marry beneath him, he
had at least the justice to say that while she lived he would never
marry any one else. And when the hand of a great and noble heiress was
offered him, although a very ambitious man, he refused her upon the
ground that he was not quite satisfied with the shape of her ladyship's
nose." General Bulwer built for his mistress a villa in the neighborhood
of London, and as he was driving into the yard on his return from some
military duties which had detained him longer than usual, she ran out to
meet him. In this hurried action she received a kick from one of the
horses, and died of the injury.

After this, the General, who is described by his son as being of a very
powerful, self-willed nature, wholly uncultivated by literature, but
with that ability for action which takes lessons from life,--married the
mother of our hero, a delicate girl, with intelligent, dark-blue eyes,
with shy sensitive temper, passionately fond of poetry, and deeply under
the influences of religion. Her family was as ancient as that of the
Bulwers, the Lyttons having intermarried with many houses famous in
history. But family concord was not one of the characteristics of the
Lytton family, and Bulwer's grandfather and grandmother had lived
stormily together for a few years, and separated by mutual consent. The
essential faults are said to have been all on the side of the
grandfather. The only daughter of the uncongenial pair was not permitted
to dwell permanently with either. She was sent at the age of five to a
large school, where she lived a sad life for a long time, without any of
the tender care and affection which such a child craves, and must have,
for anything like a healthful child-life. After a while she went to live
with her father, and still later with her mother, from whose house she
was married to General Bulwer. He was not a man who could appreciate the
rarer qualities of Miss Lytton. He could have no share in her
intellectual life and no sympathy with her religious nature. But the
elegance of her manners satisfied his pride, her domestic habits gave
him promise of a peaceful home, and, greatest merit of all, her features
suited him. He liked an aquiline nose. A nose that turned up the least
bit, his son tells us, would have disgusted him with a Venus. The lady's
nose in this instance proving satisfactory, a happy marriage was
anticipated, although the bridegroom had buried his heart in the grave
of a mistress, an