noble brow, but they flashed with irresistible penetration. He is the chief controller of Catholic affairs in England, and yet does not neglect his duty as Lothair's guardian. Indeed, it is soon manifest that he would deem it a great victory if he could attract his ward into the Church's unreluctant embrace. How should it be otherwise? What an offering to the Holy Father would be this wealthy young Peer, whose first idea of doing good in the world is to build a cathedral! Shall the cathedral be Roman or Anglican? The Cardinal, who has not seen his ward for years, meets him again at the house of the solicitor to the estates, Mr. Putney Giles, whose wife is a near relation of Mrs. Leo Hunter, with a "mission to destroy the Papacy, and to secure Italian unity." At the same house and on the same evening, Lothair also encounters Theodora, a Roman lady with an Attic face and an American husband. She is the genius of Republicanism, an ally of Garibaldi's, with a marvellous capacity for music and conspiracy. On this occasion Lothair does not speak to her, but he is destined to meet her again, and to be intensely influenced by her ;-influenced, also, by Clare Arundel, a beautiful young Roman Catholic lady, niece of Lord St. Jerome. The St. Jeromes (a name which occurs in The Young Duke) live at Vauxe, a delightful old English residence, twenty miles from town, built in the perfection of that style, quadrangled and cloistered, which succeeded the baronial castle, and is thoroughly adapted to our climate. "People said Vauxe looked like a college; the truth is, colleges looked like Vauxe, for when those fair and civil buildings rose, the wise and liberal spirits

who endowed them intended that they should resemble as much as possible the residence of a great noble." Lothair's first visit to this pleasant mansion is during the week before Easter. There are superb services in the private chapel, which he attends, and is fascinated by their solemnity and beauty. The gloomy Tenebræ are artfully contrasted with out-door picnics. Lothair is taken to a famous young fir forest, so planted that the great fanlike branches of each tree spread widely on the ground, and Lady St. Jerome hands him lobster-sandwiches, and Monsignore Catesby fills his tumbler with Chablis, and Clare Arundel talks to him the most delightfully youngladyish theology. The Monsignore also talks to him; but Clare's violet eyes are more eloquently persuasive, and he resolves that his cathedral shall be built, and shall be dedicated to St. Clare.

Lady Corisande's presentation, and the great entertainment thereafter at Crecy House, form a theme that just suits Disraeli's brilliant pen. Everything is exquisite in that great establishment, from the delicate daughters to the dainty supper. "What a perfect family," exclaimed Hugo Bohun, as he extracted a couple of fat little birds from their bed of aspic jelly. "How safe you were here The ortolan is a favourite

to have ortolans for supper!" bird with Disraeli, who, in a previous story, makes somebody desire to die eating them to sound of soft musican epicure's euthanasia. At this pleasant festival we make acquaintance with Lord St. Aldegonde, certainly the best character in the story, as being original without exaggeration. He is heir-apparent to the wealthiest

comes of age at Muriel Towe assembled; on Sunday morning cese, supported by an unusually to hold service in the private cl down to breakfast dressed decord gonde, who wears a brown velve shirt, no cravat, while his hair His temper is upset by someb going to chapel in that dress.

"The meal was over. The bis mantel-piece talking to the ladies him, the archdeacon, and the chap a little in the background; Lord S there were a fire or not, always s fire-place, with his hands in his po among them, assumed his usual were, grimly for a few moments t denly exclaimed in a loud voice. rebellious Titan, 'How I hate Sun

"Granville!' exclaimed Lad pale. There was a general shudd “I mean in a country house,' 'of course I mean in a country b

when alone, and I do not dislike it in London. But Sunday in a country house is infernal.'

"I think it is now time for us to go,' said the bishop, walking away with dignified reserve, and they all dispersed.

St. Aldegonde subsequently requests his wife to put it right with the bishop, whom he considers an agreeable man, not at all a bore; though he objects to bishops, not thinking there is any use in them. Indeed, the only people with titles that he would preserve are Dukes, for which there is an excellent personal reason.

We have anticipated somewhat. Lothair goes down to Oxford, not for renewal of his studies, but to look after his stud, and accident brings him into contact with an American colonel and his wife. The latter turns out to be the famous Theodora. Lothair dines with them, and meets a professor, "quite a young man, of advanced opinions on all subjects, religious, social, and political. He was clever, and extremely well-informed, so far as books can make a man knowing; but unable to profit even by his limited experience of life from a restless vanity and overflowing conceit, which prevented him from ever observing or thinking of anything but himself." This notice of one of those whom the author has elsewhere nicknamed the "wild men of the cloister," is the only passage in Lothair which can be accused of illnature. Indeed, the book is written throughout in a pleasant humour, and we get the best side of even plotting priests and Fenian head-centres. Theodora, with Olympian countenance, and Phidian face, and Greek filleted hair, is destined to exercise intense influence.

there have been such fortunate

Unco

Another of Theodora's theories it main source of felicity, which of half to believe when the world and persistent east wind. Liberalism of the Oxford profes fascinated by Theodora, who give to call upon her when he returns to intermediate business and a Giles is organising the great fest bores him so that he wishes he n He is engaged to dinners with seem commonplace after the r There is a function of the Ron evening, where the Cardinal is t Jerome and Clare Arundel are there. He is worried and restles he has never seen this London, Quincey], not a city; he hails a gondola of London," and tells th