selton; and you
can not fail to recognize Tom Chesselton the moment you clap eyes on
him, by his distinguished figure, and the splendid creature on which he
is mounted--to say nothing of the perfection of his groom, and the steed
which he also bestrides. Tom never crosses the back of a horse of less
value than a thousand pounds; and if you want to know really what horses
are, you must go down to his villa at Wimbledon, if you are not lucky
enough to catch a sight of him proceeding to a levee, or driving his
four-in-hand to Ascot or Epsom. All Piccadilly has been seen to stand,
lost in silent admiration, as he has driven his splendid britchzka along
it, with his perfection of a little tiger by his side; and such cattle
as never besides were seen in even harness of such richness and
elegance. Nay, some scores of ambitious young whips became sick of their
envy of his superb gauntlet driving-gloves.

But, in fact, in Tom's case, as in all others, you have only to know his
companions to know him; and who are they but Chesterfield, Conyngham,
D'Orsay, Eglintoun, my Lord Waterford, and men of similar figure and
reputation. To say that he is well known to all the principal
frequenters of the Carlton Club; that his carriages are of the most
perfect make ever turned out by Windsor; that his harness is only from
Shipley's; and that Stultz has the honor of gracing his person with his
habiliments; is to say that our young squire is one of the most perfect
men of fashion in England. Lady Barbara and himself have a common
ground of elegance of taste, and knowledge of the first principles of
genuine aristocratic life; but they have very different pursuits,
arising from the difference of their genius, and they follow them with
the utmost mutual approbation.

Lady Barbara is at once the worshiped beauty, the woman of fashion, and
of literature. No one has turned so many heads, by the loveliness of her
person, and the bewitching fascination of her manners, as Lady Barbara.
She is a wit, a poetess, a connoisseur in art; and what can be so
dangerously delightful as all these characters in a fashionable beauty,
and a woman, moreover, of such rank and wealth? She does the honors of
her house to the mutual friends and noble connections of her husband and
herself with a perpetual grace; but she has, besides, her evenings for
the reception of her literary and artistic acquaintance and admirers.
And who, of all the throng of authors, artists, cr