pray
dismiss the image. Lord Rupert Conway has been "called while still
almost a youth to the first situation which a subject can hold in the
_universe_," and even leading articles and a _resume_ of the debates have
not conjured up a dream that surpasses the fact.

"The door opened again, and Lord Rupert Conway entered. Evelyn gave
one glance. It was enough; she was not disappointed. It seemed as
if a picture on which she had long gazed was suddenly instinct with
life, and had stepped from its frame before her. His tall figure,
the distinguished simplicity of his air--it was a living Vandyke, a
cavalier, one of his noble cavalier ancestors, or one to whom her
fancy had always likened him, who long of yore had with an Umfraville
fought the Paynim far beyond the sea. Was this reality?"

Very little like it, certainly.

By and by it becomes evident that the ministerial heart is touched. Lady
Umfraville is on a visit to the Queen at Windsor, and--

"The last evening of her stay, when they returned from riding, Mr.
Wyndham took her and a large party to the top of the Keep, to see the
view. She was leaning on the battlements, gazing from that 'stately
height' at the prospect beneath her, when Lord Rupert was by her
side. 'What an unrivalled view!' exclaimed she.

"'Yes, it would have been wrong to go without having been up here.
You are pleased with your visit?'

"'Enchanted! A Queen to live and die under, to live and die for!'

"'Ha!' cried he, with sudden emotion, and with a _eureka_ expression
of countenance, as if he had _indeed found a heart in unison with his
own_."

The "_eureka_ expression of countenance" you see at once to be prophetic
of marriage at the end of the third volume; but before that desirable
consummation there are very complicated misunderstandings, arising
chiefly from the vindictive plotting of Sir Luttrel Wycherley, who is a
genius, a poet, and in every way a most remarkable character indeed. He
is not only a romantic poet, but a hardened rake and a cynical wit; yet
his deep passion for Lady Umfraville has so impoverished his epigrammatic
talent that he cuts an extremely poor figure in conversation. When she
rejects him, he rushes into the shrubbery and rolls himself in the dirt;
and on recovering, devotes himself to the most diabolical and laborious
schemes of vengeance, in the course of which he disguise