A STORY OF FASHIONABLE LIFE.

BY THE AUTHOR OF

"THE PERILS OF FASHION."

IN THREE VOLUMES.

VOL. III.

LONDON:

HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS,

SUCCESSORS TO HENRY COLBURN,

THE COLONEL.

CHAPTER I.

"All men are dreamers; from the hour
When reason first exerts its power,
Unmindful of its bitter sting,

To some deceiving hope we cling-
That hope's a dream!

ANON.

FROM the absence of the three families of the Suttons, the St. Colmos, and the Mavesyns, the never very populous neighbourhood of Stokebree seemed actually labouring under a ban of depopulation; and game was shot

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B

and

grapes gathered, and yet there was scarcely wherewithal to form a dinner party out of the scanty visiting forces yet remaining.

There was one, however, who heeded nothing of this, and thought everything was going on delightfully. It was Yolande Villaroy, who, in the beautiful autumnal mornings, found a pleasure in rambling amid the heath-covered heights, which she had scarcely believed that mere still-life scenery could have afforded her. She was blind to the fact that is, virtually blind, as people are who are affected by the determination of not seeing that her frequent encounters with Dan Colyton lent these rambles all their attractions. While he, on his side, when covering the idleness of his morning lounges with that semblance which his gun and pointers lent them, contrived to believe that

the pleasures of sporting, and exercise, and doing country-gentleman's duty, was the spring of all the satisfaction he enjoyed. Neither of them felt or regretted the temporary lull in the visiting usual to that season of the year.

What were parties to Yolande; with all their constraint and convenance, the small talk of the young ladies, and the great talk of the old? She sat amid them all, an illdressed and lifeless image. Without sufficient good temper to choose her subjects of conversation to suit those she met; without sufficient art to make them adopt those which would please her, it was scarcely wonderful that society was usually to her a perfect Sahara of dry talk and dusty labour. Her painting-room and her morning rambles were, however, enough for happiness. And she would have failed to deprecate the opinions