rous, open-hearted, chivalrous, irascible,
but rather heavy-minded gentleman; but she had never been in love
with him. Now she desired to be so in love that she could surrender
everything to her love. There was as yet nothing of such love in her
bosom. She had seen no one who had so touched her. But she was alive
to the romance of the thing, and was in love with the idea of being
in love. "Ah," she would say to herself in her moments of solitude,
"if I had a Corsair of my own, how I would sit on watch for my
lover's boat by the sea-shore!" And she believed it of herself, that
she could do so.

But it would also be very nice to be a peeress,--so that she might,
without any doubt, be one of the great ladies of London. As a
baronet's widow with a large income, she was already almost a great
lady; but she was quite alive to a suspicion that she was not
altogether strong in her position. The bishop's people and the dean's
people did not quite trust her. The Camperdowns and Garnetts utterly
distrusted her. The Mopuses and Benjamins were more familiar than
they would be with a really great lady. She was sharp enough to
understand all this. Should it be Lord Fawn or should it be a
Corsair? The worst of Lord Fawn was the undoubted fact that he was
not himself a great man. He could, no doubt, make his wife a peeress;
but he was poor, encumbered with a host of sisters, dull as a
blue-book, and possessed of little beyond his peerage to recommend
him. If she could only find a peer, unmarried, with a dash of the
Corsair about him! In the meantime, what was she to do about the
jewels?

There was staying with her at this time a certain Miss Macnulty, who
was related, after some distant fashion, to old Lady Linlithgow, and
who was as utterly destitute of possessions or means of existence
as any unfortunate, well-born, and moderately-educated, middle-aged
woman in London. To live upon her friends, such as they might be,
was the only mode of life within her reach. It was not that she had
chosen such dependence; nor, indeed, had she endeavoured to reject
it. It had come to her as a matter of course,--either that or the
poor-house. As to earning her bread, except by that attendance which
a poor friend gives,--the idea of any possibility that way had never
entered her head. She could do nothing,--except dress like a lady
with the smallest possible cost, and endeavour to be obliging.
Now, at this moment, her condition was terribly precario