"Our virtues

Sovereign or ha'penny?" said the cad, rubbing the coin between his thumb and finger.

Sovereign, of course!" said Bconfidently, pocketing the change which the man had ready for the emergency in a bit of brown paper.

It was a muggy, misty, London twilight. I was coming up to town from Blackheath, and in the crowded vehicle had chanced to encounter my compatriot B- (call it Brown,) who had been lionizing the Thames Tunnel. In the course of conversation it came out that we were both on the town for our dinner, and as we were both guests at the Travellers' Club, we had pulled the omnibus string at the nearest point, and, after the brief dialogue recorded above, strolled together down Pall Mall.

As we sat waiting for our fish, one of us made a remark as to the difference of feel between gold and copper coin, and Brown, fishing in his pocket for money to try the experiment, discovered that the doubt of the cad was well founded, for he had unconsciously passed a half-penny for a sovereign.

"People are very apt to take your coin at your own valuation!" said Brown, with a smile of some meaning, "and when they are in the dark as to your original coinage, (as the English are with regard to Americans abroad) it is as easy to pass for gold as for copper. Indeed you may pass for both in a day, as I have lately had experience. Remind me presently to tell you how. Here comes the fried sole, and it's troublesome talking when there are bones to fight shy of-the flow of sole' to the contrary notwithstanding."

I will take advantage of the hiatus to give the reader a slight idea of my friend, as a preparation for his story.

Brown was the "mirror of courtesy." He was also the mirror of vulgarity. And he was the mirror of every thing else. He had that facility of adaptation to the society he was in, which made him seem born for that society and that only, and, without calculation or forethought-by an uncon

scious instinct, indeed-he cleverly reflected the man and manners before him. The result was a popularity of a most varied quality. Brown was a man of moderate fortune and no profession. He had travelled for some years on the continent, and had encountered all classes of Englishmen, from peers to green-grocers, and as he had a visit to England in prospect, he seldom parted from the most chance acquaintance without a volunteer of letters of introduction, exchange of addresses, and similar tokens of having "pricked through his castle wall." When he did arrive in London, at last, it was with a budget like the postman's on Valentine's day, and he had only to deliver one letter in a score to be put on velvet in any street or square within the bills of mortality. Sagacious enough to know that the gradations of English society have the facility of a cat's back, (smooth enough from the head downwards) he began with a most noble duke, and at the date of his introduction to the reader, was on the dinner-list of most of the patricians of May Fair.

Presuming that you see your man, dear reader, let us come at once to the removal of the cloth.

"As I was calling myself to account, the other day, over my breakfast," said Brown, filling his glass and pushing the bottle, "it occurred to me that my round of engagements required some little variation.There's a "toujours perdrix," even among lords and ladies, particularly when you belong as much to their sphere, and are as likely to become a part of it, as the fly revolving in aristocratic dust on the wheel of my lord's carriage. I thought perhaps I had better see some other sort of people.

"I had, under a presse papier on the table, about a hundred letters of introduction the condemned remainder, after the selection, by advice, of four or five only. I determined to cut this heap like a pack of cards and follow up the trump.

"John Mimpson, Esq., House of Mimpson & Phipps, Mark's Lane, London.'

"The gods had devoted me to the acquaintance of Mr. (and probably Mrs.) John Mimpson. After turning over a deal of

rubbish in my mind, I remembered that the letter had been given me five years before by an American merchant-probably the correspondent of the firm in Mark's Lane. It was a sealed letter, and said in brackets on the back, 'Introducing Mr. Brown.'I had a mind to give it up and cut again, for I could not guess on what footing I was introduced, nor did I know what had become of the writer,-nor had I a very clear idea how long a letter of recommendation will hold its virtue. It struck me again that these difficulties rather gave it a zest, and I would abide by the oracle. I dressed, and, as the day was fine, started to stroll leisurely through the Strand and Fleet Street, and look into the shop windows on my way-assuring myself at least, thus much of diversion in my adventure.

"Some where about two o'clock, I left daylight behind, and plunged into Mark's Lane. Up one side and down the other'Mimpson & Co.' at last, on a small brass plate, set in a green baise door. With my unbuttoned coat nearly wiped off my shoulder by the strength of the pulley, I shoved through, and emerged in a large room, with twenty or thirty clerks perched on high stools, like monkeys in a menagerie.

