like tow? Was
not Wilkes the ugliest, charmingest, most successful man in the world?
Such instances might be carried out so as to fill a volume; but cui
bono? Love is fate, and not will; its origin not to be explained, its
progress irresistible: and the best proof of this may be had at Bow
Street any day, where if you ask any officer of the establishment how
they take most thieves, he will tell you at the houses of the women.
They must see the dear creatures though they hang for it; they will
love, though they have their necks in the halter. And with regard to the
other position, that ill-usage on the part of the man does not destroy
the affection of the woman, have we not numberless police-reports,
showing how, when a bystander would beat a husband for beating his wife,
man and wife fall together on the interloper and punish him for his
meddling?

These points, then, being settled to the satisfaction of all parties,
the reader will not be disposed to question the assertion that Mrs. Hall
had a real affection for the gallant Count, and grew, as Mr. Brock was
pleased to say, like a beefsteak, more tender as she was thumped. Poor
thing, poor thing! his flashy airs and smart looks had overcome her in
a single hour; and no more is wanted to plunge into love over head and
ears; no more is wanted to make a first love with--and a woman's first
love lasts FOR EVER (a man's twenty-fourth or twenty-fifth is perhaps
the best): you can't kill it, do what you will; it takes root, and lives
and even grows, never mind what the soil may be in which it is planted,
or the bitter weather it must bear--often as one has seen a wallflower
grow--out of a stone.

In the first weeks of their union, the Count had at least been liberal
to her: she had a horse and fine clothes, and received abroad some of
those flattering attentions which she held at such high price. He had,
however, some ill-luck at play, or had been forced to pay some bills, or
had some other satisfactory reason for being poor, and his establishment
was very speedily diminished. He argued that, as Mrs. Catherine had
been accustomed to wait on others all her life, she might now wait upon
herself and him; and when the incident of the beer arose, she had
been for some time employed as the Count's housekeeper, with unlimited
superintendence over his comfort, his cellar, his linen, and such
matters as bachelors are delighted to make over to active female hands.
To do the poor wret