one laughed more heartily than Lady Marney; not even the House
of Commons to whom it was presented.

The bill was thrown out, and Lady Marney gave a grand ball to
celebrate the event, and to compensate the London shopkeepers
for the loss of their projected franchise. Lady Marney was
preparing to resume her duties at court when to her great
surprise the firing of cannon announced the dissolution of
Parliament. She turned pale; she was too much in the secrets
of Tadpole and Taper to be deceived as to the consequences;
she sank into her chair, and denounced Lord Grey as a traitor
to his order.

Lady Marney who for six months had been writing to her son at
Oxford the most charming letters, full of fun, quizzing the
whole Cabinet, now announced to Egremont that a revolution was
inevitable, that all property would be instantly confiscated,
the poor deluded king led to the block or sent over to Hanover
at the best, and the whole of the nobility and principal
gentry, and indeed every one who possessed anything,
guillotined without remorse.

Whether his friends were immediately to resume power, or
whether their estates ultimately were to be confiscated, the
practical conclusion to Charles Egremont appeared to he the
same. Carpe diem. He therefore pursued his career at Oxford
unchanged, and entered life in the year 1833, a younger son
with extravagant tastes and expensive habits, with a
reputation for lively talents though uncultivated,--for his
acquisitions at Eton had been quite puerile, and subsequently