gave further proofs of a real devotion, in affecting, and in her
presence feeling, nothing beyond a lively interest in her well-being.
This wonder, that when near her he should be cool and composed, and
when away from her wrapped in a tempest of desires, was matter for what
powers of cogitation the heavy nobleman possessed.

The Hon. Peter, tired of his journeys to and fro, urged him to press
the business. Lord Mountfalcon was wiser, or more scrupulous, than his
parasite. Almost every evening he saw Lucy. The inexperienced little
wife apprehended no harm in his visits. Moreover, Richard had commended
her to the care of Lord Mountfalcon, and Lady Judith. Lady Judith had
left the Island for London: Lord Mountfalcon remained. There could be no
harm. If she had ever thought so, she no longer did. Secretly, perhaps,
she was flattered. Lord Mountfalcon was as well educated as it is
the fortune of the run of titled elder sons to be: he could talk and
instruct: he was a lord: and he let her understand that he was wicked,
very wicked, and that she improved him. The heroine, in common with the
hero, has her ambition to be of use in the world--to do some good: and
the task of reclaiming a bad man is extremely seductive to good women.
Dear to their tender bosoms as old china is a bad man they are mending!
Lord Mountfalcon had none of the arts of a libertine: his gold, his
title, and his person had hitherto preserved him from having long to
sigh in vain, or sigh at all, possibly: the Hon. Peter did his villanies
for him. No alarm was given to Lucy's pure instinct, as might have been
the case had my lord been over-adept. It was nice in her martyrdom to
have a true friend to support her, and really to be able to do something
for that friend. Too simple-minded to think much of his lordship's
position, she was yet a woman. "He, a great nobleman, does not scorn
to acknowledge me, and think something of me," may have been one of
the half-thoughts passing through her now and then, as she reflected in
self-defence on the proud family she had married into.

January was watering and freezing old earth by turns, when the Hon.
Peter travelled down to the sun of his purse with great news. He had
no sooner broached his lordship's immediate weakness, than Mountfalcon
began to plunge like a heavy dragoon in difficulties. He swore by this
and that he had come across an angel for his sins, and would do her no
hurt. The next moment he swore she must b