Lady Eltondale was arrived at the meridian of life, and no longer boasted the charms of youth, "Elle ne fut pas plus jolie; mais elle fut toujours belle:" and perhaps the finished polish of her manners, and matured elegance of her person, were now scarcely less attractive than the loveliness of her earlier days had been: for beautiful she once was;

and, if "love" could have been added, she would have been, almost, faultless.—But a cold, selfish disposition blasted the fair promise; it was, "a frost, a chilling frost," that withered every bud of virtue! And yet she was not absolutely wicked; she could not be accused of having a bad heart; it might rather be said she had no heart at all.—And with every other requisite to form perfection in a female character, this one defect neutralized all the bounteous gifts of nature—her very talents, like those of Prometheus, were perverted, and preyed on her own soul; whilst the aching void, left by the total absence of all the nameless charities of life, she had vainly endeavoured to fill up by a restless, endless passion for scheming, either for herself or others.—She would, perhaps, have shuddered at the thought of designedly laying a plan to undermine the happiness of another; yet such were the sophistical powers of her mind, that she seldom failed in sincerely persuading herself, that whatever plan she proposed to execute, was, in reality, the most desirable that could be adopted,—and, with this conviction, she had scarcely ever been known to relinquish a project she had once formed, and seldom failed, either by art or perseverance, to obtain her end.

Her history was a very common one—Her father died while she was young, leaving her mother and herself a comfortable, though not a splendid provision, as all the landed property descended to her brother, Sir Henry Seymour, who was many years older than she was.

The dowager lady Seymour, a weak woman, but indulgent parent, was easily prevailed on by her lovely daughter, to choose London for her place of residence; and when Sir Henry married, their visits to Deane Hall, which had never been frequent entirely ceased. Miss Seymour meantime took every advantage of the opportunities her new line of life afforded. She cultivated with assiduity and success every brilliant accomplishment, and was admired even more than her own vanity, and her mother's blind partiality, had taught her to expect. Her pretensions rose in proportion to her success; and at one time she fancied nothing less than a ducal coronet could render the chains of matrimony supportable. At last, however, after a thousand schemes and speculations, in a moment of pique, she accepted the title of viscountess, which was all Lord Eltondale had to offer, except a splendid temporary establishment; as nearly all his property was entailed on his son by a former marriage. Indeed, so dissimilar were their tastes, characters, and pursuits, that their union was a seven days' wonder; and would not, perhaps, ever have taken place, had not Miss Seymour, in the prosecution of a far different plan, at first unguardedly encouraged, or rather provoked, Lord Eltondale's addresses; and he, "good easy man," had not time to develope the cause of the flattering selection.

Lord Eltondale was one of those unoffending, undistinguished mortals, who would most probably have returned to his original clay unnoticed and unwept, had not fortune, in one of her most sportive moods, hung a coronet on his brow, and thus dragged the Cymon into observation. He possessed neither talents nor acquirements, and held "the harmless tenour of his way" in equal mean betwixt vice and virtue.

By nature he was a gourmand, and by fashion a farmer; for, strange to say, amongst the other changes this century has produced, not the least remarkable is the insatiable ambition of our peers to rival—not their ancestors—but their coachmen and ploughmen. But, even in the only science Lord Eltondale affected to understand, his learning was only superficial: he delighted in going through the whole farming vocabulary; could talk for hours of threshing machines, and drilling machines, and Scotch ploughs, and bush harrows; particularly if he was so fortunate as to meet with an auditor, whose learning on those subjects did not transcend his own. He was also an inimitable judge of the peculiar merit of sheep and oxen, when they were transformed into beef and mutton: but of real useful agriculture, that art which is one of England's proudest boasts, he only knew enough to entitle him to imitate a clown in appearance, and to constitute him an honorary member of different farming societies; which, besides procuring him sundry good dinners, particularly suited the supineness of his disposition, by giving him an excuse, "De ne rien faire, en toujours faisant des riens[5]."

Such was the partner the lovely Miss Seymour chose for life; and as the death of her mother, and that of the only child she ever had, occurred before the expiration of the second year of her marriage, she was left without any tie to attach her to a domestic life; while her own conscious superiority to her lord deprived her of any support from him, which might have guided her, as she swam on the highest wave of fashion.

