The fÊte at Avington Priory afforded a theme of conversation, if such a term is not inapplicable to such a subject, of much longer duration than was usual; for in the existence of those who were actors in the scene, or participators in its pleasures, one folly generally succeeded another so quickly as to chase away all remembrance of its immediate predecessor. Perhaps, too, in this instance, more interest was experienced in the discussion of the entertainment, from the zest which some signal esclandres gave to it, and which were generally whispered about; particularly that in which Lady Glenmore's and Mr. Leslie Winyard's names were involved.

Of this report, Lord Baskerville and Lord Gascoigne were the active propagators; and which, corroborated by the condemning facts they themselves had witnessed, led those who listened to the conclusion that the matter was une affaire decidÉe. The only question then was, whether it was well or ill arranged; for in all things the creed of these parties taught them to estimate the manner of an action without any reference to its morality. Opinions were given respecting the good or bad taste of the thing; and speculation ran high how Glenmore would take it. However far from the truth, or unjust, these conclusions and opinions might in reality be, it cannot be denied that Lady Glenmore had in some measure afforded subject of conversation to the licentious and censorious tongues of these traducers, by permitting the very marked and exclusive attentions of Mr. Leslie Winyard in society; and, in doing so, justified an apprehension which the most candid and the most kind observer (if any such had been there as witness) could not but feel, that she must inevitably fall a victim to a man of Leslie Winyard's character, unless some powerful hand snatched her from the peril.

In the example of Lady Glenmore's present danger, the mischiefs arising out of the system of the society in which she lived are painfully apparent; and although they have more than once been dwelt upon, yet, with the object of unmasking a disguised evil, they cannot be too frequently alluded to or minutely detailed. Nor can the observation be too often repeated, that such dangers must unavoidably accrue to the young and inexperienced while receiving none of those salutary checks which are afforded them in a society differently organized, and where the ties of families, and the counsel and protection of sincere friends, are not sacrificed to the laws and rules of exclusive fashion.

Lady Glenmore's absence, it might almost be called alienation, from Lord and Lady Melcombe and the bosom of her own family, had been so gradual as scarcely to be perceptible. Had it been otherwise, she would have recoiled from the idea, and her excellent heart would have sufficed to guard her from so unnatural a fault; but the evil grew out of the circumstances in which she was placed, and increased without any appearance which could awaken a suspicion of its real tendency. She did not go to-day to Lady Melcombe, because Lady Tenderden, or Lady Tilney, or some other of her friends, had prevented her at the very moment she was stepping into her carriage; but she would go to-morrow: and when to-morrow came, fatigued with the ball or the assembly of the preceding evening, she did not rise till at so late an hour, that Lady Melcombe would be out, and it was in vain for her to go. When the evening in its turn came round, then some ceremonious diplomatic dinner, followed by the soirÉes of the different members of her coterie, equally precluded her from fulfilling this duty.

Thus one day passed on after another, and the rare and short visit to her parents, when it was paid, afforded no real communion of heart or thought. Yet all this happened not wilfully, not in positive indifference, or forgetfulness of natural affection, but arose, as it were, unavoidably, out of the life she led. Let it not excite surprise that this alienation had been productive of no alarm in the tender and affectionate hearts of Lord and Lady Melcombe. They, indeed, saw less of their daughter than they wished; but though they sometimes sighed over the "angel visits, few and far between," of their estranged child, still, in the indulgent fondness of their hearts, perhaps too in a mistaken pride, they found an excuse for her constantly living in a round of dissipation, partly from the pomp and circumstance attendant on the public situation which her husband held, and partly from thinking it natural that one so young, and gifted with external graces, should indulge in the pleasures that courted her on all sides.

Another cause, too, existed, to render their separation an apparent consequence of her marriage. Lord and Lady Melcombe had not lived at any time on terms of intimacy with that circle which now exclusively formed their daughter's and Lord Glenmore's society; and a further barrier by this means stood between their meeting; but it was one which, if natural feelings had been allowed their proper influence, and had any advance been made to Lord and Lady Melcombe, on the part of those persons, towards their acquaintance, might easily have been removed.

In this case, for their daughter's sake, they would readily have met any advance, and in order to do so, have stepped out of their own habitual line of society; a society founded on the dignified principles of high rank, and the rational grounds of real social happiness: but they were the last persons to court an intimacy where a mutual desire was not expressed for its formation; and the question, however painful as it affected their natural intercourse with their child, was not, however, one which gave rise to any seriously uneasy feelings. When they did see her, they saw her so fondly attached to her husband, and so happy, what could they fear for her? It would almost have seemed like a selfish apprehension, to have indulged any doubts regarding her future welfare.

