When Mr. Foxcote was made to comprehend that the said table d'hôte was neither more nor less than a public ordinary, where every one, capable of paying three francs for his dinner may take a seat, he waxed wroth at the bare idea of such promiscuous intercourse; and Mrs. Foxcote, glancing significantly at Emily's pretty face, de clared that such a thing was not to be thought of. Dinner was, therefore, unwillingly served to them in their bedrooms, through the influence and exertions of the courier, who was a great man in his small way, and when it was served was execrable; the next day it was, if possible, worse. On the third morning, Mrs. Foxcote, who had heard through her maid great things respecting the table d'hôte,-that there were German potentates without number, and French Counts in profusion, and lots of respectable English families besides, to be seen there daily, began to discourse very sensibly on the folly of not adapting one's self to the customs of the country one happens to be in, and of the propriety of doing at Rome as people do at Rome, and at last proposed plump to Mr. Foxcote that they should just give the table d'hôte one trial, adding, that by placing Emily between them at dinner, no possible evil could befal her, and that if they did not approve of the sort of thing, they need not dine there again. Hunger tames the most savage beasts. Mr. Foxcote, unconvinced, but ravenous, after his late meagre diet, capitulated from sheer starvation, and signified his intention to his courier, who forthwith directed the Kellner to tilt up three chairs for his family in the salle à manger, where covers were laid for one hundred and fifty guests. Dinner-time came. The Foxcotes entered the room, blushing and looking as if they felt they were about to do something rather pleasant, but extremely wrong,-where they ought not to be or as a quaker family would look, if they were introduced into the omnibus. box when Duvernay is dancing the Cachuca, at the elderly lords then and there assembled. They nevertheless took the seats secured for them, ate an excellent dinner, and retired to their rooms, congratulating themselves on having made such a satisfactory experiment.. The following day they dined there again, and actually made an acquaintance or two; and, by the end of a week, they had insensibly adapted themselves to that very mode of life which had shocked their prejudiced minds so much at first view. Öne afternoon their siesta was broken in upon by the noise of an arrival, an event which invariably causes a great sensation amongst the idlers at a Pension. Crack, crack, crack-whack, whack, whack-crack, crackwhick, whack-crack-whack, whack, crack-cum. var.,-a neat green English-built britschka rolled easily up to the door; it contained a gentleman and his valet. The gentleman was young and handsome, wore copious moustaches, and was arrayed in a tasty blouse and a highly melo dramatic straw hat; the valet was wonderfully hirsute, a regular Esau,-his jacket was of velvet, his vest and cap glittered with gold; in short, he was a very brigandish-looking. fellow indeed. I leave my readers to imagine what a scramble there was that evening for the "Femdem Buck," and how disappointed all the young ladies in general, and my young lady in particular, were to find that the handsome stranger, with the hairy valet, had entered himself neither as Ernest de Beaulieu, or Hubert de Maltravers, but simply as Buggins, Rentice, aud suite the suite comprising the aforesaid valet, and a fat, well-shorn aristocrat of a poodle, as hotlooking and nearly as hairy as the valet, and not unlike him in face and feature. There was one redeeming point indeed-Buggins' food parents had endeavoured to compensate for the vile name which he had inherited from his ancestors-a long line of dry-salters-by considerately conferring on him at the baptismal font the euphonious prefix of Percy de la Poer; but, alas! the appendage of Buggins went far to annihilate the prestige attached to the Norman appellations which preceded it. The new arrival did not show in the salon that evening, but on the morrow, when the pensionnaires met at breakfast, Mrs. Foxcote being the penultimate arrival, found herself seated, according to the rules of the Pension, next to P. de la P. Buggins. She felt rather confused at her contiguity to the handsome stranger: but he, evidently a man of the world, soon put her at her ease. He offered her the different dishes as they came round, with a sort of careless civility, remained silent until her hunger was appeased, and then gradually entered into conversation on such subjects as she was likely to be acquainted with. The old lady's heart expanded as she expatiated feelingly on the duplicity of innkeepers and the restiveness of posters, and she began to think that her new friend was a very nice young man. He made no advances to the rest of the party; indeed he could not see Emily's face on account of the large bonnet which she wore; but both she and her father heard every word of his conversation with Mrs. Foxcote, and cordially coincided in her opinion of him. Meeting thus at meal-times, the travellers became gradually more intimate; Percy and his poodle generally joined the Foxcotes