CHAPTER IV.

GUY'S OAK.

Three weeks afterwards, the life at Laughton seemed restored to the
cheerful and somewhat monotonous tranquillity of its course, before
chafed and disturbed by the recent interruptions to the stream. Vernon
had departed, satisfied with the justice of the trial imposed on him, and
far too high-spirited to seek to extort from niece or uncle any
engagement beyond that which, to a nice sense of honour, the trial itself
imposed. His memory and his heart were still faithful to Mary; but his
senses, his fancy, his vanity, were a little involved in his success with
the heiress. Though so free from all mercenary meanness, Mr. Vernon was
still enough man of the world to be sensible of the advantages of the
alliance which had first been pressed on him by Sir Miles, and from which
Lucretia herself appeared not to be averse. The season of London was
over, but there was always a set, and that set the one in which Charley
Vernon principally moved, who found town fuller than the country.
Besides, he went occasionally to Brighton, which was then to England what
Baiae was to Rome. The prince was holding gay court at the Pavilion, and
that was the atmosphere which Vernon was habituated to breathe. He was
no parasite of royalty; he had that strong personal affection to the
prince which it is often the good fortune of royalty to attract. Nothing
is less founded than the complaint which poets put into the lips of
princes, that they have no friends,--it is, at least, their own perverse
fault if that be the case; a little amiability, a little of frank
kindness, goes so far when it emanates from the rays of a crown. But
Vernon was stronger than Lucretia deemed him; once contemplating the