Their own course through life had been one perpetual gleam of sunshine, a circumstance which is apt to render us more blind to the possibility of evil, than when we have been exercised in the school of adversity; that school by which we are alone perfected, and without whose salutary discipline the false security is indulged, that "to-morrow will be as to-day, and even more abundant," and we dread no check to our earthly career.

How fearful is this species of happiness, which, resting on itself, forgets the hand by which it is alone upheld! Could Lord and Lady Melcombe have seen through this delusion—could they have guessed that their child stood at the moral point where the two paths separate which lead to virtue or to vice, and where the traveller in the road of life, according as he makes his choice, will be admitted in the end to misery or happiness—they would have performed their duty as parents unhesitatingly; they would have pointed out to their child the excellence of the one course, and have warned her of the inevitable ruin and degradation attendant on the other. As to the current reports of the day, they were the last to hear them, as is usually the case with those most concerned; and in this respect Lord Glenmore was removed still further from a knowledge of the truth. Lady Glenmore, deprived of her natural and true guides, surrounded by persons whose lives were, generally speaking, characterized by the same errors, on the brink of which she now hung, and who, if they looked on such conduct as error, held it in a very venial light even when detected, and as nothing, if it evaded open discovery, had little chance of receiving any counsel in time to save her.

Speaking thus of Lady Glenmore, it must not be supposed that she viewed her own conduct and career in its true light, or that she erred from any determination to err, or even from being led away by any impulse of passion; far from it. The innocence of her nature, her domestic habits and education, as well as her attachment to her husband, had in the first instance rendered her present mode of life distasteful. But it is the very property of the subtle poison of that atmosphere in which she lived and breathed to pollute the healthful springs of being, till the moral taste becomes less and less acute, and is at length wholly corrupted, leaving the mind totally unable to discriminate between right and wrong.

Although, with the young men who lived in the same society, the event of the downfall of her reputation was looked upon as a thing of course, and hailed, in their licentiousness of spirit, as a matter of congratulation, since it would level another victim to their standard, still there were others of the coterie, who, from motives of policy, were anxious that no further esclandre should take place, than that which had already arisen on the subject, to call forth the loud reprehension of a public whom they at once feared and despised, and whose opinions, though they set them at defiance, they in reality wished not to brave unnecessarily: for in the instance of Lady Glenmore, the destruction of so much happiness as was supposed to have centred in her union would be likely to create proportionate abhorrence and condemnation of a system of society which had been the occasion of it, and lead to a sifting and exposure of the principle and motives on which that system was based.

Lady Tilney was the first person whose acuteness and vigilance descried the danger; and was impelled to attempt an arrangement of the business, as well from her general love of managing every body and every thing, as from the more weighty reason attached to it. Being perfectly aware of Lady Glenmore's character, she dreaded lest an affair which, in the hands of a woman of tact, might have been managed without any Éclat, would with her be precipitated to a point which must end in an exposure. She felt, however, that to speak to Lady Glenmore openly would be to commit herself with a person whose want of discretion was the chief ground of her apprehensions respecting her; and therefore, after much reflection, she determined to seek the assistance of Lady Tenderden in the business, and employ her in its management, as being more intimate with the parties than she herself was.

It was not the first time that Lady Tilney had availed herself of an intermediate hand to work out a favourite undertaking. With this view, some ten days after the fÊte at Avington Priory, and when the whole affair was openly spoken of throughout their circle, Lady Tilney sought an opportunity of communicating her views to Lady Tenderden; and having denied herself to every one else, they were soon in deep conference in the boudoir.

"Dear Lady Tenderden," said the former, addressing her, "I am sure that I may speak to you in confidence on a subject in which you will feel an equal if not greater interest than myself: I allude to our ÉlÈve, la petite Georgina. This is a very silly affair of hers with Leslie Winyard, and is going too far: don't you think so?" Lady Tenderden gave no direct answer.

"Surely you must allow that she is not the sort of person to risk any hazards, or to manage this kind of affair well or with prudence. If allowed to go on by herself, she will run headlong down the precipice, and no earthly power can save her. Besides, it would be such a terrible thing for us, if there was any public scandal to ensue. Consider, my dear Lady Tenderden, we should all incur some portion of blame, and she would be pitied; while we should have all those persons whom we have banished without the pale of our society raving against us, and our system, as though it were a lazaretto in which all the plagues of Egypt were assembled. Now, though we know how false this is, still we ought to provide against it."

