“DEAREST HENRY—­I have been received in the kindest manner imaginable by Frederick, and have been put in possession of my old apartments, which are so much altered, I should never have known them.  They were furnished by Lady Lindore, who really has a divine taste.  I long to show you all the delights of this abode.  Frederick desired me to say that he expects to see you here at dinner, and that he will take charge of paying all our bills whenever he gets money.  Only think of his owing a hundred thousand pounds, besides all papa’s and Lady Lindore’s debts!  I assure you I was almost ashamed to tell him of ours, they sounded so trifling; but it is quite a relief to find other people so much worse.  Indeed, I always thought it quite natural for us to run in debt, considering that we had no money to pay anything, while Courtland, who is as rich as a Jew, is so hampered.  I shall expect you at eight, until when, adieu, mio caro,

“Your JULIE.

“I am quite wretched about you.”

This tender and consolatory billet Henry had not the satisfaction of receiving, having been arrested, shortly after his wife’s departure, at the suit of Mr. Shagg, for the sum of two thousand some odd hundreds, for carriages jobbed, bought, exchanged, repaired, returned, etc.

Lady Juliana’s horror and dismay at the news of her husband’s arrest were excessive.  Her only ideas of confinement were taken from those pictures of the Bastile and Inquisition that she had read so much of in French and German novels; and the idea of a prison was indissolubly united in her mind with bread and water, chains and straw, dungeons and darkness.  Callous and selfish, therefore, as she might be, she was not yet so wholly void of all natural feeling as to think with indifference of the man she had once fondly loved reduced to such a pitiable condition.

Almost frantic at the phantom of her own creation, she flew to her brother’s apartment, and, in the wildest and most incoherent manner, besought him to rescue her poor Henry from chains and a dungeon.

With some difficulty Lord Courtland at length apprehended the extent of his brother-in-Iaw’s misfortune; and, with his usual sang froid, smiled at his sister’s simplicity, assured her the King’s Bench was the pleasantest place in the world; that some of his own most particular friends were there, who gave capital dinners, and led the most desirable lives imaginable.

“And will he really not be fed on bread and water, and wear chains, and sleep upon straw?” asked the tender wife in the utmost surprise and delight.  “Oh, then, he is not so much to be pitied, though I dare say he would rather get out of prison too.”

The Earl promised to obtain his release the following day, and Lady Juliana returned to her toilet with a much higher opinion of prisons than she had ever entertained before.

Lord Courtland, for once in his life, was punctual to his promise; and even interested himself so thoroughly in Douglas’s affairs, though without inquiring into any particulars, as to take upon himself the discharge of his debts, and to procure leave for him to exchange into a regiment of the line, then under orders for India.