My Lady Lonsdall was a _soi-disant_ heiress, the daughter of some person unknown in the city, the greater part of whose fortune was unhappily embarked in Poyais Scrip--a fact only ascertained when too late, and, consequently, though discoursing most eloquently in a prospectus about mines of gold and silver, strata of pearl necklaces, and diamond ear- rings, all ready to put on, turned out an unfortunate investment, and only realised an article in the _Times_, headed ‘another bubble speculation.’ Still, however, she was reputed very rich, and Sir Marmaduke received the congratulations of his club on the event with the air of a conqueror. She married him simply because, having waited long and impatiently for a title, she was fain to put up at last with a baronet. Her ambition was to be in the fashionable world; to be among that sect of London elect who rule at Almack’s and dictate at the West End; to occupy her portion of the _Morning Post_, and to have her name circulated among the illustrious few who entertain royalty, and receive archdukes at luncheon. If the Poyais investment, in its result, denied the means of these extravagances, it did not, unhappily, obliterate the taste for them; and my lady’s ambition to be fashionable was never at a higher spring-tide than when her fortunes were at the ebb. Now, certes, there are two ways to London distinction--rank and wealth. A fair union of both will do much, but, without either, the pursuit is utterly hopeless. There is but one course, then, for these unfortunate aspirants of celebrity--it is to change the venue and come abroad. They may not, it is true, have the rank and riches which give position at home. Still, they are better off than most foreigners: they have not the wealth of the aristocracy, yet they can imitate their wickedness; their habits may be costly, but their vices are cheap; and thus they can assert their high position and their fashionable standing by displaying the abandonment which is unhappily the distinctive feature of a certain set in the high world of London. Followed, then, by a train of admirers, she paraded about the Continent, her effrontery exalted into beauty, her cold insolence assumed to be high breeding; her impertinence to women was merely exclusiveness, and her condescending manner to men the simple acknowledgment of that homage to which she was so unquestionably entitled.