“The first time we met him,”--observing a quickening of attention in Helen’s eyes, Lady Davenant smiled, and said, “Young ladies always like to hear of ‘the first time we saw him.’--The first time we saw General Clarendon was--forgive me the day of the month--in the gallery at Florence. I forget how it happened that he had not been presented to me--to Lord Davenant he must have been. But so it was and it was new to Cecilia to see a man of his appearance who had not on his first arrival shown himself ambitious to be made known to her. He was admiring a beautiful Magdalene, and he was standing with his back towards us. I recollect that his appearance when I saw him as a stranger--the time when one can best judge of appearance--struck me as that of a distinguished person; but little did I think that there stood Cecilia’s husband! so little did my maternal instinct guide me. “As we approached, he turned and gave one look at Cecilia; she gave one look at him. He passed on, she stopped me to examine the picture which he had been admiring. “Every English mother at Florence, except myself, had their eyes fixed upon General Clarendon from the moment of his arrival. But whatever I may have been, or may have been supposed to be, on the great squares of politics, I believe I never have been accused or even suspected of being a manoeuvrer on the small domestic scale. “My reputation for imbecility in these matters was perhaps advantageous. He did not shun me as he did the tribe of knowing ones; a hundred reports flew about concerning him, settling in one, that he was resolved never to marry. Yet he was a passionate admirer of beauty and grace, and it was said that he had never been unsuccessful where he had wished to please. The secret of his resolution against marriage was accounted for by the gossiping public in many ways variously absurd. The fact was, that in his own family, and in that of a particular friend, there had been about this time two or three scandalous intrigues, followed by ‘the public brand of shameful life.’ One of these ‘sad affairs,’ as they are styled, was marked with premeditated treachery and turpitude. The lady had been, or had seemed to be, for years a pattern wife, the mother of several children; yet she had long betrayed, and at last abandoned, a most amiable and confiding husband, and went off with a man who did not love her, who cared for nought but himself, a disgusting monster of selfishness, vanity, and vice! This woman was said to have been once good, but to have been corrupted and depraved by residence abroad--by the contagion of foreign profligacy. In the other instance, the seduced wife had been originally most amiable, pure-minded, uncommonly beautiful, loved to idolatry by her husband, Clarendon’s particular friend, a man high in public estimation. The husband shot himself. The seducer was, it’s said, the lady’s first love. That these circumstances