three years she was left an orphan, and came into the possession of a
small property, over which unfortunately she had complete power. She
was attractive and well-educated, and I heard long after I had broken
with her, and had ceased to have intercourse with Butts, that the two
were married. He of course, living so near her, had known her well,
and he found her money useful. How they agreed I knew not save by
report, but I was told that after the first child was born, the only
child they ever had, Butts grew indifferent to her, and that she, to
use my friend's expression, "went off," by which I suppose he meant
that she faded. There happened in those days to live near Butts a
small squire, married, but with no family. He was a lethargic
creature, about five-and-thirty years old, farming eight hundred
acres of his own land. He did not, however, belong to the farming
class. He had been to Harrow, was on the magistrates' bench, and
associated with the small aristocracy of the country round. He was
like every other squire whom I remember in my native county, and I
can remember scores of them. He read no books and tolerated the
usual conventional breaches of the moral law, but was an intense
worshipper of respectability, and hated a scandal. On one point he
differed from his neighbours. He was a Whig and they were all
Tories. I have said he read no books, and this, on the whole, is
true, but nevertheless he did know something about the history of the
early part of the century, and he was rather fond at political
gatherings of making some allusion to Mr. Fox. His father had sat in
the House of Commons when Fox was there, and had sternly opposed the
French war. I don't suppose that anybody not actually IN IT--no
Londoner certainly--can understand the rigidity of the bonds which
restricted county society when I was young, and for aught I know may
restrict it now. There was with us one huge and dark exception to
the general uniformity. The earl had broken loose, had ruined his