Year: 1877

THERE was once very great banker


in London, who had very fine
house in Portland Place, and a very
dirty old house in the city, and if the
latter looked the image of business and
riches, the former looked the picture of
luxury and display. He himself was a
mild man, whose ostentation was of a
quiet, but not the less of an active kind.
His movements were always calm and
tranquil, and his clothes plain but the
former were stately, the latter were in
the best fashion. Holditch was his
coachmaker in those days; Ude's first
cousin was his cook; his servants walk
ed up stairs to announce visitor to the
time of the Dead March in Saul, and
opened both valves of the folding doors
at once with grace that could only be
acquired by long practice. Every thing
seemed to move in his house by rule, and
nothing was ever seen to go wrong. All
the lackeys wore powder, and the wo-
men servants had their caps prescribed
to them. His wife was the daughter of
country gentleman of very old race
q woman of good manners, and warm
heart. Though there were two carriages
always at her especial command, she
sometimes walked on her feet, even in
London, and would not suffer an ac-
count of her parties to find its way into
the C Morning Post" The banker and
his wife had but one child, daughter,
and very pretty and very sweet girl
she was as ever my eyes saw. She was
not very tall, though very beautifully
formed, and exquisitely graceful. She
was, indeed, the least affected person
that ever was seen, for, accustomed from
her very earliest days, to perfect ease in


every respect-denied nothing that was
virtuous and right-taught by her moth
er to estimate high qualities-too much
habituated to wealth to regard it as an
object--and too frequently brought in
contact with rank to estimate it above
its value-she had nothing to covet, and
nothing to assume H er face was sweet
and thoughtful, though the thoughts
were evidently cheerful ones, and her
voice was full of melody and gentleness.
Her name was Alice Herbert, and she
was sooR admired of all admirers. Peo-
pie looked for her at the opera and the
park, declared her beautiful, adorable,
divine; she became the wonder, the
rage, the fashion; and every body added
when they spoke about her, that she
would have a million at least. Now,
Mr.. Herbert himself was not at all
anxious that his daughter should marry
any of the men that first presented
themselves, because none of them We're
above the rank of a baron; nor was
Mrs. Herbert anxious either, because,
she did not wish to part with her daugh-
know well why-perhaps she thought
that part of the men who surrounded
her were fops, and as many more were
libertines, and the rest were fools, and
Alice did not feel more inclined to choose
out of these three classes than her father
did out of the three inferior grades of
our nobility. There was, indeed, a
young man, in the Guards, distantly
connected with her mothers family,
who was neither fop, libertine nor fool
agentleman AN accomplished man and a
man of good feeling, who was often at
Mr.. Herbert's house, but father, mother
and daughter, all thought him out of the
question; the father, because he was
not duke; the mother, because he was
soldier; and the daughter, because
he had never given her the slightest
reason to believe that he either admired
or loved her. AS he had some two
thousand year, he might have been a
good match for clergyman's daughter,
but could not pretend to Miss Herbert


Alice certainly liked him better than
any man she. had ever seen, and once
she found his eyes fixed upon her from
the other side of a ball room with an ex.
preston that made her forget what hei
partner was saying to her. The coloI
came up into her cheek, too, and ehat
seemed to give Henry Ashton courag,