"About him I certainly know nothing. It is twenty years since I left
England, and he would then be only a child. His father I have seen two
or three times. Mr. Percy resembles him extremely."

"Was he a handsome man, then?"

"Very handsome. And Lady Lastingham was said to be a most beautiful
woman."

"You never saw her?"

"No, she died young. Lord Lastingham married her, as people said, for
love; that is to say, her great beauty tempted him. They were very poor,
and he was not of a character to bear poverty. She was good and amiable,
but he wearied of her, and scarcely pretended to feel her death as a
loss."

"Oh! mamma, how could that be possible? if he married her for love?"

"For what he called love, at least. There are men, my child, and perhaps
women also, whose only kind of love is a fancy, like a child's for a
toy. They see something which attracts them; they try their utmost to
obtain it. If they fail, they soon forget their disappointment; if they
succeed, they are delighted for the moment, until, the novelty having
worn off, they discover that they have paid too dearly for their
gratification, and throw aside their new possession in disgust."

Mrs. Costello spoke earnestly, and with a kind of suppressed passion. It
seemed as if her words had an application beyond Lucia's knowledge; yet