"First door, right!' said the nearest man, without raising his eyes from his desk, in reply to my inquiry for Mr. Mimpson. "I entered a closet, lighted by a slanting sky-light, in which sat my man.

Mr. John Mimpson?'

Mr. John Mimpson!'

"After this brief dialogue of accost, I produced my letter, and had a second's leisure to examine my new friend while he ran his eye over the contents.

He was a rosy, well conditioned, tight skinned little man, with black hair, and looked like a pear on a chair. (Hang the bothering rhymes!) — His legs were completely hid under the desk, so that the ascending eye began with his equatory line, and whether he had no shoulders or no neck, I could not well decide but it was a tolerably smooth plane from his seat to the top curl of his sinciput. He was scrupulously well dressed, and had that highly washed look which marks the city man in London-bent on not betraying his diggins' by his complexion.

"I answered Mr. Mimpton's enquiries about our mutual friend with rather a hazardous particularity, and assured him he was quite well, (I have since discovered that he has been dead three years) and conversation warmed between us for ten minutes, till we were ready to part sworn friends. I rose to go, and the merchant seemed very much perplexed.

"To-morrow,' said he, rubbing the two great business bumps over his eyebrows,no-yes- that is to say, Mrs. Mimpson,

well, it shall be to-morrow! Can you come out to Rose Lodge, and spend the day to-morrow?'

"With great pleasure,' said I, for I was determined to follow my trump letter to extremities.

"Mrs. Mimpson,' he next went on to say, as he wrote down the geography of Rose Lodge, 'Mrs. Mimpson expects some friends to-morrow - indeed some of her very choice friends - if you come early, you will see more of her than if you just save your dinner. Bring your carpet bag, of course, and stay over night. Lunch at two - dine at seven. I can't be there to receive you myself, but I will prepare Mrs. Mimpson to save you all trouble of introduction. Hampstead road. Good morning, my dear sir.'

"So, I am in for a suburban bucolic, thought I, as I regained daylight in the neighborhood of the Mansion House.

"It turned out a beautiful day, sunny and warm, and had I been sure of my navigation, and sure of my disposition to stay all night, I should have gone out by the Hampstead coach and made the best of my way, carpet bag in hand. I went into Newman's for a post chaise, however, and on showing him the written address, was agreeably surprized to find he knew Rose Lodge. His boys had all been there.

"Away I went through the Regent's Park, behind the blood pasters, blue jacket and white hat, and somewhere about one o'clock, mounted Hampstead Hill, and in ten minutes thence was at my destination.-The post boy was about driving in at the open gate, but I dismounted, and sent him back to the Inn to leave his horses, and then depositing my bag at the porter's lodge, walked up the avenue. It was a much finer place, altogether than I had expected to see.

"Mrs. Mimpson was in the garden. The dashing footman who gave me the information, led me through a superb drawingroom and out at a glass door upon the lawn, and left me to make my own way to the lady's presence.

"It was a delicious spot, and I should have been very glad to ramble about by myself till dinner, but, at a turn in the grandwalk, I came suddenly upon two ladies.

"I made my bow, and begged leave to introduce myself as 'Mr. Brown.'

"With a very slight inclination of the head, and no smile whateyer, one of the ladies asked me if I had walked from town, and begged her companion (without introducing me to her,) to show me in to lunch. The spokester was a stout and tall woman, who had rather an aristocratic nose, and was not handsome, but, to give her her due, she had made a narrow escape of it. She was dressed very showily, and evidently

had great pretentions, but, that she was not at all glad to see Mr. Brown, was as apparent as was at all necessary. As the other, and younger lady who was to accompany me, however, was very pretty, though dressed very plainly, and had, withal, a look in her eye, which assured me she was amused with my unwelcome apparition, I determined, as I should not otherwise have done, to stay it out, and accepted her convoy with submissive civility-very much inclined however, to be impudent to somebody, somehow.

