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No man enjoyed life more than Middleton; we mean
by life the world. His contracted understanding and selfish
heart permitted him to drink all the sweets of the present
without troubling himself with recollections of the past
or speculations concerning the future. His mania for distinction
had been gratified beyond his most aspiring hopes.
His pomposity had increased with his power, wealth, and
rank, and it would be difficult to find a gentleman more fully
possessed with the idea of his own greatness, and more desirous
of possessing others with it. These high airs were
set off by his fine person, and he met few who denied to
him all the outward tokens of the immense respect he required.
It was now even more than ever his pleasure to
dazzle all around him, to make the vulgar stare, to reveal
himself in striking attitudes, and with that sort of effect
which nine out of ten of those simple people who compose
the world innocently suppose real. All the disagreeable
points of his character were ripened by prosperity into more
odious perfection, and he had never been more disposed
than at present to arrogate to himself, to keep people around
him at a distance, and to enjoy the profound awe and admiration
of valets and hotel-keepers. The reader must not
suppose we are attempting to draw an English gentleman;
nothing can be more unlike. Simplicity of manner and a
perfect indifference to display almost invariably form a part
of their characteristics. The Earl of Rivington was an
English gentleman. Lord Middleton belonged to no class
of any country, but to human nature.

One morning, towards the autumn of the present summer,
the proprietor of the Hôtel de Saxe, at Dresden, was gratified
with the sight of a very elegant travelling-carriage and
four horses, which dashed across the square and stopped
before his door. If a “milor Anglaise” had not been written
in every point of the equipage and its appurtenances,
the stately, proud-looking, officer-like person who alighted,
and proceeded immediately to the most expensive apartment
in the house, would have revealed the nationality of that

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agreeable vision, and flattered the imagination of mine host
with brilliant promises of a long bill indefinitely augmented
and uninquiringly paid.

The flutter of delighted agitation which such an arrival
sends through the various departments of a hotel on the
Continent was not wanting in the present instance, and everything
that the humble efforts of mere Continental politeness
could invent was put in operation to render his lordship
(for they have adopted the word at last) “comfortable.”
No one approached him without a bow. No one spoke to
him without emphatic exclamations of milor, monseigneur,
excellence, or mon prince, which last, a very fat, very handsome,
exorbitantly well-dressed, particularly impudent-looking,
and yet extremely respectful waiter, with whiskers and
mustaches cultivated to the last imaginable point of perfection,
bestowed upon him with impunity, having detected
the sort of man he had to deal with the moment he set eyes
on him.

“Here, waiter!” said his lordship, after having bathed
and completed his toilet.

“Mon prince?”

“Have you many in the house?”

“Oui, mon prince.”

“At what hour is your table d'hôte?”

“At two o'clock, mon prince.”

“And can one get anything fit to eat there?”

“Mon prince,” replied the waiter, with one of the sweetest
smiles, “il faut esperer, we must hope to satisfy your
excellency.”

“Well, put some Champagne to cool! I'll dine with
you.”

“Oui, mon prince,” fell once more from the lips of the
bowing attendant.

At the hour designated, propelled partly by a desire to
display himself before the company, Lord Middleton, with
his person drawn up erect, and all the military commander
and embryo ambassador in his air, entered the room. The
first person he met on his way to the table was Harry Lennox.
There were few men he would not rather have seen.

“My lord,” said Harry, “I'm delighted! I didn't even
know you were on the Continent.”

“And I thought you also in London. Which way are
you going?”

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from the rest of the company to pursue, without interruption,
her plan of awakening his attention to the subject of religion,
the whole party returned to the house, where, after a slight
repast, Mrs. Lennox reminded them they might expect her
husband and Harry by the noon boat. It was therefore
proposed to go down to the landing at the proper hour, and
receive the new visiters with all the honours of war. Accordingly,
at about one o'clock, the whole party repaired to
the spot, laughing and talking as friends who have spent a
week in the country are very apt to talk, for nothing brings
mind and heart closer together than such an interval of uninterrupted
intimacy. A few moments after their arrival
they discovered a light cloud of ascending smoke and steam
peering over the summit of a green hill, then the plunging
strokes of the wheels and panting of the engine, and immediately
the large and stately vessel, more like a floating palace
than a boat, darted from behind a projecting angle of
black, broken rock, with the well-known barge cleaving the
foamy flood at its side, and containing the three figures of
Mr. Lennox, Harry, and Mr. Emmerson.

“Hallo! hurrah, boys! how are you? here we are!”
shouted Lennox, waving his hat. “Now then, my fine fellows,
out with ye. Hand up the valise. That's it; all
right! How d'ye do? How de do?”

