e should soon see him
in very different circumstances. When the peer's door was closed on
Welford, he stood motionless for some moments; he then with a soft step
ascended to his own chamber. His wife slept soundly; beside the bed was
the infant's cradle. As his eyes fell on the latter, the rigid irony,
now habitual to his features, relaxed; he bent over the cradle long and
in deep silence. The mother's face, blended with the sire's, was stamped
on the sleeping and cherub countenance before him; and as at length,
rousing from his revery, he kissed it gently, he murmured,--

"When I look on you I will believe that she once loved me. Pah!" he said
abruptly, and rising, "this fatherly sentiment for a -----'s offering
is exquisite in me!" So saying, without glancing towards his wife, who,
disturbed by the loudness of his last words, stirred uneasily, he left
the room, and descended into that where he had conversed with his
guest. He shut the door with caution, and striding to and fro the humble
apartment, gave vent to thoughts marshalled somewhat in the broken array
in which they now appear to the reader:--

"Ay, ay, she has been my ruin! and if I were one of your weak fools who
make a gospel of the silliest and most mawkish follies of this social
state, she would now be my disgrace; but instead of my disgrace, I will
make her my footstool to honour and wealth. And, then, to the devil with
the footstool! Yes! two years I have borne what was enough to turn my
whole blood into gall,--inactivity, hopelessness, a wasted heart
and life in myself; contumely from the world; coldness, bickering,
ingratitude from the one for whom (oh, ass that I was!) I gave up the
most cherished part of my nature,--rather, my nature itself! Two years I
have borne this, and now will I have my revenge. I will sell her,--sell
her! God! I will sell her like the commonest beast of a market! And this
paltry piece of false coin shall buy me--my world! Other men's vengeance
comes from hatred,--a base, rash, unphilosophical sentiment! mine comes
from scorn,--the only wise state for the reason to rest in. Other men's
vengeance ruins themselves; mine shall save me! Ha! how my soul chuckles
when I look at this pitiful pair, who think I see them not, and know
that every movement they make is on a mesh of my web! Yet," and Welford
paused slowly,--"yet I cannot but mock myself when I think of the arch
gull that this boy's madness, love,--love, indeed! the very wor