was a distinction in his gait and look which
supplied the air of rank and the tone of courts. Men, indeed, skilled
like Mauleverer in the subtleties of manner, might perhaps have easily
detected in him the want of that indescribable essence possessed only
by persons reared in good society; but that want being shared by so
many persons of indisputable birth and fortune, conveyed no particular
reproach. To Lucy, indeed, brought up in seclusion, and seeing at
Warlock none calculated to refine her taste in the fashion of an air
or phrase to a very fastidious standard of perfection, this want
was perfectly imperceptible; she remarked in her lover only a figure
everywhere unequalled, an eye always eloquent with admiration, a step
from which grace could never be divorced, a voice that spoke in a silver
key, and uttered flatteries delicate in thought and poetical in word;
even a certain originality of mind, remark, and character, occasionally
approaching to the bizarre, yet sometimes also to the elevated,
possessed a charm for the imagination of a young and not unenthusiastic
female, and contrasted favourably, rather than the reverse, with the
dull insipidity of those she ordinarily saw. Nor are we sure that the
mystery thrown about him, irksome as it was to her, and discreditable as
it appeared to others, was altogether ineffectual in increasing her
love for the adventurer; and thus Fate, which transmutes in her magic
crucible all opposing metals into that one which she is desirous to
produce, swelled the wealth of an ill-placed and ominous passion by the
very circumstances which should have counteracted and destroyed it.

We are willing, by what we have said, not to defend Clifford, but to
redeem Lucy in the opinion of our readers for loving so unwisely; and
when they remember her youth, her education, her privation of a mother,
of all female friendship, even of the vigilant and unrelaxing care of
some protector of the opposite sex, we do not think that what was so
natural will be considered by any inexcusable.

Mauleverer woke the morning after the ball in better health than usual,
and consequently more in love than ever. According to his resolution the
night before, he sat down to write a long letter to William Brandon: it
was amusing and witty as usual; but the wily nobleman succeeded, under
the cover of wit, in conveying to Brandon's mind a serious apprehension
lest his cherished matrimonial project should altogether fail