A fearful barrier is broken down when such a confession is made in the secret soul. Pride, however, was one ruling principle in her nature, and she resolved that no one should perceive that she imagined herself neglected, or that she felt mortified. She mixed in the world. She wished to show her husband that she had charms for others, and she gloried in the train of admirers that the fascination of her person and manners attracted around her. She thought pride must ever secure her against any weakness. Alas! pride is a poor substitute for principle. Walter had heard of her as the admired Lady Ellersville, who piqued herself upon her indifference, and upon her powers of attracting, without courting, the homage of the other sex. He soon became one of her train, and almost as soon, tired of being only one among many, on whom she lavished the varied charms of her conversation. He could not endure to be thus confounded among the crowd. He wished to ascertain that she considered him as superior to the common herd of empty young men, and to do so he naturally put forth all his powers of pleasing. His eye was more animated, his jest more pointed, his political opinions expressed with more eloquence, when she was present. Had any one said to him, you are leading a virtuous woman from the path of duty, he would have denied the imputation with horror. Yet such was indeed the fact. Scarcely a day elapsed in which they did not see each other, though without any preconcerted plan on either side; and the ball, the assembly, seemed dull and insipid at which he did not meet the lively, the agreeable, the lovely Lady Ellersville. He began to feel indignant that the man who was united to such a woman should appear so little aware of the treasure he possessed. He then wondered whether she had ever loved him, whether she had ever preferred anybody; whether, if circumstances had not prevented her indulging such a feeling, she could ever have liked him. His thoughts became wholly engrossed by her; when she was present he had no eyes, no ears for any one else; and although he never breathed a word which could alarm the most rigid virtue, the tact with which all human beings are endowed upon that subject, gave her heart the delightful consciousness of being loved, though nothing was said which forced such a conviction upon her understanding. The refinements of polished life threw a halo round the first approaches of vice—of vice, which if it appeared in its own form would be recognised as such, and avoided with loathing; but it assumes the mask of all that is harmless and engaging—innocent conversation, gay sociability—and does not throw off the disguise, till it has already made deep inroads on the peace and on the morals.