sal."

"Generosity, my lord! Your lordship will pardon me. In this case I have
all the honor to receive, and nothing to confer in exchange."

"Hear me for a few minutes," replied his lordship, "and after you shall
have heard me, you will then be able at least to understand whether the
proposal you make for my daughter's hand is a generous one or not. My
daughter, Sir Edward, is illegitimate."

"Illegitimate, my lord!" replied the other, with an evident shock which
he could not conceal. "Great God! my lord, your words are impossible."

"My young friend, they are both possible and true. Listen to me:

"In early life I loved a young lady of a decayed but respectable family.
I communicated our attachment to my friends, who pronounced me a fool,
and did not hesitate to attribute my affection for her to art on the
part of the lady, and intrigue on that of her relatives. I was at the
time deeply, almost irretrievably, embarrassed. Be this as it may, I
knew that the imputations against Maria, for such was her name, as well
as against her relatives, were utterly false; and as a proof I did so,
I followed her to France, where, indeed, I had first met her. Well, we
were privately married there; for, although young at the time, I was not
without a spirit of false pride and ambition, that tended to prevent me
from acknowledging my marriage, and encountering boldly, as I ought to
have done, the resentment of my relations and the sneers of the world.
Owing to this unmanly spirit on my part, our marriage, though strictly
correct and legal in every respect, was nevertheless a private one, as
I have said. In the meantime I had entered parliament, and it is not
for me to dwell upon the popularity with which my efforts there were
attended. I consequently lived a good deal apart from my wife, whom
I had not courage to present as such to the world. Every day now
established my success in the House of Commons, and increased my
ambition. The constitution of my wife had been naturally a delicate one,
and I understood, subsequently to our union, that there had been decline
in her family to such an extent, that nearly one-half of them had died
of it. In this way we lived for four years, having no issue. About the
commencement of the fifth my wife's health began to decline, and as that
session of parliament was a very busy and a very important one, I was
but little with her. Ever since the period of our marriage, she had been
attended by a fai