A new arrival was now announced, which Learmont had been most anxiously looking for. Not the least important of the schemes of Learmont was to unite himself by marriage to some noble and influential family, who would feel their own dignity and importance interested in upholding him against any untoward circumstance that might occur of a nature to depreciate him; and the announcement that now greeted his ears, of the arrival of Lord Brereton, Lady Brereton, and the Honourable Georgiana Brereton, their only daughter, was the most welcome that had occurred. This family had all the mean, proud vices of the aristocracy, with scarcely any of their redeeming virtues; but they were of ancient race, and numbered among their connexions all the principal nobles of England, claiming likewise a distant alliance with royalty itself. Her father was one of those men who fancy they and their extravagancies have some sort of claim upon society at large for support, and all thoughts of usefulness or prudence were with him quite out of the question, and derogatory to his dignity. The family estates were mortgaged to the last farthing; the family plate and diamonds were only their possession on hire from the money scriveners. Still the income of Lord Brereton was immense, for he was in various shapes quartered upon the public purse as a holder of sinecure appointments with large salaries, on account of his high birth. His lady was silly, weak, and egotistical—the Honourable Georgiana Brereton, it was well understood, was for sale to the highest bidder; she was proud, supercilious, and handsome. Lord Brereton, it was understood, would settle upon his daughter an estate worth ten thousand pounds per annum, always provided the happy man who made her his wife was in a condition to advance the sum necessary to redeem the title deeds from the money-lenders. Therefore was the Honourable Georgiana Brereton, with all her pride and all her insolence, put up for sale at the goodly sum claimed by divers lords as mortgagees of the estate which was to be settled upon her. Into this family Learmont thought it policy to enter. They had all the influence of high rank, and were unscrupulous in using it. For the Honourable Georgiana he cared no more than for the feathers that danced in her head-dress. She might be proud, haughty, insolent, silly, but her pride was nothing to his; her haughtiness must cringe before his, associated as his was with intellect of a high order. Her indolence, too, he could treat with contempt. She was, in his eyes, merely one of the props to his ambition, and he approached the family, that he despised in his heart, with a smile of welcome of the most engaging character he could assume. “Welcome to my humble house,” said Learmont; “no longer humble, however, when graced by your presence, ladies.”