talk in town of the rapid downfall
of the whilom favourite of Fashion, Sir John Oxon. But a few weeks
before the coming happiness of the old Earl of Dunstanwolde was made
known to the world, there had been a flurry of gossip over a rumour
that Sir John, whose fortunes were in a precarious condition, was about
to retrieve them by a rich marriage. A certain Mistress Isabel Beaton,
a young Scotch lady, had been for a year counted the greatest fortune
in the market, and besieged by every spendthrift or money-seeker the
town knew. Not only was she heiress to fine estates in Scotland, but to
wealth-yielding sugar plantations in the West Indies. She was but
twenty and had some good looks and an amiable temper, though with her
fortune, had she been ugly as Hecate, she would have had more suitors
than she could manage with ease. But she was not easily pleased, or of
a susceptible nature, and 'twas known she had refused suitor after
suitor, among them men of quality and rank, the elegant and decorous
Viscount Wilford, among others, having knelt at her feet, and--having
proffered her the boon of his lofty manner and high accomplishments
--having been obliged to rise a discarded man, to his amazement and
discomfort. The world she lived in was of the better and more
respectable order, and Jack Oxon had seen little of it, finding it not
gay and loose enough for his tastes, but suddenly, for reasons best
known to himself and to his anxious mother, he began to appear at its
decorous feasts. 'Twas said of him he "had a way" with women and could
make them believe anything until they found him out, either through
lucky chance or because he had done with them. He could act the part of
tender, honest worshipper, of engaging penitent, of impassioned and
romantic lover until a woman old and wise enough to be his mother might
be entrapped by him, aided as he was by his beauty, his large blue
eyes, his merry wit, and the sweetest voice in the world. So it seemed
that Mistress Beaton, who was young and had lived among better men,
took him for one and found her fancy touched by him. His finest
allurements he used, verses he writ, songs he made and sang, poetic
homilies on disinterested passion he preached, while the world looked
on and his boon companions laid wagers. At last those who had wagered
on him won their money, those who had laid against him lost, for 'twas
made known publicly that he had won the young lady's heart, and her
hand and fort