Not to be prolix on this part of my life, I went night after night to balls and routs, for admission to which half the fine gentlemen in London would have given their ears.

And I improved my time so well with Lady Margaret, who was her own mistress and had L5,000,--a devilish bad portion for some, but not to be laughed at by me,--that I began to think when the happy day should be fixed.

Meanwhile, as Lady Margaret introduced me to some of her friends, and my lodgings were in a good situation, I had been honoured with some real invitations.

The only two questions I ever was asked were (carelessly), 'Was I the only son ?' and on my veritable answer 'Yes!' 'What' (this was more warmly put),--'what was my county ?' Luckily my county was a wide one,--Yorkshire; and any of its inhabitants whom the fair interrogators might have questioned about me could only have answered, I was not in their part of it.
"Well, Paul, I grew so bold by success that the devil one day put it into my head to go to a great dinner-party at the Duke of Dashwell's.

I went, dined,--nothing happened; I came away, and the next morning I read in the papers,-- "'Mysterious affair--person lately going about--first houses--most fashionable parties--nobody knows--Duke of Dashwell's yesterday.