property of that worthy peer. She had for years past stifled every
little rising wish for a return to England which the doctor had
from time to time expressed. She had encouraged her mother in her
idleness, in order that she herself might be mistress and manager of
the Stanhope household. She had encouraged and fostered the follies
of her sister, though she was always willing, and often able, to
protect her from their probable result. She had done her best, and
had thoroughly succeeded in spoiling her brother, and turning him
loose upon the world an idle man without a profession and without a
shilling that he could call his own.

Miss Stanhope was a clever woman, able to talk on most subjects, and
quite indifferent as to what the subject was. She prided herself on
her freedom from English prejudice, and, she might have added, from
feminine delicacy. On religion she was a pure free-thinker, and with
much want of true affection, delighted to throw out her own views
before the troubled mind of her father. To have shaken what remained
of his Church of England faith would have gratified her much, but the
idea of his abandoning his preferment in the church had never once
presented itself to her mind. How could he indeed, when he had no
income from any other source?

But the two most prominent members of the family still remain to be
described. The second child had been christened Madeline and had
been a great beauty. We need not say had been, for she was never
more beautiful than at the time of which we write, though her person
for many years had been disfigured by an accident. It is unnecessary
that we should give in detail the early history of Madeline Stanhope.
She had gone to Italy when about seventeen years of age, and had been
allowed to make the most of her surpassing beauty in the salons of