ll ready to put on, turned out an unfortunate investment,
and only realised an article in the _Times_, headed 'another bubble
speculation.' Still, however, she was reputed very rich, and Sir
Marmaduke received the congratulations of his club on the event with the
air of a conqueror. She married him simply because, having waited long
and impatiently for a title, she was fain to put up at last with a
baronet. Her ambition was to be in the fashionable world; to be among
that sect of London elect who rule at Almack's and dictate at the West
End; to occupy her portion of the _Morning Post_, and to have her name
circulated among the illustrious few who entertain royalty, and receive
archdukes at luncheon. If the Poyais investment, in its result, denied
the means of these extravagances, it did not, unhappily, obliterate the
taste for them; and my lady's ambition to be fashionable was never at a
higher spring-tide than when her fortunes were at the ebb. Now, certes,
there are two ways to London distinction--rank and wealth. A fair
union of both will do much, but, without either, the pursuit is utterly
hopeless. There is but one course, then, for these unfortunate aspirants
of celebrity--it is to change the venue and come abroad. They may not,
it is true, have the rank and riches which give position at home. Still,
they are better off than most foreigners: they have not the wealth of
the aristocracy, yet they can imitate their wickedness; their habits
may be costly, but their vices are cheap; and thus they can assert
their high position and their fashionable standing by displaying the
abandonment which is unhappily the distinctive feature of a certain set
in the high world of London.

Followed, then, by a train of admirers, she paraded about the Continent,
her effrontery exalted into beauty, her cold insolence assumed to be
high breeding; her impertinence to women was merely exclusiveness, and
her condescending manner to men the simple acknowledgment of that homage
to which she was so unquestionably entitled.

Of her suite, they were animated by different motives. Some were
young enough to be in love with any woman who, a great deal older than
themselves, would deign to notice them. The noble lord, who accompanied
her always, was a ruined baron, whose own wife had deserted him for
another; he had left his character and his fortune at Doncaster and
Epsom; and having been horsewhipped as a defaulter, and outlawed
for debt, was of