the Guards, Lord of the Bedchamber to George III., and a gay and handsome widower. The son reaped from that paternity, all the advantages it had been capable of dispensing; a first-rate education, consisting, in the Viscount's opinion, of a series of gentlemanly and accomplished private tutors, much foreign travel, and influential introduction into the best circles, and a post in the Foreign Office, which brought £800 a year to his privy purse.

As regarded finance, this was all that Lord Leverton could do for his son: for during the sixty years his life had run, his best endeavours seemed to have been used to dispense his own patrimony. Well had he succeeded; and with the exception of £1000 a year, secured as a dowry on all the Lady Levertons, past and to come, and only to be enjoyed by the Viscounts in default of Viscountesses, his income consisted merely of a Colonel's pay, and the salary appertaining to his appointment in the household.

The

young Philip had been early taught that he must make his own fortune. This performance was generally executed by those in his position of life, by stringing together as many sinecures as could be obtained, under a ministry who used them as freely, as we, in these days, do mendicity tickets, consolidating these little advantages by a rich marriage. But Philip Leverton's bent lay not that way. True to the superficial character of his education, and to the perfect notions it had given him of enjoyment, and the means of attaining it, he loved better to linger among the brilliant crowds at Devonshire House, and the dissipated circles of certain Whig coteries, than press towards any opening to fortune. And, as for marriage with any but the most exquisite and idolized of the beauties who then flourished, his whole blood curdled at the bare idea; with a tincture of romance in his disposition, he courted rather the dangers and difficulties which attended the love-making to the wives

of others, than safely and soberly seeking the hand of some wealthy spinster for himself.

Though they rarely met, enough of his son's irregularities and wasted opportunities reached the Viscount's ear, to make him at length consider that a removal from England was desirable. He set about in right earnest to effect it; and by dint of some little courting and much manoeuvring, the post of attaché to our Embassy at the Court of St. Petersburg was offered to his son. It squared exactly with young Leverton's wishes at the time; not only by enabling him to break off with a good grace some loves which were becoming embarrassing, but also because it would enable him better to economize his Foreign Office pay, which, in those gentlemanly days of official liberality, he retained, though serving elsewhere.

Furnished with strong letters of recommendation to all of weight or fashion, Philip set out for the city of the Czar; an event

which proved a curious epoch in his life. Contrary to all bygone experiences, he had resided but a short time in the Imperial capital, when he found that he was actually a person of consequence; a character his best London friends would never have thought of ascribing to him. However, a certain diplomatic capacity, and an intimate knowledge of the continental languages, put him as much above the ordinary rank of blundering and idle attachés in his official position, as did his great savoir faire in all the prettinesses of life, in the palaces of the proud, but then barbarous Muscovites. The consequences were, that he would have led an infinitely more dissipated life at St. Petersburg than he did in London, but that his intelligence and influence rendered him eligible for undertaking one or two delicate missions. These for à time removed him from the capital; and not only proved lucrative, but gave him a name in some few of the European corps diplomatiques.

Leverton had been about two years absent from England, when, owing to his personal credit in the Imperial Cabinet, he was requested to undertake a special and secret mission to the south of Russia; in which, as an Englishman, it was thought that his services would be more efficient, while also proving to the resident minister that no underhand dealings were contemplated, adverse to the interests of the British Government.

Winter, with its retinue of clouds and snowstorms, was still reigning on the banks of the Neva, when he commenced his long and dreary journey; but the dominion of spring had already asserted itself, ere the attaché had reached the more genial south.

On the banks of the River Kuban lies the little village of Mechastovskoy. Of scanty

limits, and with its few habitations embosomed among the oak-trees that surround it, it is still, from its position on the river, an important military post, favourable to the constant look