Lady Tenderden nodded assent as Lady Tilney went on:—"You agree with me, I am sure; for the curious and the disappointed will not judge coolly, and we must try to shelter ourselves from their imputations, however groundless. We ought to move on in a sphere out of the general nature of things; but, in order to do this impunÉment, it is necessary to be vigilant and prudent; and I assure you I am never off the watch."

"Peut-Être; but den how would you do in this instance?"

"Ah! there lies the delicacy; in that how consists the difficulty of the business; for you know, as to la petite personne herself, we cannot with any safety compromettez ourselves by speaking to her on this subject. She is one of those innocent persons who would, I am sure, either start off at the bare mention of any liaison, and would make a great fuss, and a scene which might be very unpleasant to us all in a thousand ways; or else she might give tÊte baissÉ into the thing, so much the more from being warned against it, as your meek people always do; and, though not discreet, she has cunning enough to keep it strictly secret till the moment when she steps into the carriage which is to take her from her disconsolate husband."

"Peut-Être," was again Lady Tenderden's brief reply.

Lady Tilney proceeded. "Now, I think there is one, and only one, way in which it can be managed; and your assistance will be vitally important for its success."

"Oh de graces! do not involve me in any of dese troublesome rÔles: I am not at all de personne to play dem well; and l'inconduite de la petite en question makes me quite frissonnÉ to think of any thing of the kind."

"Oh! but, my dear Lady Tenderden, for Glenmore's sake, you know, for all our sakes, you will not let this affair terminate as it must do if something is not done to put it on a right footing? You will not surely let the scandale of such a common-place dÉnouement attach to our society, as the infallible issue of the affair must cause, unless we attempt to save appearances, and settle the marche du jeu in better taste at least?"

Lady Tenderden's countenance relaxed, as if she was pleased at the idea of holding an influence over Lord Glenmore; and Lady Tilney was satisfied that she had done wisely in condescending to flatter her amour-propre, by confessing herself secondary in influence; a point which she was never very willing to yield: but she felt it was the surest way of securing Lady Tenderden's co-operation, and proceeded to say,

"Now listen, I entreat you, to what I have to propose; and if you do not approve my idea, then suggest something better. The only thing that remains to be done, in my opinion, then," continued Lady Tilney, "is to get Georgina out of England. You know Glenmore cannot move; but that is no reason why she may not be absent for a few months. The advantage of your company, her health, a thousand excuses may be found: and if she is not as deeply involved as we suspect with Winyard, this will break off the affair; while, if she is, absence, and distance, and the chances of time and place, que sais-je enfin——a million things may turn away the tide of observation from us: at all events, the Éclat will be less offensive abroad than at home. Now, could you not propose to her a little tour to Spa, or Les Eaux de BarÈges, when the season comes round for leaving London?"

Lady Tenderden seemed half inclined to acquiesce, but, like most people who make sudden changes of opinion, she did not know exactly how to give as ready an assent as she was willing in her heart to do; while, at the same time, there was a little demur at the idea of being made the tool of Lady Tilney, as well as of being mixed up in an affair in which, if it ended wrong, she would regret to have been implicated.

Lady Tilney's flattery and persuasive reasonings, however, as was generally the case when she had a favourite point to carry, prevailed; and the conversation ended with an arrangement, that Lady Tenderden should, in the course of a few days, open the subject to Lady Glenmore, and put it en train.

Although the solicitude of the polite Lady Tilney for the fate of her young ÉlÈve might have been premature as to the precise degree of her liaison with Mr. Leslie Winyard, still, if it had been entertained on a better principle than that of mere expediency, it would have been amiable and justifiable; for when a married woman's name is once connected with that of any man in particular, there is an immediate taint on her character, which, while it is degrading to herself, attaches to her husband the character of dupe, or something worse, and affords an example to others, productive of almost as much evil as would accrue from actual guilt.

There are very few women on whom this stain is cast, who could, like the youthful Lady Glenmore, plead perfect innocence of intention; but she had been, almost at the outset of her marriage, thrown alone in the midst of the most dangerous class of the most dangerous society of London. She had not certainly to complain that Lord Glenmore had wilfully deserted or neglected her: his absence was a necessary consequence of the duties he had taken upon himself in his public career.

