have heirs male; but, in case they should marry, the title was to go to the first son. All these circumstances were of course soon known and talked of in the neighbourhood; and many congratulated Vivian upon the great accession of fortune, and upon the high expectations of the lady to whom they supposed him engaged. On the first visit which Vivian and his mother paid after the death of Lord Lidhurst at Glistonbury Castle, they found there a young man very handsome, but of a dark, reserved countenance, whose physiognomy and manner immediately prepossessed them against him; on his part, he seemed to eye them with suspicion, and to be particularly uneasy whenever Vivian either mentioned the election or approached Lady Sarah. This young man was Mr. Lidhurst, Lord Glistonbury’s nephew and heir-at-law. It was obvious, almost at first sight, that the uncle disliked the nephew; but it was not so easy to perceive that the nephew despised the uncle. Mr. Lidhurst, though young, was an excellent politician; and his feelings were always regulated by his interests. He had more abilities than Lord Glistonbury, less vanity, but infinitely more ambition. In Lord Glistonbury, ambition was rather affected, as an air suited to his rank, and proper to increase his consequence: Mr. Lidhurst’s was an earnest, inordinate ambition, yet it was cold, silent, and calculating; his pride preyed upon him inwardly, but it never hurried him into saying or doing an extravagant thing. Those who were not actuated solely by ambition, he always looked upon as fools, and those who were, he considered, in general, as knaves: the one he marked as dupes, the other as rivals. He had been at the Bishop of ----‘s, during Lord Lidhurst’s illness, and at the time of his death. Ever since Lady Julia’s arrival at the bishop’s, he had foreseen the probability of this event, and had, in consequence of the long-sightedness of his views, endeavoured to make himself agreeable to her. He found this impossible; but was, however, easily consoled by hearing that she had resolved never to marry; he only hoped that she would keep her resolution; and he was now at Glistonbury Castle, in the determination to propose for his other cousin, Lady Sarah, who would, perhaps, equally well secure to him his objects. “Well! my dear Vivian,” said Lord Glistonbury, drawing him aside, “how d’ye relish my nephew, Marmaduke Lidhurst? Need not be afraid to speak the truth, for I tell you at once that he is no particular favourite here; not _en bonne odeur_; but that’s only between you and me. He thinks that I don’t know that he considers me as a shallow fellow, because I haven’t my head crammed with a parcel of statistical tables, all the fiscal and financiering stuff which he has at his calculating fingers’ ends; but I trust that I am almost as good a politician as he is, and I’m free to believe, have rather more knowledge of the world-- ‘In men, not books, experienced was my lord’--