ed fearfully in her late contests with the
world, and was now lame and soiled and impotent. The boy with none of
the equipments of the skilled sportsman can make himself master of
a wounded bird. Mr. Emilius was seeking her in the moment of her
weakness, fearing that all chance of success might be over for him
should she ever again recover the full use of her wings. All this
Lizzie understood, and was able to measure Mr. Emilius at his own
value of himself. But then, again, she was forced to ask herself what
was her value. She had been terribly mauled by the fowlers. She had
been hit, so to say, on both wings, and hardly knew whether she would
ever again be able to attempt a flight in public. She could not live
alone in Portray Castle for the rest of her days. Ianthe's soul and
the Corsair were not, in truth, able to console her for the loss of
society. She must have somebody to depend upon;--ah, some one whom,
if it were possible, she might love. She saw no reason why she should
not love Mr. Emilius. She had been shockingly ill-treated by Lord
Fawn, and the Corsair, and Frank Greystock. No woman had ever been so
knocked about in her affections. She pitied herself with an exceeding
pity when she thought of all the hardships which she had endured.
Left an early widow, persecuted by her husband's family, twice
robbed, spied upon by her own servants, unappreciated by the world at
large, ill-used by three lovers, victimised by her selected friend,
Mrs. Carbuncle, and now driven out of society because she had lost
her diamonds, was she not more cruelly treated than any woman of whom
she had ever read or heard? But she was not going to give up the
battle, even now. She still had her income, and she had great faith
in income. And though she knew that she had been grievously wounded
by the fowlers, she believed that time would heal her wounds. The
world would not continue to turn its back altogether upon a woman
with four thousand pounds a year, because she had told a fib about
her necklace. She weighed all this; but the conviction strongest upon
her mind was the necessity that she should have a husband. She felt
that a woman by herself in the world can do nothing, and that an
unmarried woman's strength lies only in the expectation that she may
soon be married. To her it was essentially necessary that she should
have the protection of a husband who might endure on her behalf some
portion of those buffetings to which she seemed t