Now as Lord Spoonbill rode along under the bright light of the moon, undisturbed by any earthly sound but the tinkling of the sheep-bell, or the barking of some cottage curs, he did seem to himself to enjoy the beauty of the scenery and the pleasant balm of the autumnal air. And as a feeling of scenic beauty penetrated his soul, there entered also with that a thought of moral beauty, and he felt that his mind did not harmonize with the repose and beauty which surrounded him. The feeling was not strong enough to be called remorse, it was not serious enough to border upon repentance. He felt conscious that he had acted with meanness, that he had been guilty of a piece of cruelty. He had used a most contemptible and debasing artifice to produce alienation between too worthy and excellent young persons, loving and beloved, confiding and hoping amidst their doubts and difficulties. These feelings were unpleasant, and he endeavoured to soothe himself by sophistry. After all, what injury had he done to Robert Darnley? It would be a pity that so fine a woman as Penelope Primrose should be sacrificed to such a dull, plodding, common-place man as the younger Darnley. Common-place men are not worthy of the notice of men of fashion, nor deserving of the ordinary privileges of humanity. His lordship had some recollection of Mr Darnley as being a very poor creature, and he thought that it was not probable that he should have gained any great degree of improvement by commercial pursuits and habits of business; for, as everybody knows, these things tend very much to degrade and to cramp the mind; while on the other hand those pursuits in which his lordship had been engaged had quite the contrary effect. It must be very ennobling to the mind to be engaged in gambling, horse-racing, lounging, bird-shooting, fox-hunting, and seduction; and any woman of sense and spirit must infinitely prefer a protector of this description, to a common-place man who knows nothing of the world. As to Penelope then, his lordship very naturally concluded that he was designing her an essential service. Poor, simple, artless creature, she knew nothing of society, all her days had been passed in a sequestered village; and as Robert Darnley was almost the only person she was acquainted with, at all likely to make her an offer, she fancied that she must of necessity be in love with him. Lord Spoonbill had not according to his own account been much of a reader, but he had read the Sorrows of Werter, and he had read many other compositions of that nature; and he invariably found that the lovers of the betrothed and the married were men of genius, fine feeling, elegant manners, and every species of sentimentality; and he observed that they were induced to the very laudable practice of seducing the affections of young women from their husbands or lovers, by a mere principle of compassion. It was a pity that so much sense and sensibility should be so ill met, and then how