Sibylla looked at him with still more intense admiration, when she heard
him speak of the honours his works had procured him, and he entered at
once into a minute description of the festivities of Chatsworth and
Bowood, that would have done honour to the _Morning Post_.

After the ladies had gone to the drawing-room, I took the opportunity of
having a quiet conversation with Frank, while his friend was astonishing
the minds of the rest of the party with an account of his having refused
the Guelphic Order which the Queen had pressed upon him on the
twenty-fourth night of his _Blood-stained Milkmaid_.

"Who, in Heaven's name, and what is your friend, Mr Percy Marvale?"

"Oh, a very good fellow!" replied Frank. "I have known him at the Club
for a long time."

"He seems a rum one."

"A very useful ally, I can assure you. I study him as the _beau ideal_
of vanity and impudence."

"But your studies seem somewhat useless, if you have no higher object?"

"Oh, but I have, though--a very serious object--the only object, in
fact, I care for in the world!"

And here the young man sighed.

"Well, if your object," I said, "has any connexion with my old friend