And then the various embraces and shaking hands natural
to the occasion. As Lennox and Mrs. Elton did not find
it convenient to stop talking, the exclamations of the rest
were edged in as well as they could; and as nobody waited
for any answers, it was pretty much all the same in the end.
Emmerson's face was all smiles and blandness, though his
gratulations, like everything else he did, were performed in
a quiet way.

“But what's the matter with you, Harry?” said his mother;
“you don't look well.”

“Oh yes, perfectly. Never so well and so gay in my
life,” said Harry, rousing himself from a revery.

“Where's Fanny?” demanded Lennox.

“Here she is, at least here she was, or I thought she was
here.”

“Didn't she come down?” asked Mary.

“No, I don't think she did,” said Frank. “I observed she
was not with us.”

Up the steep, fragrant foot-path they wound, and met

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“I should not dare to do so, Mr. Lennox,” cried Glendenning,
growing yet paler; “I should have fled from your
presence in shame and horror, had I not learned you were
on friendly terms with that man. Had I not just seen you
touch his hand in kindness, and speak to him—him, of all
human beings—with a smile on your face—”

“I do not know what you mean,” said Harry.

“He means,” cried Middleton, “I should presume, from
his language, some new calumny against one whom he
has no other means of revenging himself upon for having
him dismissed the army.”

“I am not likely to credit the insinuations of one,” cried
Harry, “who has already, in regard to himself—”

He stopped, unable to proceed.

“But know, sir,” he added, after a pause, “that while
you so meanly attack Lord Middleton, you live only by his
sufferance. His intercession alone has saved you from the
fate you merit.”

“Lord Middleton, I presume, persuaded you, then, not to
seek me?”

“He did.”

“As one unworthy of notice, perhaps?”

“To what other consideration could you owe your life at
this moment?” demanded Harry. “What but contempt would
save you from vengeance?”

“Mr. Lennox,” replied Glendenning, “you would be too
noble to insult the fallen, and to strike the helpless, if you
knew the truth. Leave that to Lord Middleton, who pretends
to be calm while his heart trembles to its centre lest
I betray his secret.”

“Landlord!” exclaimed Middleton, rising in ungovernable
rage, “the person seated opposite me is not a fit character
for your table. I, Lord Middleton, formally acquaint
you with the fact. If he remain at the table longer, I shall
leave it.”

“I do not understand, milor,” replied the landlord, “on
what ground I am to decline receiving one gentleman at my
table, merely because he has a difference with another.”

“Will you do me the favour to dine with me in my room,
Mr. Lennox?” said Middleton.

“You dare not leave me one half hour in company with
Mr. Lennox,” cried Glendenning. “You dare not suffer
him to hear from me that you, the lieutenant-colonel of

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my regiment, were the malignant reviver of my first affair
with his brother, and that your cruel interference obliged me
to go back, and steep my hands in the heart's blood of my
noble and beloved friend.”

“Great heavens!” cried Harry, turning his flashing eyes
on Middleton.

“You will not, I trust, by one instant's attention, give colour
to a slander so diabolical,” said Middleton. He laid his
hand on his bosom with all his accustomed grandeur. “The
commander of a regiment can have no connexion with a
cashiered officer, desperate beneath the lash of merited
punishment, and sunk in irreparable degradation.”

Glendenning started up. The landlord rose and cried,

“But, gentlemen, I beg, I entreat!”

Harry folded his arms, pale and agitated, for the conviction
was now clear to him that there had been some foul
play in the matter, and that he was about to have it laid
open before him. Middleton preserved a calm and dignified
air; conscious innocence, or conscious power, showed
itself in his tranquil demeanour and quiet smile.

“Will you come with me, Lennox?” said he. “This
thing is really too absurd,”

“What is too absurd, my lord?” interrupted a strange
voice.

He started, he turned, and White stood before him.

“My dear White,” exclaimed Middleton, with an affectionate
familiarity, and without a trace of the self-important
superiority with which he had dealt with Glendenning.
“My dear White, how are you?”

“Thank you,” replied White.

“But where did you come from?” cried Middleton, extending
his hand, “and how are you?”

“My lord—” said White, without accepting the proffered
courtesy.

“Had we not better conduct this inquiry in private?” remarked
Harry, with a grave mildness, which made Middleton
turn yet paler.

“Pray walk into my drawing-room,” said Middleton.

“And Mr. Glendenning!” suggested Harry.

“Would you take into your society a dishonoured man?”

“And the murderer of your brother?” added White, with
a singular smile.

“Whether he be so or not, is the question we are to investigate,”
replied Harry.

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“I really cannot consent,” cried Middleton, imperiously
and grandly.

“Pass on, my lord!” interrupted Harry, sternly, with a look
and gesture of command, which made his distinguished companion
start and knit his brow. But he obeyed. He could
not help it. He had, at length, met his master.

“A la bonne heure!” said White, in a low voice.