"The lunch was on a tray in a side room, and I rang the bell and ordered a bottle of champagne. The servant looked surprised, but brought it, and mean time I was getting through the weather and the other common-places, and the lady, saying little, was watching me very calmly. I liked her looks, however, and was sure she was not a Mimpson.

"Hand this to Miss Armstrong!' said I to the footman, pouring out a glass of champagne.

666

Miss Bellamy, you mean, sir!'

'I rose and bowed, and, with as grave a courtesy as I could command, expressed my pleasure at my first introduction to Miss Bellamy-through Thomas, the footman! Miss Bellamy burst into a laugh, and was pleased to compliment my American manners, and in ten minutes we were a very merry pair of friends, and she accepted my arm for a stroll through the grounds, carefully avoiding the frigid neighborhood of Mrs. Mimpson.

"Of course I set about picking Miss Bellamy's brains for what information I wanted. She turned out quite the nicest creature I had seen in England - fresh, joyous, natural and clever, and as I was delivered over to her bodily, by her keeper and feeder, she made no scruple of promenading me through the grounds till the dressing bellfour of the most agreeable hours I have to record in my travels.

By Miss Bellamy's account, my advent that day was looked upon by Mrs. Mimpson as an enraging calamity. Mrs. Mimpson was, herself, fourth cousin to a Scoth lord, and the plague of her life was the drawback to the gentility of her parties in Mimpson's mercantile acquaintance. She had married the little man for his money, and had thought, by living out of town, to choose her own society, with her husband for her only incumbrance; but Mimpson vowed that he should be ruined in Mark's Lane, if he did not house and dine his mercantile fraternity and their envoys at Rose Lodge, and they had at last compromised the matter. No Yankee clerk, or German agent, or person of any description, defiled by trade, was to be invited to the

Lodge without a three days' premonition to Mrs. Mimpson, and no additions were to be made, whatever, by Mr. M., to Mrs. M.'s dinners, soirées, matinées, archery parties, suppers, dejeunérs, tableaux or private theatricals. This holy treaty, Mrs. Mimpson presumed was written with a gad of steel on a leaf of brass'inviolable as her cousin's coat of arms.

"But there was still Ossa on Pelion.' The dinner of that day had a diplomatic aim. Miss Mimpson, (whom I had not yet seen) was ready to 'come out,' and her mother had embarked her whole soul in the enterprise of bringing about that debût at Almack's. Her best card was a certain Lady S, who chanced to be passing a few days in the neighborhood, and this dinner was in her honor;- the company chosen to impress her with the exclusiveness of the Mimpson's, and the prayer for her ladyship's influence (to procure vouchers from one of the patronesses) was to be made, when she was 'dieted to their request.'And all had hitherto worked to a charm. Lady S had accepted, - Ude had sent his best cook from Crockford's- the Belgian chargé and a Swedish attaché were coming the day was beautiful, and the Lodge was sitting for its picture, and on the very morning, when every chair at the table was ticketed and devoted, what should Mr. Mimpson do, but send back a special messenger from the city, to say that he had forgotten to mention to Mrs. M. at breakfast, that he had invited a Mr. Brown! Of course he had forgotten it, though it would have been as much as his eyes were worth to mention it in person to Mrs. Mimpson.

"To this information, which I give you in the lump, but which came to light in the course of rather a desultory conversation, Miss Bellamy thought I had some title, from the rudeness of my reception. It was given to me in the shape of very clever banter, it is true, but she was evidently interested to set me right with regard to Mr. Mimpson's good intentions in my behalf, and, as far as that and her own civilities would do it, to apologize for the inhospitality of Rose Lodge. Very kind of the girl-for I was passing, recollect, at a most ha'penny valuation.

"I had made some casual remark touching the absurdity of Almack's aspirations in general, and Mrs. Mimpson's in particular; and my fair friend, who of course fancied an Almack's ticket as much out of Mr. Brown's reach as the horn of the new moon, took up the defence of Mrs. Mimpson on that point, and undertook to dazzle my untutored imagination by a picture of this seventh heaven-as she had heard it described, for to herself, she freely confessed, it was not even within the limits of dreamland. I knew this was true of herself, and

thousands of highly educated and charming girls in England, but still, looking at her while she spoke, and seeing what an ornament she would be to any ball-room in the world, I realized, with more repugnance than I had ever felt before, the arbitrary barriers of fashion and aristocracy. As accident had placed me in a position to 'look on the reverse of the shield,' I determined, if possible, to let Miss Bellamy judge of its color with the same advantage. It is not often that a plebian like myself has the authority to

"Bid the pebbles on the hungry beach Fillip the stars.

