from another; and even the prudes--at
least, all those who had daughters--confessed that his lordship was a
very interesting character. Like Brandon, his familiar friend, he had
risen in the world (from the Irish baron to the English earl) without
having ever changed his politics, which were ultra-Tory; and we need not
observe that he was deemed, like Brandon, a model of public integrity.
He was possessed of two places under government, six votes in the House
of Commons, and eight livings in the Church; and we must add, in justice
to his loyal and religious principles, that there was not in the three
kingdoms a firmer friend to the existing establishments.

Whenever a nobleman does not marry, people try to take away his
character. Lord Mauleverer had never married. The Whigs had been
very bitter on the subject; they even alluded to it in the House of
Commons,--that chaste assembly, where the never-failing subject of
reproach against Mr. Pitt was the not being of an amorous temperament;
but they had not hitherto prevailed against the stout earl's celibacy.
It is true that if he was devoid of a wife, he had secured to himself
plenty of substitutes; his profession was that of a man of gallantry;
and though he avoided the daughters, it was only to make love to the
mothers. But his lordship had now attained a certain age, and it was
at last circulated among his friends that he intended to look out for a
Lady Mauleverer.

"Spare your caresses," said his toady-in-chief to a certain duchess, who
had three portionless daughters; "Mauleverer has sworn that he will not
choose among your order. You know his high politics, and you will not
wonder at his declaring himself averse in matrimony as in morals to a
community of goods."

The announcement of the earl's matrimonial design and the circulation of
this anecdote set all the clergymen's daughters in England on a blaze
of expectation; and when Mauleverer came to shire, upon obtaining the
honour of the lieutenancy, to visit his estates and court the friendship
of his neighbours, there was not an old-young lady of forty, who worked
in broad-stitch and had never been to London above a week at a time, who
did not deem herself exactly the sort of person sure to fascinate his
lordship.

It was late in the afternoon when the travelling-chariot of this
distinguished person, preceded by two outriders, in the earl's undress
livery of dark green, stopped at the hall door of Warlock House.