Lord Delaford, though considerably occupied with politics, was not entirely engrossed by them, and he wished extremely for the quiet enjoyment of domestic life. When he returned from the House, he would fain have been greeted by his wife, or at least he would have been glad to know where he might join her; but among the many engagements for each night, he did not know where to find her; and after having once or twice followed her through the whole list of parties, he gave up the point, and went to bed, jaded and out of spirits. She seldom came down-stairs till so late, that he had long breakfasted, and was on the point of going out to some committee. Sometimes, being free from business, he determined to remain at home, and to devote the morning to the society of his young and lovely wife. On these occasions he usually found her so beset till two o’clock by her maid, by milliners, by tradesmen, by innumerable notes to answer, and arrangements to make, that she could only answer him with an absent air, her thoughts evidently intent on the organizing of some plan of amusement for that, or the ensuing day. After two o’clock, her drawing-room was of course crowded with dandies whipping their boots—with sage politicians, a race who peculiarly enjoy the _délassement_ of a pretty woman’s society,—and with literati, a tribe who are very apt to find peculiar gratification from the favourable suffrage of the lovely and titled, though upon the most dry and abstruse work, into which the fair critic had never looked, and which, if she had looked into it, she could not possibly have understood. This select crowd (for none but the most distinguished of each genus was admitted) did not disperse till the carriage had been long announced, and the hour of some appointment was long past; when, hurrying away from the admiring throng, she drove from her own door without having given a moment of her attention to her husband. Lord Delaford’s anticipated morning of conjugal felicity generally ended in his seizing his hat and stick, and marching forth at a quick pace, and in no very enviable frame of mind. Fanny was at first bewildered by this mode of life, but she accompanied her friend through the whole routine, till she found that neither her spirits nor her health could stand such constant wear and tear; she was obliged occasionally to remain at home, while Isabella continued her giddy round of pleasures; and she could not avoid perceiving that Lord Delaford was a man formed for all the charities of life—and that Isabella was throwing away happiness such as seldom falls to the lot of woman.