s got rid of one to take up with a viler. First, a
sluttish trollop of German origin is foisted on him for life; next, he is
misled to abjure the faith of his fathers for Rome. But patently,
desperation in the husband of such a wife weakened his resistance to the
Roman Catholic pervert's insinuations. There we punctuate the full stop
to our inquiries; we have the secret.

And upon that, suddenly comes a cyclonic gust; and gossip twirls, whines,
and falls to the twanging of an entirely new set of notes, that furnish a
tolerably agreeable tune, on the whole. O hear! The Marchioness of
Arpington proclaims not merely acquaintanceship with Lord Fleetwood's
countess, she professes esteem for the young person. She has been heard
to say, that if the Principality of Wales were not a royal title, a
dignity of the kind would be conferred by the people of those mountains
on the Countess of Fleetwood: such unbounded enthusiasm there was for her
character when she sojourned down there. As it is, they do speak of her
in their Welsh by some title. Their bards are offered prizes to celebrate
her deeds. You remember the regiment of mounted Welsh gentlemen escorting
her to her Kentish seat, with their band of the three-stringed harps! She
is well-born, educated, handsome, a perfectly honest woman, and a sound
Protestant. Quite the reverse of Lord Fleetwood's seeking to escape her,
it is she who flies; she cannot forgive him his cruelties and
infidelities: and that is the reason why he threatens to commit the act
of despair. Only she can save him! She has flown for refuge to her uncle,
Lord Levellier's house at a place named Croridge--not in the
gazetteer--hard of access and a home of poachers, where shooting goes on
hourly; but most picturesque and romantic, as she herself is! Lady
Arpington found her there, nursing one of the wounded, and her uncle on
his death-bed; obdurate all round against her husband, but pensive when
supplicated to consider her country endangered by Rome. She is a fervent
patriot. The tales of her Whitechapel origin, and heading mobs wielding
bludgeons, are absolutely false, traceable to scandalizing anecdotists
like Mr. Rose Mackrell. She is the beautiful example of an injured wife
doing honour to her sex in the punishment of a faithless husband, yet so
little cherishing her natural right to deal him retribution, that we dare
hope she will listen to her patriotic duty in consenting to the
reconcilement, which is Lor