gloriously; in short, my dear, we had a comfortable family quarrel. Love
quarrels are easily made up, but of money quarrels there is no end. From
the moment these money quarrels commenced, I began to hate Lord Delacour;
before, I had only despised him. You can have no notion to what meanness
extravagance reduces men. I have known Lord Delacour shirk, and look so
shabby, and tell so many lies to people about a hundred guineas--a hundred
guineas!--what do I say?--about twenty, ten, five! O, my dear, I cannot
bear the thoughts of it!

"But I was going on to tell you, that my good uncle and all my relations
quarrelled with me for having ruined myself, as they said; but I said they
quarrelled with me for fear I should ask them for some of their '_vile
trash_.' Accordingly, I abused and ridiculed them, one and all; and for my
pains, all my acquaintance said, that 'Lady Delacour was a woman of a vast
deal of spirit.'

"We were relieved from our money embarrassments by the timely death of a
rich nobleman, to whose large estate my Lord Delacour was heir-at-law. I
was intoxicated with the idle compliments of all my acquaintance, and I
endeavoured to console myself for misery at home by gaiety abroad.
Ambitious of pleasing universally, I became the worst of slaves---a slave
to the world. Not a moment of my time was at my own disposal--not one of
my actions; I may say, not one of my thoughts was my own; I was obliged to
find things 'charming' every hour, which tired me to death; and every day
it was the same dull round of hypocrisy and dissipation. You wonder to
hear me speak in this manner, Belinda--but one must speak the truth
sometimes; and this is what I have been saying to Harriot Freke
continually, for these ten years past. Then why persist in the same kind
of life? you say. Why, my dear, because I could not stop: I was fit for
this kind of life and for no other: I could not be happy at _home_; for