While, however, she acknowledged this, she could not but feel and mourn over his absence with childish simplicity of tenderness: and when at last, partly from necessity, and partly from the various arts used to wean her from this innocent love, she felt, as it was natural she should feel, considering that no very strong principle of religion had been instilled into her mind, or given stability to her character, that there could be no impropriety in having recourse to the pleasures and pursuits of fashion—pleasures which pertained to her situation, and were not only sanctioned, but encouraged, by her husband—still, in doing this, it was not in her nature to aspire to any leading part, or to take any particular station, in the circle in which she moved. Had it been so,—had she been, in short, more worldly,—her conduct would have been more measured, more under the control of appearances; and though she would not have had so much real virtue, she would better have known how to preserve its semblance. But as it was, the object sought by her in the maze of pleasure was simply an indemnification for her husband's absence: and not possessing a mind stored by solid instruction, or gifted with strong judgment, amiable, pliant, and fond, she entered on this perilous career without one of those qualities which might have enabled her to steer her course with safety.

Thus exposed, she risked becoming the victim of any designing persons who found it their amusement or their interest to render her the subject of licentious animadversion. Where almost every event, as in the kind of life described, bears some analogy, little variety occurs to mark the progress of time. One intrigue resembles another; one slander is like its neighbour; one soirÉe is a specimen of all: and unless, indeed, some defiance of morality more glaring than usual, some solecism in a marriage or a ball, a death or a breakfast, take place, there is little for the chronicler of the system to register in his page.

Ministers had looked forward to rest after the burthen of the session; the nobles had gone to their country seats to enjoy the beauties of the "sere and yellow leaf," there to renew the dissipations of the town. Hither, too, the invited intrigant had followed the object of his present pursuit, to tell in shady bowers the tale, so often told before to others, of treacherous love; while the sportsman, with more open and more honest if not nobler aim, hied him to moors and highlands in pursuit of his ruling passion.

If, during the last moments of the waning season, nothing of stronger character had occurred, on Lady Glenmore's and Mr. Leslie Winyard's part, to attract the particular notice of the circle in which their liaison was matter of conversation, still there was no relaxation of his attentions, or of her apparent preference, to justify the belief that he had relinquished his pursuit, or that she had discarded him.

Lady Tilney, therefore, continually urged Lady Tenderden to the necessity of adopting the measures she had proposed; and the latter, having satisfied herself that no unpleasant responsibility was likely to attach to her, consented to fill her allotted part in the measure, and propose to Lady Glenmore to accompany her on a tour.

"What do you do with yourself this summer?" said Lady Tenderden to the latter, as she was sitting tÊte-À-tÊte with her one morning.

"Indeed I do not in the least know what are Glenmore's plans; but I should hope we shall go to the country somewhere, for I begin to feel that my health suffers from the racket of a town life. But whatever he chooses I shall like best, for nothing would do me any good if he were not to be of the party."

"Oh! quelle enfantillage! Well! I hoped you had chased away that bad habit of being always in de leading-string. What! you a minister's wife, and suppose that he is to follow you up stair and down stair en nourrisson all your life! My dear, how would de state be taken care of after this fashion?"

"True," said Lady Glenmore, sighing, "and I am now used to be alone." In fact Lady Tenderden knew that these words were uttered more from habit than from feeling them in the painful degree in which they would once have been spoken; and she replied,

"Well then, my dear ladi, il faut prendre son partie; and since it is impossible you should have him always À vos trousses, what think you of making a little excursion with me to Les Eaux de BarÈges, or to Spa, for two or three months in the belle saison? This would, I should think, exactly suit you: it will refresh your beauty, refit your toilette, et vous reviendrez entiÈrement renouvellÉe. On se ressent de la fumÉe de Londres. It is quite necessary to go away; and a villegiatura in England is so dull!"

"What, go abroad!" said Lady Glenmore with unfeigned surprise.

"Vous Êtes impayable," rejoined Lady Tenderden, "comme j'ai souvent eu l'honneur de vous dire. One would imagine you lived a hundred years ago, when people talked of going abroad as they would of going to the moon;—but, now, abroad is at home. Allons! I will not allow you to hesitate. Leave me to settle the matter with Glenmore. I will arrange every thing; and he shall come and meet you, and bring you home, in case I choose to pass the winter at Paris."

Lady Glenmore had not the least idea that her husband would think of consenting to this proposal, but gave a sort of half acquiescence, more to escape from Lady Tenderden's persecuting entreaties, than from any wish to realize the scheme; and she was quite astonished, some days afterwards, to find Lord Glenmore of opinion that this plan would be the pleasantest thing in the world for her, the best adapted to recruit her health, and in all ways the most eligible. Half grieved at the thoughts of absence from him, half gratified at his eager desire to procure her a pleasure, and persuaded at length by his solicitations to try the remedy of change of air for the languor which had of late appeared to have affected her naturally good constitution,—the wish too of yielding implicit obedience to his will,—all combined to determine to consent; and she finally agreed to the proposed excursion, which was soon followed by preparations and arrangements for their departure to BarÈges.