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ON the evening which follows the very afternoon during which Richard Marwood made his first and only essay in the milk-trade, the Count and Countess de Marolles attend a musical party -- I beg pardon, I should, gentle reader, as you know, have said a _soirée musicale_ -- at the house of a lady of high rank in Belgrave Square. London was almost empty, and this was one of the last parties of the season; but it is a goodly and an impressive sight to see -- even when London is, according to every fashionable authority, a perfect Sahara -- how many splendid carriages will draw up to the awning my Lady erects over the pavement before her door, when she announces herself "at home; " how many gorgeously dressed and lovely women will descend therefrom, scenting the night air of Belgravia with the fragrance wafted from their waving tresses and point-d'Alencon-bordered handkerchiefs; lending a perfume to the autumn violets struggling out a fading existence in Dresden boxes on the drawing-room balconies; lending the light of their diamonds to the gas-lamps before the door, and the light of their eyes to help out the aforesaid diamonds; sweeping the autumn dust and evening dews with the borders of costly silks, and marvels of Lyons and Spitalfields, and altogether glorifying the ground over which they walk.
On this evening one range of windows, at least, in Belgrave Square is brilliantly illuminated. Lady Londersdon's Musical Wednesday, the last of the season, has been inaugurated with _éclat_ by a scena from Signora Scorici, of Her Majesty's Theatre and the Nobility's Concerts; and Mr. Argyle Fitz-Bertram, the great English basso-baritono, and the handsomest man in England, has just shaken the square with the buffo duet from the Cenerentola -- in which performance he, Argyle, has so entirely swamped that amiable tenor Signor Maretti, that the latter gentleman has serious thoughts of calling him out to-morrow morning; which idea he would carry into execution if Argyle Fitz-Bertram were not a crack shot, and a pet pupil of Mr. Angelo's into the bargain.