus did Lord Albert parley with himself, till a dangerous admixture of evil glided in with his better feelings, and prevented that clear perception between right and wrong, which under his engagements should have made him at once fly from Lady Hamlet Vernon. It was not so, however, and Lady Hamlet Vernon was more the object that led him to Restormel, than any wish for, or sense of, the necessity of retirement and reflection.

The mode of living at Restormel was what Spencer Newcomb wittily called the foreign system, that is, every pleasure-giving circumstance was throughout the daily routine cultivated to the utmost point which art could reach. To give an account of it in detail would be a work of supererogation; for it was a transfer of London to the country, only with this difference, that the post town and high road took place of the streets of the metropolis; and the shrubberies and gardens of Restormel, of those of Kensington and the Park; with the exception, too, of a rather animated discussion between Lady Tilney and Lord Tonnerre on the subject of female influence; and which brought the parties into closer collision, than was consistent with the outward harmony of exclusive ton.

Little occurred during the first few days of the retreat to Restormel to vary the monotony of the scene. With reference to this latter subject, Lady Tilney remarked to Lady Baskerville, as they left the dining-room, on the evening when the affair alluded to had taken place, "I am very sorry, my dear Lady Baskerville, very sorry indeed, that what I said should have taken such a desperate effect on your friend Lord Tonnerre; however, it does every body good to hear the truth now and then, and as he seldom if ever hears it, I think I have done him service in sounding that tocsin in his ears for once in his life, don't you, my dear?"

"He, he, he!" tittered Lady Baskerville, who did not like to offend the speaker, though she was really angry with her in her heart; "I dare say you are quite right—but for my part, I never wish to teach any body any thing; I was so tired of being taught myself, that whatever reminds me of the dull days of being a good girl, and having a governess, quite overcomes me."

"Oh," observed the Comtesse Leinsengen, "what sinnify, whether dat Lord is in a passion or not, nothing will ever change him. He knows but two phrases in the dictionary, I will and I won't, you shall and you shan't, and he do tink himself, and all dat belong to himself, quite perfect, c'est une ignorance crasse a tout prendre, but what sinnify it? He was alway Milor Tonnerre, he is Milor Tonnerre, he will alway be Milor Tonnerre; laisser le grogner, c'est son mÉtier; en qualitÉ de Tonnerre il grognera toujours, quesque Ça nous fait? il n'est pas notre mari laisse-le lÀ de grÂces," and she looked at Lady Baskerville as she spoke.

This affair, however, did not pass over quite so easily as Lady Tilney would have had it; and it ended in Lord Tonnerre's going suddenly to town; and Lady Baskerville remaining in exceedingly bad humour: for to be without an attachÉ quelconque was as bad as to be without a hat from Herbot's.