life, have
blest him, or any other admiring husband, with a reasonable modicum of
languid affection. Nevertheless, Lady Adela was an unconscious impostor;
for, owing to a mild softness of eye and a susceptibility to blushes,
a victim ensnared by her beauty would be apt to give her credit for a
nature far more accessible to the romance of the tender passion than,
happily perhaps for her own peace of mind, she possessed; and might
flatter himself that he had produced a sensation which gave that
softness to the eye and that damask to the blush.

Honoria Vipont would have been a choice far more creditable to the good
sense of so mature a wooer. Few better specimens of a young lady brought
up to become an accomplished woman of the world. She had sufficient
instruction to be the companion of an ambitious man-solid judgment to
fit her for his occasional adviser. She could preside with dignity over
a stately household--receive with grace distinguished guests. Fitted
to administer an ample fortune, ample fortune was necessary to the
development of her excellent qualities. If a man of Darrell's age were
bold enough to marry a young wife, a safer wife amongst the young
ladies of London he could scarcely find; for though Honoria was only
three-and-twenty, she was as staid, as sensible, and as remote from all
girlish frivolities, as if she had been eight-and-thirty. Certainly had
Guy Darrell been of her own years, his fortunes unmade, his fame to
win, a lawyer residing at the back of Holborn, or a pretty squire in
the petty demesnes of Fawley, he would have had no charm in the eyes of
Honoria Vipont. Disparity of years was in this case no drawback but his
advantage, since to that disparity Darrell owed the established name and
the eminent station which made Honoria think she elevated her own self
in preferring him. It is but justice to her to distinguish here between
a woman's veneration for the attributes of respect which a man gathers
round him, and the more vulgar sentiment which sinks the man altogether,
except as the necessary fixture to be taken in with general valuation.
It is not fair to ask if a girl who entertains a preference for one of
our toiling, stirring, ambitious sex, who may be double her age or
have a snub nose, but who looks dignified and imposing on a pedestal
of state, whether she would like him as much if stripped of all his
accessories, and left unredeemed to his baptismal register or unbecoming
nose. Just as