full of instances of such strange inexplicable passions? Was not
Helen, by the most moderate calculation, ninety years of age when
she went off with His Royal Highness Prince Paris of Troy? Was not
Madame La Valliere ill-made, blear-eyed, tallow-complexioned,
scraggy, and with hair like tow? Was not Wilkes the ugliest,
charmingest, most successful man in the world? Such instances might
be carried out so as to fill a volume; but cui bono? Love is fate,
and not will; its origin not to be explained, its progress
irresistible: and the best proof of this may be had at Bow Street
any day, where if you ask any officer of the establishment how they
take most thieves, he will tell you at the houses of the women.
They must see the dear creatures though they hang for it; they will
love, though they have their necks in the halter. And with regard
to the other position, that ill-usage on the part of the man does
not destroy the affection of the woman, have we not numberless
police-reports, showing how, when a bystander would beat a husband
for beating his wife, man and wife fall together on the interloper
and punish him for his meddling?

These points, then, being settled to the satisfaction of all
parties, the reader will not be disposed to question the assertion
that Mrs. Hall had a real affection for the gallant Count, and grew,
as Mr. Brock was pleased to say, like a beefsteak, more tender as
she was thumped. Poor thing, poor thing! his flashy airs and smart
looks had overcome her in a single hour; and no more is wanted to
plunge into love over head and ears; no more is wanted to make a
first love with--and a woman's first love lasts FOR EVER (a man's
twenty-fourth or twenty-fifth is perhaps the best): you can't kill
it, do what you will; it takes root, and lives and even grows, never
mind what the soil may be in which it is planted, or the bitter