fault; that she was prim, puritanical, bad-tempered; that her jealousy was perfectly ridiculous; that her missy ways and affectation rendered it impossible for any man to live with her. There were numbers of people who would take an opposite view of the question, and who would pity her--not indeed with that pity which is akin to love, but from a feeling springing from a very different source,--a pity which consists in loudly denouncing the cause for compassion, and wondering how the person to be compassionated can endure what has to be gone through. There would be people who could not understand how anything otherwise could have been expected: a young person from the _bourgeoisie_ introduced into the _nous-autres_ class must expect that the silly fancy which had captivated her husband would not last, and must be prepared to take the consequences of her vaulting ambition. The Clanronald and Tappington set would infallibly regard it from this last-mentioned point of view, accordingly. How Laurence Alsager's blood boiled within him as all these thoughts passed through his mind! During the quietude of his life at Knockholt, he had had sufficient opportunities so thoroughly to catechise himself, so perfectly to dissect the feelings of his breast, as to leave no doubt in his own mind that he loved Lady Mitford deeply and passionately. The notion of the guardian angel, the protecting genius, which he had so encouraged at first, had now entirely faded out, and he had not scrupled to show to himself the actual state of his feelings towards her. Not that they would ever be known; he had made up his mind to keep them rigidly locked in his own bosom. But still it was worse than horrible to think that the woman in whose service he would willingly have perilled his life, was in all probability dragging on a miserable existence, exposed to the perverse misunderstandings or degrading pity of the world! On these latter points he should soon be assured. They discussed everybody at the Maecenas; and if there had been anything sufficiently noticeable in the Mitford _ménage_ to call for comment, it was sure to receive the freest and most outspoken discussion in the tabak-parliament of the Club.