CHAPTER XXXII.

You blame Marcius for being proud.--Coriolanus.
Here is another fellow, a marvellous pretty hand at fashioning a
compliment.-The Tanner of Tyburn.

There was a brilliant ball at Lady T----'s, a personage who, every one
knows, did in the year 17-- give the best balls, and have the best-
dressed people at them, in London. It was about half-past twelve,
when Clarence, released from his three friends, arrived at the
countess's. When he entered, the first thing which struck him was
Lord Borodaile in close conversation with Lady Flora.

Clarence paused for a few moments, and then, sauntering towards them,
caught Flora's eye,--coloured, and advanced. Now, if there was a
haughty man in Europe, it was Lord Borodaile. He was not proud of his
birth, nor fortune, but he was proud of himself; and, next to that
pride, he was proud of being a gentleman. He had an exceeding horror
of all common people; a Claverhouse sort of supreme contempt to
"puddle blood;" his lip seemed to wear scorn as a garment; a lofty and
stern self-admiration, rather than self-love, sat upon his forehead as
on a throne. He had, as it were, an awe of himself; his thoughts were
so many mirrors of Viscount Borodaile dressed en dieu. His mind was a
little Versailles, in which self sat like Louis XIV., and saw nothing
but pictures of its self, sometimes as Jupiter and sometimes as Apollo.
What marvel then, that Lord Borodaile was a very unpleasant companion?
for every human being he had "something of contempt." His eye was
always eloquent in disdaining; to the plebeian it said, "You are not a