im out in defence
of his beloved country, and gave him opportunities of appearing to
advantage; this he could not help feeling, especially when the Lady
Isabel was present. Lady Dashfort had dealt long enough with human
nature to know, that to make any man pleased with her, she should begin
by making him pleased with himself.

Insensibly the antipathy that Lord Colambre had originally felt to
Lady Dashfort wore off; her faults, he began to think, were assumed; he
pardoned her defiance of good breeding, when he observed that she could,
when she chose it, be most engagingly polite. It was not that she did
not know what was right, but that she did not think it always for her
interest to practise it.

The party opposed to Lady Dashfort affirmed that her wit depended
merely on unexpectedness; a characteristic which may be applied to any
impropriety of speech, manner, or conduct. In some of her ladyship's
repartees, however, Lord Colambre now acknowledged there was more than
unexpectedness; there was real wit; but it was of a sort utterly unfit
for a woman, and he was sorry that Lady Isabel should hear it. In short,
exceptionable as it was altogether, Lady Dashfort's conversation had
become entertaining to him; and though he could never esteem or feel
in the least interested about her, he began to allow that she could be
agreeable.

'Ay, I knew how it would be,' said she, when some of her friends told
her this. 'He began by detesting me, and did I not tell you that, if I
thought it worth my while to make him like me, he must, sooner or later.
I delight in seeing people begin with me as they do with olives, making
all manner of horrid faces and silly protestations that they will never
touch an olive again as long as they live; but, after a little time,
these very folk grow so desperately fond of olives, that there is no
dessert without them. Isabel, child, you are in the sweet line--but
sweets cloy. You never heard of anybody living on marmalade, did
ye?'--Lady Isabel answered by a sweet smile.--'To do you justice, you
play Lydia Languish vastly well,' pursued the mother; 'but Lydia, by
herself, would soon tire; somebody must keep up the spirit and bustle,
and carry on the plot of the piece; and I am that somebody--as you shall
see. Is not that our hero's voice, which I hear on the stairs?'

It was Lord Colambre. His lordship had by this time become a constant
visitor at Lady Dashfort's. Not that he had forgotten, or that