ter her experience of her own weakness in listening to a sharper, and with a shudder at her escape, Mrs. Haughton made a firm resolve never to give her beloved son a father-in-law. No, she would distract her thoughts—she would have a visiting ac- quaintance. She commenced by singling out such families as at various times had been her genteelest lodgers—now lodging elsewhere. She informed them by polite notes of her accession of consequence and fortune, which she was sure they would be happy to hear; and these notes, left with the card of " Mrs. Haughton, Gloucester Place," necessarily produced respond- ent notes and correspondent cards. Gloucester Place then prepared itself for a party. The ci-devant lodgers urbanely attended the summons. In their turn they gave parties. Mrs. Haughton was invited. From each such party she bore back a new draught into her " social circle." Thus, Ions: before the end of five years, Mrs. Haughton had attained her object. She had a " visiting acquaintance!" It is true that she was not particular; so that there was a new somebody at whose house a card could be left, or a morning call achieved —who could help to fill her rooms, or whose rooms she could contribute to fill in turn, she was contented. She was no tuft- hunter. She did not care for titles. She had no visions of a column in the Morning Post. She wanted, kind lady, only a vent for the exuberance of her social instincts; and being proud, she rather liked acquaintances who looked up to, in- stead of looking down on her. Thus Gloucester Place was in- vaded by tribes not congenial to its natural civilized atmosphere. Hengists and Plorsas, from remote Anglo-Saxon districts, crossed the intervening channel, and insulted the British nationality of that salubrious district. To most of such immigrators Mrs. Haughton, of Gloucester Place, was a personage of the high- est distinction. A few others of prouder status in the world, though they owned to themselves that there was a sad mixture at Mrs. Haughton's house, still, once seduced there, came again —being persons who, however independent in fortune, or gentle by blood, had but a small " visiting acquaintance " in town; fresh from economical colonization on the Continent, or from distant provinces in these three kingdoms. Mrs. Haughton's rooms were well lighted. There was music for some, whist for others, tea, ices, cakes, and a crowd for all.
At ten o'clock—the rooms already nearly filled, and Mrs. Haughton, as she stood at the door, anticipating with joy that happy hour when the staircase would become inaccessible—the head attendant, sent with the ices from the neighboring confec-
