Lady Sheerness was a widow; her jointure considerable; and her lord at his decease left her some thousand pounds in ready money. When he died she was about twenty-five years old, with a good person and infinite vivacity. An unbridled imagination, ungovernable spirits, with a lively arch countenance and a certain quaintness of expression gained her the reputation of being possessed of a great deal of wit. Her lord, in the decline of life, had been captivated by her youthful charms, when she was but sixteen years old. His extreme fondness for her led him to indulge her vivacity in all its follies; and frequently while he was laid up at home in the gout her ladyship was the finest and gayest woman at every place of public resort. Often, when the acuteness of his pains obliged him to seek relief from the soporific influence of opium, she collected half the town, and though his rest was disturbed every moment by a succession of impetuous raps at the door, he was never offended; on the contrary, he thought himself obliged to her for staying at home, which she had assured him was because she could not bear to go abroad when he was so ill. This, as the greatest mark of her tenderness he ever received, he failed not to acknowledge with gratitude. She scarcely took more pleasure in having a train of admirers than his lordship felt from it; his vanity was flattered in seeing his wife the object of admiration and he fancied himself much envied for so valuable a possession. Her coquetry charmed him, as the follies of that vivacity of which he was so fond. He had no tincture of jealousy in his whole composition; and acknowledged as favours conferred on himself the attentions paid to his wife.