white, in blonde. Round the shoulders, a wreath, formed with rosettes of lace and silk alternately. Coiffure of ribbon and flowers.

Robe of white moire antique, spotted with blue. The bottom of the skirt trimmed with bands of blue velvet, of unequal lengths, carried up the skirts, and edged with point d'Espagne passementerie. High body of white tulle, trimmed with rows of black lace insertion. Half-long paysanne sleeves, with revers cuffs, trimmed with lace. Band of moire, the same as the dress, cut in three deep points in front, each one trimmed with a tassel. A point on each hip, not trimmed. Bretelles of blue velvet, edged with lace. Coiffure Sicilienne. The hair rolled quite back from the forehead, and trimmed with black lace.

Gauze dress, with satin stripes, trimmed with biais folds, edged with mauve and white chenille fringe, to match the dress. Bouillonnées of white tulle between each fold, crossed with wreath of eglantine. Low body, with postillon jacket, edged with fringe. Berthe of white tulle bouillonnée, and trimmed with wreaths of eglantine. A wreath of the same flowers in the hair.

PLATE II.—Travelling dresses. Robe of foulard, trimmed at the bottom of the skirt with five rows of narrow black velvet, edged with "Tom Thumb" balls in passementerie. Casaque, the same as the skirt, and trimmed to match. This fits to the figure, and is open at front over a waistcoat of the same. The skirt long, and very full. White straw hat, trimmed with feathers. Black lace veil.

Silk dress, bound round the bottom and up each seam to match the large buttons, with which it is closed up the front. Pelisse of black silk, richly braided and trimmed round with a wide insertion placed over a coloured lining. Hood trimmed to match. Crape bonnet, trimmed on the front with a bunch of feathers and flowers.

THE Ε

Child's dress of checked poplin, having above the hem a band of cachemire, braided. Full high body of cachemire. Long sleeves, with braided cuffs. Bolero hat, trimmed with velvet, and a rosette of feathers on one side.

PLATE III.-Toilettes de Ville. Silk dress, with narrow plaited flounce of the same material. Up the front of the skirt, a wide braid, with a very narrow one on the outside, are placed in a losange form. The same trimming is carried up the front of the body, which is high and pointed, with a frill round the waist like that on the skirt. Crape bonnet, with a bouquet of flowers under a scarf of tulle, which is tied under the chin.

Robe of taffetas, trimmed with ruches of pinked silk, placed crossways round the skirt, and reaching about a quarter of a yard up it. High body, and plain straight sleeves. Rotonde of the same silk as the dress, and trimmed to match. Silk bonnet, trimmed with flowers.

Young lady's dress of checked foulard. On each breadth, near to the bottom of the skirt, is placed a Wätteau bow of silk. Swiss band, with bretelles, and a sash of taffetas. Straight sleeves, with revers cuffs of taffetas. Round straw hat, trimmed with velvet and feathers. Rotonde of cachemire, braided.

PLATE OF LINGERIE.

Tulle cap, trimmed with frills of the same, and ribbon of two widths-the narrow one placed in bands down the crown, and round the funchon and strings; the wider one forming a bow on the top of the head, and under the curtain.

Cap of spotted muslin, trimmed with worked edging round the front and strings, which are very long and wide. A strap of wide ribbon is carried round the head, and tied in a bow behind, with long ends.

Under-sleeve of cambric, with wide cuff of linen, trimmed with narrow insertion and edging of embroidered muslin.

Muslin sleeve, not quite fitting to the wrist, made with narrow tucks and bouillonnées at the cuff, edged with narrow insertion and frill.

Bretelles and corselet of silk, trimmed with two rows of narrow lace, sewn together at the inner edge. The front and back of the corselet are made precisely alike. A row of wide lace is placed at the outer-edge of the bretelles.

Fichu of embroidered muslin, fastened straight up the front, and ending in a small basque behind. The fichu is trimmed with very narrow rows of black velvet, a bouillonnée, and one frill of worked muslin.

