meeting. But, take my word for it, nothing can be done till after the birthday; for Lady Delacour's head is at present full of crape petticoats, and horses, and carriages, and a certain Mrs. Luttridge, whom she hates with a hatred passing that of women."






CHAPTER X. — THE MYSTERIOUS BOUDOIR.

Accustomed to study human nature, Dr. X—— had acquired peculiar sagacity in judging of character. Notwithstanding the address with which Lady Delacour concealed the real motives for her apparently thoughtless conduct, he quickly discovered that the hatred of Mrs. Luttridge was her ruling passion. Above nine years of continual warfare had exasperated the tempers of both parties, and no opportunities of manifesting their mutual antipathy were ever neglected. Extravagantly as Lady Delacour loved admiration, the highest possible degree of positive praise was insipid to her taste, if it did not imply some superiority over the woman whom she considered as a perpetual rival.
Now it had been said by the coachmaker, that Mrs. Luttridge would sport a most elegant new vis-à-vis on the king's birthday. Lady Delacour was immediately ambitious to outshine her in equipage; and it was this paltry ambition that made her condescend to all the meanness of the transaction by which she obtained Miss Portman's draft, and Clarence Hervey's two hundred guineas. The great, the important day, at length arrived—her ladyship's triumph in the morning at the drawing-room was complete. Mrs. Luttridge's dress, Mrs. Luttridge's vis-à-vis, Mrs. Luttridge's horses were nothing, absolutely nothing, in comparison with Lady Delacour's: her ladyship enjoyed the full exultation of vanity; and at night she went in high spirits to the ball.
"Oh, my dearest Belinda," said she, as she left her dressing-room, "how terrible a thing it is that you cannot go with me!—None of the joys of this life are without alloy!—'Twould be too much to see in one night Mrs. Luttridge's mortification, and my Belinda's triumph. Adieu! my love: we shall live to see another birthday, it is to be hoped. Marriott, my drops. Oh, I have taken them."
Belinda, after her ladyship's departure, retired to the library. Her time passed so agreeably during Lady Delacour's absence, that she was surprised when she heard the clock strike twelve.
"Is it possible," thought she, "that I have spent two hours by myself in