rt and nature she is entitled, and calling out,
"Horace, Horace!" and nodding, and winking, and pointing, she causes her
son-in-law to extend the wing on his side. We are cut of THAT chance
of a breakfast. We shall have the tea at its third water, and those two
damp black mutton-chops, which nobody else will take, will fall to our
cold share.

At this minute a voice, clear and sweet, from a tall lady in a black
veil, says, "Mr. Titmarsh," and I start and murmur an ejaculation of
respectful surprise, as I recognize no less a person than the Right
Honorable the Countess of Knightsbridge, taking her tea, breaking
up little bits of toast with her slim fingers, and sitting between a
Belgian horse-dealer and a German violoncello-player who has a conge
after the opera--like any other mortal.

I whisper her ladyship's name to Lankin. The Serjeant looks towards her
with curiosity and awe. Even he, in his Pump Court solitudes, has heard
of that star of fashion--that admired amongst men, and even women--that
Diana severe yet simple, the accomplished Aurelia of Knightsbridge. Her
husband has but a small share of HER qualities. How should he? The
turf and the fox-chase are his delights--the smoking-room at the
"Travellers'"--nay, shall we say it?--the illuminated arcades
of "Vauxhall," and the gambols of the dishevelled Terpsichore.
Knightsbridge has his faults--ah! even the peerage of England is not
exempt from them. With Diana for his wife, he flies the halls where
she sits severe and serene, and is to be found (shrouded in smoke,
'tis true,) in those caves where the contrite chimney-sweep sings his
terrible death chant, or the Bacchanalian judge administers a satiric
law. Lord Knightsbridge has his faults, then; but he has the gout at
Rougetnoirbourg, near the Rhine, and thither his wife is hastening to
minister to him.

"I have done," says Lady Knightsbridge, with a gentle bow, as she rises;
"you may have this place, Mr. Titmarsh; and I am sorry my breakfast is
over: I should have prolonged it had I thought that YOU were coming to
sit by me. Thank you--my glove." (Such an absurd little glove, by the
way). "We shall meet on the deck when you have done."

And she moves away with an august curtsy. I can't tell how it is, or
what it is, in that lady; but she says, "How do you do?" as nobody else
knows how to say it. In all her actions, motions, thoughts, I would
wager there is the same calm grace and harmony. She is not very
ha