sphere in which
mothers arrogate most the right. Only on these occasions sometimes would
Lucretia lose her grim self-control, and threaten that her child yet
should be emancipated from his hands, should yet be taught the scorn for
hypocrites which he had taught herself. These words sank deep, not only
in the resentment, but in the conscience, of the husband. Meanwhile,
Lucretia scrupled not to evince her disdain of Braddell by markedly
abstaining from all the ceremonies she had before so rigidly observed.
The sect grew scandalized. Braddell did not abstain from making known
his causes of complaint. The haughty, imperious woman was condemned in
the community, and hated in the household.

It was at this time that Walter Ardworth, who was then striving to eke
out his means by political lectures (which in the earlier part of the
century found ready audience) in our great towns, came to Liverpool.
Braddell and Ardworth had been schoolfellows, and even at school embryo
politicians of congenial notions; and the conversion of the former to
one of the sects which had grown out of the old creeds, that, under
Cromwell, had broken the sceptre of the son of Belial and established
the Commonwealth of Saints, had only strengthened the republican tenets
of the sour fanatic. Ardworth called on Braddell, and was startled to
find in his schoolfellow's wife the niece of his benefactor, Sir Miles
St. John. Now, Lucretia had never divulged her true parentage to her
husband. In a union so much beneath her birth, she had desired to
conceal from all her connections the fall of the once-honoured heiress.
She had descended, in search of peace, to obscurity; but her pride
revolted from the thought that her low-born husband might boast of her
connections and parade her descent to his level. Fortunately, as she
thought, she received Ardworth before he was admitted to her husband,
who now, growing feebler and feebler, usually kept his room. She stooped
to beseech Ardworth not to reveal her secret; and he, comprehending her
pride, as a man well-born himself, and pitying her pain, readily gave
his promise. At the first interview, Braddell evinced no pleasure in the
sight of his old schoolfellow. It was natural enough that one so precise
should be somewhat revolted by one so careless of all form. But when
Lucretia imprudently evinced satisfaction at his surly remarks on his
visitor; when he perceived that it would please her that he should not
cultivate