wedding. It is true she had to return to the earl three-fourths of the
jewels she wore; but they were family jewels, and why should she not have
some good of them? She started with fifty pounds of her own in her
pocket, and a demeanour in her person equal to fifty millions. When they
arrived at Mortgrange, the moon was indeed still in the sky, but the
honey-pot, to judge by the appearance of the twain, was empty: twain they
were, and twain would be. The man wore a look of careless all-rightness,
tinged with an expression of indifferent triumph: he had what he wanted;
what his lady might think of her side of the bargain, he neither thought
nor cared. As to the woman, let her reflections be what they might, not a
soul would come to the knowledge of them. Whatever it was to others, her
pale, handsome face was never false to herself, never betrayed what she
was thinking, never broke the shallow surface of its frozen dignity. Will
any man ever know how a woman of ordinary decency feels after selling
herself? I find the thing hardly safe to ponder. No trace, no shadow of
disappointment clouded the countenance of lady Ann that sultry summer
afternoon as she drove up the treeless avenue. The education she had
received--and education in the worst sense it was! for it had brought out
the worst in her--had rendered her less than human. The form of her
earthly presence had been trained to a fashionable perfection; her nature
had not been left unaided in its reversion toward the vague animal type
from which it was developed: in the curve of her thin lips as they
prepared to smile, one could discern the veiled snarl and bite. Her eyes
were grey, her eyebrows dark; her complexion was a clear fair, her nose
perfect, except for a sharp pinch at the end of the bone; her nostrils
were thin but motionless; her chin was defective, and her throat as
slender as her horrible waist; her hands and feet were large even for
"her tall personage."

After his lady had had a cup of tea, sir Wilton, for something to do,