Sir Henry Seymour experienced at least as much surprise as pleasure, at such an unexpected visit from his sister and the viscount; but he did not suspect the object of it, till her ladyship herself explained it to him the following morning. Indeed the only motive that could have been strong enough, to induce her to return, even for a few hours, to a place she so much abhorred, was that which now had brought her; namely, an anxious desire to promote a marriage between Selina Seymour and her step-son, Mr. Elton. Lady Eltondale was well aware, that her extravagance, and her lord's indolence, had already swallowed up any ready money they had originally possessed, and that whenever the property came into the hands of Frederick Elton, little, if any thing, would be left for her support, except what she should receive from his generosity; and therefore she had determined to secure for him one of the richest and loveliest brides England could offer, believing, that by so doing she should not only increase his power of being generous, but also establish her claims on his everlasting gratitude. It is true she was not certain, that such a step would ensure the happiness, or even meet the approbation of Frederick. On that point, strange as it may appear, Lady Eltondale had bestowed but little consideration, (self-interest being always paramount in her mind), as this plan would be certainly beneficial to herself, she determined to consider it equally advantageous to him. In fine, she had been the first to suggest it; she had long meditated on it, and at last resolved upon it: having thus made up her own mind, the difficulties which might occur in the prosecution of her scheme, if any should arise, would but make her more solicitous for its accomplishment.

At first Lady Eltondale found some little difficulty in persuading Sir Henry to accede to her proposal; not that he for a moment recollected the cruelty of engaging irrevocably his daughter's hand, before he even enquired into the state of her affections; or that he reflected on the danger of confiding a character so volatile as was Selina's to the guardianship of a young man they were both totally unacquainted with. Sir Henry only hesitated, from an unwillingness to part from her himself; for he was one of those fatally partial parents, who, prizing too highly their daughters' society, often sacrifice their happiness to that selfish consideration. But to every objection he could urge Lady Eltondale had some specious answer ready: she reminded him, that Mr. Elton was then abroad, and that his return might possibly be delayed for some time; dwelt upon the excellence of his character; and finally, more by perseverance than argument, succeeded in obtaining Sir Henry's promise, that he would consent to their marriage taking place, as soon as Frederick returned from the continent. Lady Eltondale well understood that magic, which is the empire a strong mind exercises over a weaker; and had so well worked on all the springs of poor Sir Henry's, that he gave the required promise as explicitly as she demanded it; for she was well aware, that if once she prevailed on him to give such a promise, not even his deference to Mrs. Galton's opinion would induce him to break it. But as of the tendency of that opinion Lady Eltondale had a sort of presentiment, she wished to save herself the trouble of combating it; and therefore prevailed on her brother not to mention it during the short remainder of her stay at the Hall, on the pretence of sparing her "dear Selina's feelings;" and as he was for many reasons not unwilling to dismiss the subject from his thoughts, he agreed to the required silence.

The evening of that day, which sealed Selina's destiny, passed over without any particular circumstance to mark its progress, save only that Lady Eltondale was even, if possible, more attractive than ever. She eminently possessed that "complaisance, which adopts the ideas of others as its own; and all that politeness, in fine, which perhaps is not virtue itself, yet is sometimes its captivating resemblance, which gives laws to self-love, and enables pride to pass every instant by the side of pride, without offending." This art she was in the daily habit of exercising towards all her associates; but to delude or flatter Mrs. Galton, Lady Eltondale always felt, was a task of no small difficulty. Her penetration and her modesty were both too great to be easily evaded; and her character was composed of such delicate tints, blended insensibly into so admirable a whole, that to bring forward only one part seemed to destroy that unity, which constituted its perfection. Besides, Mrs. Galton was so true, so simple, in all she said, and thought, and did, that she seemed sanctified by her own purity: and though the artful viscountess could not feel all the beauty of such a mind, its very greatness, unadorned as it was, impressed her with an awe so unusual, that the stranger feeling degenerated into repugnance and distrust. Yet even to her her manner on the eventful night was complaisant in the extreme—to Sir Henry it was affectionate, to Selina indulgent; and to Mordaunt a veil of tempered coquetry gave a dazzling attraction to all her words, looks, and actions. In her intercourse with him, she chose to avail herself of all the privileges she could derive from her seniority; while the fascinations of her wit, the elegance of her manner, and the real beauty of her person, gave her a dangerous power over an unpractised heart, which the artless charms of inexperienced youth dared not have used, and could scarcely have possessed. Little aware were the innocent members of the circle she was delighting, that her increased animation and her improved charms arose from the glow of conscious pride, as she triumphantly reflected on the success of her scheme; a scheme which, nevertheless, she had sufficient penetration to discover, would blight the fairest prospects of those she appeared most sedulous to please; and which might destroy for ever the happiness of a scene, that, till the moment of her intrusion, had bloomed another Paradise.