she was flattered. Lord Mountfalcon was as well educated as it is the
fortune of the run of titled elder sons to be: he could talk and
instruct: he was a lord: and he let her understand that he was wicked,
very wicked, and that she improved him. The heroine, in common with the
hero, has her ambition to be of use in the world--to do some good: and
the task of reclaiming a bad man is extremely seductive to good women.
Dear to their tender bosoms as old china is a bad man they are mending!
Lord Mountfalcon had none of the arts of a libertine: his gold, his
title, and his person had hitherto preserved him from having long to sigh
in vain, or sigh at all, possibly: the Hon. Peter did his villanies for
him. No alarm was given to Lucy's pure instinct, as might have been the
case had my lord been over-adept. It was nice in her martyrdom to have a
true friend to support her, and really to be able to do something for
that friend. Too simple-minded to think much of his lordship's position,
she was yet a woman. "He, a great nobleman, does not scorn to
acknowledge me, and think something of me," may have been one of the
half-thoughts passing through her now and then, as she reflected in self-
defence on the proud family she had married into.

January was watering and freezing old earth by turns, when the Hon. Peter
travelled down to the sun of his purse with great news. He had no sooner
broached his lordship's immediate weakness, than Mountfalcon began to
plunge like a heavy dragoon in difficulties. He swore by this and that
he had come across an angel for his sins, and would do her no hurt. The
next moment he swore she must be his, though she cursed like a cat. His
lordship's illustrations were not choice. "I haven't advanced an inch,"
he groaned. "Brayder! upon my soul, that little woman could do anything
with me. By heaven! I'd marry her to-morrow. Here I am, seeing her
every day in the week out or in, and what do you think she gets me to
talk about?--history! Isn't it enough to make a fellow mad? and there am