Linen collar, to match the linen cuff.

Collar of muslin, to match the muslin sleeve.

23, SKINNER STREET, SNOW HILL. Entrance Angel Court.

MRS. WHARTON returns her best thanks for the

Patronage so liberally given; and begs to state that she continues to receive from the first house in Paris, the earliest and most recherché designs in Dresses, Mantles, Bodices, Sleeves, and every Novelty for Morning and Full Dress. These Models are exclusively consigned to her, and are not to be obtained at any other houses. She, therefore, confidently invites inspection.

LONDON AND PARIS FASHIONS.

To Merchants, Shippers, Wholesale Houses, Dress and Cloak Makers, &c. 5, PALSGRAVE PLACE, STRAND (near Temple Bar), LONDON, W.C.

RS. HOUGHTON begs to announce to her numerous elegant, and useful selection of PAPER MODELS in Dresses, Cloaks, Jackets, Canezous, Juvenile Costume; and especially the Imperial Bodice and the new Band or Bodice complete; the Alexandra Jackets and Bodice, &c. These Designs, being modelled from the greatest novelties, and trimmed in a superior style, will be found to answer the purpose of Ladies taking the journey themselves.

The acknowledged Superiority and High Patronage she has been honoured with for thirty years, render any comment unnecessary.

N.B.-Parties residing in the country may rely upon their orders receiving prompt attention.

ROYAL ITALIAN OPERA, COVENT GARDEN.-Mr. Alfred Mellon's Concerts at Covent Garden have been so entirely and so deservedly successful that he has been induced to prolong the series until the latest period possible before the house will be required for the performance of Miss Louisa Pyne and Mr. W. Harrison during their usual English operatic season. The very flattering and unequivocal success of Madlle. Carlotta Patti, M. Lotto (violinist), Mr. Dannreuther, and Miss Madeline Schiller, who have been playing there, will add considerably to the reputation both of these concerts and the artistes themselves. The present series was brought to a most advantageous and successful termination on Saturday evening last-the applause of a denselycrowded house, testifying the delight with which the audience had listened to some of the finest music, selected with the greatest judgment. We may congratulate Mr. Alfred Mellon upon the result of these series of excellently-arranged concerts. In the selections for each evening's performance, he has so judiciously blended and varied the programme as to satisfy and please a varied and overflowing audience.

ADELPHI THEATRE.-The now familiar Ghost has been dividing with the charming Mrs. Stirling the applause of the Adelphi. Mr. Benjamin Webster, jun.'s sparkling piece, "The Hen and Chickens," will, no doubt, have a long run.

unsurpassed.

LUCY TEMPLE'S LOVE-STORY.

BY SUTHERLAND CRAVEN.

I.

THE HUNT BALL.

"Oh! there's nothing half so sweet in life

As love's young dream."

The Assembly Room in Richford Regis was a gloomy, inelegant-looking structure, as such buildings usually were in days long past, ere the architectural façade aspired to interpret the subject of the interior. But, somehow or other, those ball-rooms of the olden time had floors more elastic, and lights that shone with purer splendour on the fair faces beneath them, or was it, alas, but the fresher vigour and clearer glance of our own youth that saw them thus, and still believes the dream? Then the elegance and richness of the costumes! Ah! royalty does well to retain its bygone magnificence as the appanage of its courtly levees. The rich velvet coats mazarine blue or claret-with their wide golden embroideries-the pearl-coloured satin waistcoats, spangled and filagreed-the diamond solitaires, buttons, and buckles of George the Third's youth-raised the few above the many into a loftier sphere beyond the common humanity of the cloth-clad burghers. The prestige of rank, illustrated by its visible splendour, had then a tangible power not yet forgotten.

