grey are the wide leas and ploughed fields.
Coldly black are the hedgerows, and hayricks,
and stunted pollard willows, and lonely cow-
shippons. Coldly dark and dismal, rear their
heads, the roofed posts of the electric
telegraph—looking, in the dubious light, like
gibbets. Coldly the wind keeps blowing in at
the window; so at least tells me my fellow-
traveller in the gold pencil line tells me so,
too, in a remarkably discourteous tone, with
some nonsensical allusion to the ear-ache. I
shut the window and pity him.—He thinks
nothing of the break of day— thinks about
it no more, nay, not so much as that flapping
crow overhead—no more than that rustic
in the clay-soiled dress, who has been up
since three to fodder the cows and lead Ball
and Dapple to the pond to drink, and who
now leans over a gate on the line, smoking
his break of day pipe, and whistling
bewhiles. And yet, perhaps I libel this clay-
stained man. Perchance he does think of day
and of its Maker—in his own rough untutored
way sees in the clouds, and the sky, and the
light, as clear a connection between the varied
Nature and the varied God, as he knows to
exist between the two plain sets of iron rails
on the gravel road before him, and the mighty
terminus at Euston Square—two hundred
miles away.

Wra-a-a-ah! the train enters a tunnel. All
is black for half-a-dozen minutes—then emerging,
we see the sun getting up in the East like
a refreshed generous giant, scattering gold
over the world.

Break of day after the Honourable Mrs.
Plover's soirée dansante. The Honourable Mrs.
Plover was the youngest and seventh daughter
of General the Earl of Duxandraques of
Liverwing Hall. The footmen at Liverwing
have had for some years a somewhat Hebrew-
Caucasian cast of countenance, and evil-
minded men do say they are bailiffs in disguise.
The noble lord's solicitor and heirs male do not
dare to trust him, if they can help it, with as
much wood as would serve for a lucifer match
—so addicted is he to cutting down the timber
on his estate, and afterwards cutting away
with the ligneous proceeds to Hombourg or
Baden-Baden. The Honourable Miss de
Bressbohun (that is the family name of the
Duxandraques) had for her fortune only a
remarkably pretty face, and an assortment of
the most captivating blonde ringlets you ever
saw; so she married Mr. Rufus Plover, who
ia ambiguously known to be " on 'Change"
and brings fabulously large sums of money off
it. They have a grand country-house at Gunnersbury,
and a sweet little marine villa at
Brighton—all Venetian blinds and dazzling
stucco; and, to crown all, a jewel of a house,
Number 402 (A), Toppletoton Street, Crenoline
Square. In this elysian mansion (Madame de
Pompadour could not have spent more in
upholstery upon it than did Mrs. Plover,)
the enchanting soirées dansantes of the Honourable
Mrs. P. are held.

This has been a grand night for the P-
family. Half Long Acre in the way of
carriages. Half the Heralds College in the
armorial bearings on the coach panels. Quite
a Zoological Garden of lions rampant,
couchant, and passant, griffins sparring
wildly with their paws at inoffensive shields,
and birds', beasts', and fishes' heads drawn and
quartered in every imaginary way. Quite a
little course of " Latin without a master " in
the heraldic mottos.

And such company! No merchants, nor
ship-owners, nor people of that sort—not
even one of Mr. Plover's " Exchange"
friends. Their exclusion was won from Mr.
P. after a hard battle the very morning of
the ball, and only after the concession on
the part of his lady of two trifles and a model
of the Great Exhibition in confectionary, to
be withdrawn from the menu of the supper
The nearest approach to commerce among the
guests was the great Sir Blanke Cheque, the
banker of Lombard Street, who has three
daughters married to peers of the realm, and
one to the Russian Count Candleatevich, who
is immensely rich, but dare not return to
Russia, where he would infallibly be knouted,
have his nose and ears slit, and be sent to
Tobolsk, for daring to overstay the time
allowed him by the Czar for a continental
trip, and for presuming to go to a concert
where Miss Crotchet sang the " Fair Land of
Poland;" a due minute of which last crime
was made the very next day by little Juda
Benikowski, the Muscovian Jew spy, and duly
recorded against the count in the archives of
the Russian Consulate General. Among the
company, was the noble Duke and Duchess of
Garternee; the Earl and Countess of Anchorsheet,
and Ladies Fitzfluke (2); Field-Marshal
Count Schlaghintern; the Ban of Lithuania;
the Waywode of Bosnia; the Hospodar of
Thrace; the new Bishop of Yellowjack
Island, West Indies, the Mac Kit of that ilk
in full Highland costume, with a dirk in his
stocking worth five hundred pounds—having
come to Mrs. Plover's straight from the
anniversary of the Tossancaber Highland
Association, where he danced more strathspeys
on the table, emptied more mulls of
snuff, and drank more glasses of whiskey
than I care to name. Then there was
Chibouck Pasha, in a tight frock coat like
that of an inspector of police, but with a
blister of diamonds on his breast, a red cap,
and a gorgeous beard.

There was Mr. Vatican O'Phocleide, M.P.
for Barrybugle, Ireland, who had a slight
dispute with the Hansom cabman who brought
him to Toppletoton Street, and threatened to
inflict personal chastisement on Berkely
Montmorency, Mrs. P.'s sergeant footman, for not
rightly announcing his style and titles. There
was old General Halberts, who served in the
Prussian army at Leipsic, who was about
sixty years of age when that battle was
fought, but is about fifty-one or two now,