d there is an impression
abroad that they make good husbands, and that all the bluster they
employ towards the world subsides into the mildest possible murmur
beside the domestic hearthrug.

Marion was not much more or much less than we have seen her; and though
she became, by the great and distinguished services of her husband, a
countess, she was not without a strange sentiment of envy for a certain
small vicarage in Herts, where rosy children romped before the latticed
porch, beneath which sat a very blooming and beautiful mother, and
worked as her husband read for her. A very simple little home sketch;
but it was the page of a life where all harmonized and all went smoothly
on: one of those lives of small ambitions and humble pleasures which are
nearer Paradise than anything this world gives us.

Temple Bramleigh was a secretary of legation, and lived to see
himself--in the uniformity of his manuscript, the precision of his
docketing, and the exactness of his sealing wax--the pet of "the
Office." Acolytes who swung incense before permanent secretaries, or
held up the vestments of chief clerks, and who heard the words which
drop from the high priests of foolscap, declared Temple was a rising
man; and with a brother-in-law in the Lords, and a brother rich enough
to contest a seat in the Lower House, one whose future pointed to a high
post and no small distinction: for, happily for us, we live in an
age where self-assertion is as insufficient in public life as
self-righteousness in religion, and our merits are always best cared for
by imputed holiness.

The story of this volume is of the Bramleighs, and I must not presume to
suppose that my reader interests himself in the fate of those secondary
personages who figure in the picture. Lady Augusta, however, deserves a
passing mention, but perhaps her own words will be more descriptive than
any of mine; and I cannot better conclude than with the letter she wrote
to Nelly, and which ran thus:--

"Villa Altieri, Rome.

"Dearest Child,--How shall I ever convey to you one-half the transport,
the joy, the ecstasy I am filled with by this glorious news! There is no
longer a question of law or scandal or exposure. Your estates are your
own, and your dear name stands forth untarnished and splendid as it has
ever done. It is only as I bethink me of what you and dearest Augustus
and darling Jack must have gone through that I spare you the narrative
of my own sufferings, my da