of his temperament as an insuperable objection to the marriage; that
was out of the question, even if the conscience of Lady Annabel
herself, now that she was so happy, were perfectly free from any
participation in the causes which occasioned the original estrangement
between Herbert and herself. Desirous too, as all mothers are, that
her daughter should be suitably married, Lady Annabel could not shut
her eyes to the great improbability of such an event occurring, now
that Venetia had, as it were, resigned all connection with her native
country. As to her daughter marrying a foreigner, the very idea was
intolerable to her; and Venetia appeared therefore to have resumed
that singular and delicate position which she occupied at Cherbury in
earlier years, when Lady Annabel had esteemed her connection with Lord
Cadurcis so fortunate and auspicious. Moreover, while Lord Cadurcis,
in birth, rank, country, and consideration, offered in every view of
the ease so gratifying an alliance, he was perhaps the only Englishman
whose marriage into her family would not deprive her of the society of
her child. Cadurcis had a great distaste for England, which he seized
every opportunity to express. He continually declared that he would
never return there; and his habits of seclusion and study so entirely
accorded with those of her husband, that Lady Annabel did not doubt
they would continue to form only one family; a prospect so engaging to
her, that it would perhaps have alone removed the distrust which she
had so unfortunately cherished against the admirer of her daughter;
and although some of his reputed opinions occasioned her doubtless
considerable anxiety, he was nevertheless very young, and far from
emancipated from the beneficial influence of his early education. She
was sanguine that this sheep would yet return to the fold where once
he had been tended with so much solicitude. When too she called to
mind the chastened spirit of her husband, and could not refrain from
feeling that, had she not quitted him, he might at a much earlier
period have attained a mood so full of promise and to her so cheering,
she could not resist the persuasion that, under the influence of
Venetia, Cadurcis might speedily free himself from the dominion of
that arrogant genius to which, rather than to any serious conviction,
the result of a studious philosophy, she attributed his indifference
on the most important of subjects. On the whole, however, it wa