The simplicity of the Prince of Wales's costume puzzled and disappointed the good working folks of Halifax. They certainly did not expect to see the Heir Apparent in purple and ermine, but the unpretending grey striped trousers and waistcoat, the simple morningcoat, were enigmas to them; the garments themselves had no doubt an elegance of cut and fashion unapproached by provincial artists; but, this occult refinement was lost upon many of the gazers, who expected "som'at grander like." The condescending suave dignity of the Prince impressed them with a nameless sense of his august position-but the costume-ay, "there was the rub."

But, revenons: we are still on the threshold of the old Assembly Room, soon to be brilliant with the light and splendour of the Hunt Ball. This useful, but inelegant structure, served in multifarious ways-for municipal uses, for lectures, concerts, panoramas, &c.; but, for all that, its ball-room capabilities were excellent and well appreciated. Richford Regis has changed all this now; it has its town-hall, its institutions, &c.—Palladian and Gothic; but, in the era I write of, they were content with the homely provisions of their ancestors. It was in the good times of the peace, when ships of war decayed quietly in the docks, and the soldier's sword rusted in its scabbard. Then villages and cheap

country towns were dotted over by H. Ps., who drew their pensions and cultivated turnips, like Cincinnatus, in undisturbed repose.

One of those deposed warriors, a Colonel Temple, had settled down in Regis Combe, a populous village, or rather suburban district to Richford-it was already so encroached upon by the villas of gentility. The Colonel had purchased a cottage and garden, and a few adjoining acres, which he converted into a pretty modest demesne; and sat down to rest under his own fig-tree. He was much broken by wounds received in the Peninsula and at Waterloo, and his sight weakened by Egyptian opthalmia. But, though apparently an aged man at fifty, he had the earnest heart and confiding frankness of his youth still fresh and glowing. He and his had deserved well of their country. Of his two sons, one, a promising young ensign, had fallen in his first field, "And lay, with his colours round his breast, On a blood-red field of Spain;"

the other perished in one of the glorious sea-fights of victorious England; and his only daughter-his last treasure, purchased by the death of her gentle motheralone remained to him. But he was content with this precious pearl saved from the wreck, and sat down, with a hero's resignation, gratefully and calmly in the shadow of his village-home.

Now, it must be confessed that this young maiden, though the most prudent and domestic of young lady housekeepers, had spent much precious time, on the afternoon preceding the ball, in contemplating and re-arranging the pretty paraphernalia destined to adorn her in that brilliant scene; and that she and her chaperon had held momentous consultations, during their early tea, ere she glided in

"A dancing shape-an image gay,"

to delight her father's fading eyes with her fair smiling face and aërial costume; and then a few moments devoted to Hester, their staid domestic's admiration, she was driven away to the Hunt Ball.

The old Assembly Room looked its best and brightest, with its gay chalked floor, its brilliant wax-lights, and festive decorations. The élite of the country gentry, old and young, were present, with bevies of fair daughters and sisters, and the rich magnates of the town, with their quota of youth and beauty-for the ball was honoured, for the first time, by the actual presence of its patroness, the Lady Adelaide Augusta Fitzroy Plantagenet.

Now, when you know that this lady was a countess in her own right, and bore a royal bar-sinister in her shield, you will suppose that I am about to expatiate on her stately form, majestic bearing, and "pale magnificent face." Quite the contrary. The countess was short and stout, plain but pleasant. She was courteous,

not condescending; affable, not patronizing; and the favoured few admitted to her circle found themselves quite at ease in that aristocratic presence. She would not have bated one iota of the respect due to her as an English lady; but she made no pretensions to her dignity as a countess. Her rank sat lightly upon her, as it does on all those "born i' the purple;" and she opened the ball with the MASTER of the HUNT, with the agreeable ease of a patrician gentlewoman.

