dent to his carriage had made him late, and turned him from the direct road; and that, though a sportsman no longer, he could not be so near without coming to see if his old instructor in the game laws had quite forgotten the feats of other days. Now this was both vrai and vraisemblable enough; for, to do Mr. Delawarr justice, if there had been mention made of the declining health of the member for Avonsford, and of his friend's influence in that town, at whose entrance stood the ancient family house, it only gave inclination a motive, or rather an excuse for indulgence.
Very different was the impression produced on all the party. Mr. Arundel could not conceal his surprise, or rather emotion, to see in the pale, mind-worn brow—the elegant but indolent movements of the man of forty, so little trace remaining of the bright-eyed and bright-haired, the lively and impetuous favourite of nineteen; still less in the worldly, half-studied, half-sarcastic tone of his conversation, did any thing recall the romance, the early enthusiasm, which once rendered the interest he inspired one of anxiety. But Mr. Arundel forgot that the most sparkling wines soonest lose that sparkle. The impetuosity of youth becomes
