Another spring arrived, and Lady Montreville went to London with the full intention of shining as the most attractive of women, and of having a train of admirers—humble admirers, who should be kept at a most respectful distance, but who might show her husband what others thought of her. She had little difficulty in succeeding in her object. With rank and beauty, a lively manner, and a husband so much older than herself, the difficulty was to keep them off, not to attract them. Lionel Delville became a frequent visiter in St. James’s Square. He no longer found it impossible to pay her a compliment, although, as yet, he dared go no farther. Captain Lyon claimed acquaintance as an old friend. Although he had scarcely found out she was alive as the fourth daughter of Colonel Heckfield, he proclaimed her the most fascinating of her sex, as the Marchioness of Montreville. Indeed, he insinuated that he had been the first to discover these fascinations, and to point them out to Lord Montreville. He affected to patronise her to all his friends. Statesmen, warriors, poets, were to be found in her train. Among others, Lord Thorcaster, a deep politician, who was particularly strong on political economy, the bullion question, the poor laws, and free trade. She was quite pretty enough to be exceedingly agreeable to this man of deep reading and comprehensive mind. He did not make love—no: he talked politics; but her eyes were so blue, and her teeth so white, that he thought her political _aperçus_ astonishingly luminous; especially when one day that the question of free trade was discussed, she exclaimed in her simple manner,— “Why can they not let it all alone! and then every body, and every country, will naturally manufacture what they can do best, and what they are most fitted for; and everybody will buy where they can get the best things for the least money. That must be good for all parties, and there would be an end of all this fuss about duties on imports and exports.” “My dear Lady Montreville, you have in one sentence condensed all the arguments that it has taken the two houses of Parliament years to discuss. I have urged this very train of reasoning myself. If our legislators were but endowed with the clear and powerful understanding of a certain young and beautiful woman, it would be well for our poor country! But it is not every mind that can thus grapple with a subject, divest it of all the false colouring thrown over it by sophistry, and at once seize the real point at issue.” “Dear me! have I done all this? It seemed very natural to say what I said.” “Very natural to persons of decision, who can shake themselves free from the trammels of prejudice.” “But I never thought upon the subject before, so I had no prejudices to shake off; I merely said what struck me as plain and obvious.” “Indeed! astonishing you should at once seize all the bearings of the case.”