in their walks, when he was wont to delight and instruct them, by his practical information respecting all parts of the habitable globe known to tourists. He was conversant with the merits of every hotel and cook on every carrozzabile road in France, Italy, and Magna Graecia (as the elderly Starke hath it), and could make love and swear at postillions in seven languages: some persons might have deemed his vocabulary rather limited for the former purpose, but he declared that he seldom failed of success. One was, to be sure, less surprised at his bonnes fortunes, when one took into consideration his physical advantages and the heat of the climates in which he had soared. His courier he described as being as great a phenomenon as himself, in his subordinate sphere: equally successful in making love, and as eminently endued with the gift of tongues; an astonishing propeller of posthorses, and a regular cordon bleu besides. Parblue, il avait fait ses épreuves, he had ridden post in five days from Timbuctoo to Paris, jumping all the turnpike gates on the way to save time, combining expedition with economy; and on his arrival, though slightly fatigued, had, to spite carème and oblige Percy, cooked a diplomatic dinner for his friend, the Welsh Ambassador, ere he divested himself of his jack boots. The poodle was an equal genius in his way; if he did not speak seven languages as fluently as his master, he understood them almost as well, and was, besides, beginning to blaspheme very distinctly in English; and as for making love, Corpo di Vinere! the less I say on that score the better, for the reputation of half the travelling lapdogs in Europe. It will not, I think, appear surprising that, endowed with such physical and moral advantages, Percy de la Poer Buggins should have made his way with Mr. and Mrs. Foxcote, and even with the timid Emily, who had elicited a good deal of his private history through Miss Stubbs, with whom Buggins' Crichton of a courier had forthwith formed a friendship on Platonic principles. He soon became Emily's constant attendant in her morning rambles, and, I lament to say, that the old people relaxed so far as to allow him to sit next her at table, waltz with her when the evenings were dark, and teach her a little astronomy, (for Buggins, like the hero of a modern romance, was omniscient, a dab at everything, from pitch and toss to animal magnetism, from rat-catching to the use of the globes.) On all such occasions Percy made the best use of his time, whispered soft nothings in her ear, squeezed her hand, and ogled her with unerring skill. Emily took it all in good part, doubting not that his attentions were "pour le bon motif;" his valet had affirmed that his master, if not actually a milor, was as rich as one; that his father was an Almanno, and Percy an only son. Things therefore went on to everybody's satisfaction; the old people were pleased, the young ones were happy in each other's society; the brigand valet looked more triumphant, and Miss Stubbs more sentimental every day. Mrs. Foxcote could not help lamenting bitterly the time they had, in her opinion, absolutely wasted at such places as Bath and Cheltenham, which might have been spent so much more profitably in foreign parts, where everything was so much cheaper, everybody so much more sociable, where there was so little constraint and ceremony to confine people within their chilling bounds; in short, she declared that she was perfectly amazed that any reason less compulsory than a writ of "Ne exeat regno," could keep a soul in such a stupid place as old England. Time "moved on;" the excursions which Interlaken admits of had been exhausted; every green spot in the neighbouring Alps, every shady landing-place in the sister lakes of Thun and Brienz, had become unromanticized by the débris of chickens and champagne bottles; the Reichenbach and the Staubbach had been duly compared; the Wengern Alp scaled; Lord Byron had been judiciously quoted, and every individual of the party had personally af forded a rich repast to the industrious fleas of Grindelwaldt, when on one wearisome afternoon, when even the Sungfrau thought fit to veil her chaste beauties in a mantle of mist, an adjournment was moved. I am not quite sure who condescended to be the Brotherton of the party, but the motion was carried without a division and away they went, Mr. and Mrs. Foxcote, and Emily, and Stubbs, and Gioacchino; their tail being further elongated, by the triple joint of Percy, his Massaroni, aad his poodle. Guided by a brace of rogues, attired in the blue frocks of English butchers, with Buggins ever at the stirrup of Emily, and the brigand valet ensconced in the rude char à bancs which conveyed Stubbs and her travel-stained bandboxes, they wound their way at length through scenery, as Rousseau well remarks, far too good for its inhabitants, to the beautiful city of Geneva. In those days that vast municipal speculation, the wide and comfortless barrack, which is now the fashionable hotel there, had not reared its gazabo to the skies, and it was at the Ecu that our friends halted, a very uncomfortable hostelrie, notwithstanding its gloomy situation, and its salle à manger, swarming with flies and Cock