Lucy Temple and Arthur Wentworth danced together in the same set, and, from their animated countenances, you would perceive that they thought the Hunt Ball a very charming affair. Now, Lucy, as my heroine, and the daughter of a half-pay officer, ought, according to all romantic precedents, to have worn a limp Indian muslin, and a dingy pearl necklace, and, in that timehonoured costume, have eclipsed all the belles present. But Lucy did nothing so absurd. She understood the bienséances of society; and her dress-net, crape, gauze, or by whatever name its snowy fabric was then denominated-was, with its garniture of wild hyacinths and lilies of the valley, in the correct taste and fashion of the time. She was a pretty girl-but English beauty was well represented at the Hunt Ball, and Lucy was but one of many; yet, to Arthur Wentworth, she appeared a youthful Psyche

"The beauty and the splendour of a dream!" Arthur Wentworth was the son of the wealthy banker of Richford Regis; just of age, handsome, agreeable, and rich—a desirable parti in the eyes of many matrons present. Mr. Wentworth, the elder, resided at Wentworth Hall. He had allied himself to aristocracy by his marriage with the fifth and almost portionless daughter of a needy earl, and the "azul sang," might be traced in the features and bearing of his son. Arthur had already had some "égarements de cœur but now the fire of the true Eros was lighted in his heart. He had met his destiny, and was enslaved at once.

He danced as often as possible with Lucy, took her down to supper, and, when the inevitable moment of parting arrived, escorted her towards her carriage, sought up her chaperon's shawls, helped to adjust the cashmere mantle, and little blue satin hood from which Lucy's bright face peeped forth like a fairy's from a harebell; and then, with the music of her farewell words ringing in his ears, stood watching the retreating carriage through the glamour of romance and love.

II. STELLA.

"An April rainbow seen thro' spangled showers, Or the swift beauty of the Cistus flowers." "What delicious fragrance, what charming colours; ah! I recognize dear Arthur's taste. He has gathered

"No, dear Stella, it is a fanciful sentiment which we must not indulge; there are real sorrows enough without creating morbid sensibilities."

"Ah! yes, and I will not believe it. I love them so dearly; and these are the gift of my own dear Arthur -my own Arthur whom I love so fondly!"

"But, my dear girl, you are no longer a child; you must not speak so openly on such a subject."

"Must not? but I will; when Lady Juliana was alive, she encouraged me to love him; it has been the sole object of my life to deserve him, and he is minemine only, dear, dearest Arthur!"

The speaker was a young girl, who had already passed her eighteenth year, but was so diminutive and childish in her appearance that you might think her scarcely fifteen. Her dusky complexion; large, languid, black eyes; her lithe and supple form, and the indolent grace of her movements, denoted her of Hindoo origin.

Stella was the orphan ward of Mr. Wentworth, the child of a college friend, who, as a civilian, had held high office in India, married an Indian Begum, and bequeathed his only child, and her fabulous wealth, to the care of his old compatriot in "town and gown" adventures.

The early death of both her parents consigned the infantine heiress to her guardian's care; almost in her ayah's arms, she arrived in great state with a train of Hindoo servants, and innumerable boxes filled with gold muslins, kincob scarfs, cashmere shawls, sandal wood and ivory fans, otto of roses, and embroidered palampores the old world treasures of the East. The Lady Juliana received her like a true and tender mother, and, when she had learned to love her well, and be happy with her English friends, the Hindoo servants returned to their native land enriched, and, let us hope, grateful.

Stella grew up like an exotic flower, guarded and defended from the common air. Her suite of rooms were fitted up with Oriental magnificence, and there her days passed by in the passive ease and absence of excitement necessary to her peculiar position-for, alas, some delicate thread in Stella's mind was warped or undeveloped. When you looked into her beautiful eyes, you saw that something was wanting there-a nameless sense of helplessness-it was not imbecility-but a childish seeking for something lost, but only halfremembered, and this simplicity was accompanied by passionate affections, wilful and wayward caprices-the obstinacy and self-will of the spoilt darling of the family. After Lady Juliana's death-Mrs. Clements, once her governess, became her friend and companion, and well was it for Stella that the good sense, firm will,