"We were near the open window of the library, and I stepped in and wrote a note to Lady (one of the lady patronesses, and the kindest friend 1 have in England), asking for three vouchers for the next ball. I had had occasion once or twice before to apply for similar favors, for countrywornen of my own, passing through London on their travels, and I knew that her ladyship thought no more of granting them than of returning bows in Hyde Park. I did not name the ladies for whom the three tickets were intended, wishing to reserve the privilege of handing one to Miss Mimpson, should she turn out civil and presentable. The third, of course, was for Miss Bellamy's chaperon, whoever that might be, and the party might be extended to a quartette by the 'Monsieur De Trop' of the hour-cela selon. Quite a dramatic plotwas 'nt it?

66

I knew that Lady was not very well, and would be found at home by the messenger, (my post-boy,) and there was time enough between soup and coffee to go to London and back, even without the spur in his pocket.

"The bell rang, and Miss Bellamy took herself off to dress. I went to my carpet bag in the bachelor quarters of the house, and through a discreet entretien with the maid who brought me hot water, became somewhat informed as to my fair friend's position in the family. She was the daughter of a gentleman who had seen better days. They lived in a retired cottage in the neighborhood, and as Miss Bellamy and a younger sister were both very highly accomplished, they were usually asked to the Lodge, whenever there was company to be entertained with their music.

"I was early in the drawing-room, and found there Mrs. Mimpson and a tall dragoon of a young lady I presumed to be her daughter. She did not introduce me. I had hardly achieved my salutatory salaam when Miss Bellamy came in opportunely, and took me off their hands, and as they addressed no conversation to us, we turned

over music, and chatted in the corner while the people came in. It was twilight in the reception room, and I hoped by getting on the same side of the table with Lady S (whom I had the honor of knowing,) to escape recognizance till we joined the ladies in the drawing-room after dinner. As the guests arrived, they were formally introduced to Miss Mimpson by the mother, and every body but myself was formally presented to Lady S, the exception not noticeable of course, among thirty people. Mr. Mimpson came late from the city, possibly anxious to avoid a skirmish on the subject of his friend Brown, and he entered the room barely in time to hand Lady S in to dinner.

"My tactics were ably seconded by my unconscious ally. I placed myself in such a position at table, that, by a little management, I kept Miss Bellamy's head between me and Lady S and my name was not so remarkable as to draw attention to me when called on to take wine with the peccant spouse of the Scotch lord's cousin. Meantime I was very charmingly entertained-Miss Bellamy not having, at all, the fear of Mrs. Mimpson before her eyes, and apparently finding the Yankee supercargo, or cotton clerk, or whatever he might be, quite worth trying her hand upon. provender was good, and the wine was enough to verify the apocrypha-at least for the night,-'a man remembering neither sorrow nor debt' with such glorious claret.

The

"As I was vis-a-vis to Miss Mimpson, and only two plates removed from her mother, I was within reach of some syllable or some civility, and one would have thought that good breeding might exact some slight notice for the devil himself, under one's own roof by invitation; but the large eyes of Miss Aurelia and her mamma passed over me as if I had on the invisible ring of Gyges. I wonder, by the way, whether the ambitious youths who go to London and Paris with samples, and come back and sport the complete varnish of a man' acquired in foreign society, -I wonder whether they take these rubs to be part of their polishing!

6

"The ladies rose and left us, and as I had no more occasion to dodge heads or trouble myself with humility, I took lady S's place at old Mimpson's right hand, and was immediately recognized with great empressement by the Belgian chargé, who had met me very often, in very agreeable society.' Mimpson stared, and evidently took it for a bit of flummery or a mistake, but he presently stared again, for the butler came in with a coronetted note on his silver tray, the seal side up, and presented it to me with a most deferential bend of his white waistcoat. I felt the vouchers within, and