t
Brocket at three o'clock in the morning to say that she was playing the
great organ on the staircase, and requested the pleasure of their
company. And it is added that the invitation was never refused, and that
daylight would find them listening, spellbound and without a thought of
bed. Here is Bulwer's own account of the close of this little episode
with Lady Caroline. He was staying at her house, and had become very
jealous of a Mr. Russell.

"I went downstairs. Russell sat opposite me. He wore a ring. It was
one which Lord Byron had given Lady Caroline: one which was to be
worn only by those she loved. I had often worn it myself. She had
wanted me to accept it, but I would not, because it was so costly.
And now _he_ wore it. Can you conceive my resentment, my
wretchedness? After dinner I threw myself upon a sofa. Music was
playing. Lady Caroline came to me. 'Are you mad?' said she. I
looked up. The tears stood in my eyes. I could not have spoken a
word for the world. What do you think she said aloud? 'Don't play
this melancholy air,--it affects Mr. Bulwer so that he is actually
weeping.' My tears, my softness, my love were over in a moment.
When we broke up in the evening I said to her, 'Farewell forever.
It is over. Now I see you in your true light. Instead of jealousy I
only feel contempt. Farewell. Go and be happy.'"

This account reads very much like a page from "Pelham" or "Devereux,"
and the whole account of his affairs of the heart is written in a
similar manner.

All this had passed before he was twenty-two. At that age he first met
Rosina Wheeler, at an evening party. He was talking busily to his mother
when she suddenly exclaimed: "O Edward, what a singularly beautiful
face! Do look. Who can she be?"

An elderly gentleman was leading through the room in which they sat a
young lady of remarkable beauty, who, from the simplicity of her
costume, seemed to be unmarried. He turned his head languidly, as he
says, with a strangely troubled sensation, and beheld his fate before
him,--in other words, his future wife.

Rosina Wheeler was at this time twenty-three, and in the full blossom of
a very remarkable beauty. Her father was an Irish squire, who at the age
of seventeen had married a very beautiful girl two years younger than
himself. The natural result of this marriage was a separation, after the
birth of two children, one of them the