misfortune not to be extravagant in her tastes. Strange to say, in the
world Lord Montfort's marriage was called a love-match; he had married a
portionless girl, daughter to one of his poorest and obscurest cousins,
against the uniform policy of the House of Vipont, which did all it could
for poor cousins except marrying them to its chief. But Lady Montfort's
conduct in these trying circumstances was admirable and rare. Few
affronts can humiliate us unless we resent them--and in vain. Lady
Montfort had that exquisite dignity which gives to submission the grace
of cheerful acquiescence. That in the gay world flatterers should gather
round a young wife so eminently beautiful, and so wholly left by her
husband to her own guidance, was inevitable. But at the very first
insinuated compliment or pathetic condolence, Lady Montfort, so meek in
her household, was haughty enough to have daunted Lovelace. She was thus
very early felt to be beyond temptation, and the boldest passed on, nor
presumed to tempt. She was unpopular; called "proud and freezing;" she
did not extend the influence of "The House;" she did not confirm its
fashion,--fashion which necessitates social ease, and which no rank, no
wealth, no virtue, can of themselves suffice to give. And this failure
on her part was a great offence in the eyes of the House of Vipont. "She
does absolutely nothing for us," said Lady Selina; but Lady Selina in her
heart was well pleased that to her in reality thus fell, almost without a
rival, the female representation, in the great world, of the Vipont
honours. Lady Selina was fashion itself.

Lady Montfort's social peculiarity was in the eagerness with which she
sought the society of persons who enjoyed a reputation for superior
intellect, whether statesmen, lawyers, authors, philosophers, artists.
Intellectual intercourse seemed as if it was her native atmosphere, from
which she was habitually banished, to which she returned with an
instinctive yearning and a new zest of life; yet was she called, even