neys. It was edifying to hear them talk over the dangers they had encountered; they had heard four avalanches; had lunched at a chalet where a wolf had been seen the year before; had passed a lake where a drunken boatman had been nearly drowned the preceding winter. Their successful and sociable escapes had warmed their hearts towards each other, and the loves of Buggins and Emily were now evident to the inobservant and distracted eyes of the Pére Foxcote, even without the promptings of his gratified and fidgetty spouse. Every one of the party had unlearnt their prejudices, and no more objected to feeding in public, than do the partakers of shins of beef and plum buns at the Surrey Zoological Gardens. Tables d'hôte had now entirely ceased to be objects of aversion to their cosmopolitan souls. One eventful day, they had established themselves at the wellcovered board of the Ecu. The old people were intent upon their dinners, as were most of the other guests; people's appetites were savage, as they always are for the first quarter of an hour after sitting down to dinner; not a sound was to be heard, save the clattering of plates and the scampering of waiters. Percy was whispering words, such as women love to hear, into Emily's pretty little ear, from which depended a new and beautiful drop of Mr. Beatte's, the gift of him who spoke. What those words were I never exactly ascertained, but there was a blush on her young cheek, and a tear in her soft eye, which told of proud and gratified feelings. Their interesting conference was suddenly interrupted by a loud and hearty voice from the other end of the table. The speaker was no less a person than Lord Appleby, the M. P. for their county, the son of the Duchess of Twingleby. Emily was, of course, rather disconcerted at this inopportune recog nition, though glad to meet with such a reputable acquaintance, whose good-humoured attentions had, in by-gone days, made him the object of many a young dream. But Percy de la Poer--he grows pale-he faints-there is a scuffle around him,-a commiserating neighbour pours a carafon of water down his back, the Kellner deluges him in the hurry of the moment with a bottle of vin de Neuchatel, which he has just presence of mind enough to charge in his bill, and Mrs. Foxcote anxiously chafes his temples with the contents of a cruet of Harvey, "for game, for steaks, for fish, or wild fowl," sovereign; but not, alas! for unhappy Buggins. There was but one smiling face in the room, and even that one, Lord Appleby's, was qualified by an expression of annoyance. The fallen hero was borne away amidst the tears of Emily and the anxious solicitude of her parents. After dinner, Lord Appleby sought Mr. Foxcote out, and the fatal disclosure took place,-Buggins was his tailor, and his lordship had arrived just in time to spoil a most excellent job for him. I subsequently heard from the landlord, that there had been a most distressing scene up stairs; that the young lady had been taken very ill, and that, as soon as she had recovered a little, Mr. Foxcote had sallied out to inquire for Percy, and seemed much disappointed on learning "que Milor Buggins et suite etaient partis en poste pour l'Ita lie." M. Rufenacht, who gave me this information, added, that the old gentleman seemed considerably agitated, and leant heavily on a thick stick, which he was not generally in the habit of carrying. It is curious to observe how suddenly, totally, and unaccountably, people's ideas alter. Mr. Foxcote had all along, in his own heart, decided that there was no place like home; but, Mrs. Foxcote had been invariably profuse in her admiration of the manners, mode of life, and sans gêne of continental society. Now, singular as it may seem, after the event which I have just described, not a word more was uttered by that good lady on this her favourite topic; and when Mr. Foxcote proposed that they should return to Foxcote Manor, no opposition was made to his wishes, neither was the accomplished P. de la P. Buggins ever more alluded to by any of the party. Shortly after they reached England, Miss Stubbs was led to the altar by a one-eyed groom, whose hand she had scornfully rejected before setting out on this disastrous tour. I regret that I have also to record, that on the Morning of Miss Stubbs' nuptials, Mr. Foxcote's spaniel produced, to the excessive disgust of the game-keeper, a litter of fine puppies, less remarkable for the purity of their breed, than for a strong resemblance to the blasphemous poodle whose acquaintance she made at Interlaken. * * And poor Emily-after some years of wearisome single blessedness, sho has lately taken to confer a good deal on religious subjects with the curate of the parish; he is a lanky, pale, learned youth, well con. nected, and, unlike curates in general, is not yet, I believe, engaged to be married. It is impossible yet to tell what results may arise from this new friendship-she might certainly stand out with reason for a better match; but perhaps the sad denouement of her affair with the seduc. tive Percy, may have taught her to "cut her (petti) coat according to her cloth." VASLYN. FRAGMENT. ONE glance alone! and yet my heart One sigh! yet wafted on that breath, JULIAN. |