had been for a time the dwelling which was called his home; there, when
gold was rolling in like a tide, distinction won, position assured;
there, not yet in Parliament, but foremost at the bar,--already pressed
by constituencies, already wooed by ministers; there, still young--
O luckiest of lawyers!--there had he moved his household gods. Fit
residence for a Prince of the Gown! Is it when living there that you
would envy the prosperous man? Yes, the moment his step quits that door;
but envy him when he enters its threshold?--nay, envy rather that
roofless Savoyard who has crept under yonder portico, asleep with his
ragged arm round the cage of his stupid dormice! There, in that great
barren drawing-room, sits a

"Pale and elegant Aspasia."

Well, but the wife's face is not querulous now. Look again,--anxious,
fearful, secret, sly. Oh! that fine lady, a Vipont Crooke, is not
contented to be wife to the wealthy, great Mr. Darrell. What wants she?
that he should be spouse to the fashionable fine Mrs. Darrell? Pride in
him! not a jot of it; such pride were unchristian. Were he proud of her,
as a Christian husband ought to be of so elegant a wife, would he still
be in Bloomsbury? Envy him! the high gentleman, so true to his blood,
all galled and blistered by the moral vulgarities of a tuft-hunting,
toad-eating mimic of the Lady Selinas. Envy him! Well, why not? All
women have their foibles. Wise husbands must bear and forbear. Is that
all? wherefore, then, is her aspect so furtive, wherefore on his a wild,
vigilant sternness? Tut, what so brings into coveted fashion a fair lady
exiled to Bloomsbury as the marked adoration of a lord, not her own, who
gives law to St. James's! Untempted by passion, cold as ice to
affection; if thawed to the gush of a sentiment secretly preferring the
husband she chose, wooed, and won to idlers less gifted even in outward