CHAPTER VI.

"For what admir'st thou? what transports thee so?
An outside? fair, no doubt, and worthy well
Thy cherishing, thy honouring, and thy love:
Not thy subjection. Weigh with her thyself;
Then value; ofttimes nothing profits more
Than self-esteem, grounded on just and right
Well-managed. Of that skill the more thou know'st,
The more she will acknowledge thee her head."

PARADISE LOST.

SOON after Lord Bellamont's marriage with Lady Frances, they went from Richmond to Godolphin Castle, where the Duke and a gay party of Lady Arabella's friends, as she called the fashionable group of idlers who assembled in that luxurious abode, were awaiting the bride's arrival, as the Queen of the Revels, and the dame of all fashion to be, for the en

suing season in London. Here, then, opened the very first scene on which Lady Frances had calculated to play her destined part in the life which she had purposed to lead; and here, accordingly, she made her debut in the very top of her bent.

She had married Lord Bellamont because he had a fine estate, was a gay gallant-looking young man, with a fine showy person, and could supply her with all the paraphernalia of dress, jewels, and equipage, in which she centered her principle ideas of happiness, and which could render her an object of envy to characters equally vain and heartless as her own. She had overlooked in her husband the more precious qualities of a warm, affectionate, and ingenuous disposition: or rather, she had regarded these as mere tools, wherewith to work her own will, and obtain an absolute sway.

Lord Bellamont, on his part, had married her, bona fide, for red-hot love: but it was that sort of love which, though had it fallen on good ground it would have brought forth good fruit, yet falling as it did, it had no basis to

rest upon, and preying ever on its own disappointment, withered away in process of time, and settled in a captiousness of temper which embittered his existence.

After a few weeks of married life, it chanced, on some trivial, every-day occurrence, that Lord Bellamont had occasion to cross Lady Frances's will. This he did in a gentle amiable way, but it was not so received.

"I never heard such nonsense!" cried Lady Frances; "but marriage is a hateful metier to which I must serve my apprenticeship before I shall know exactly how to set up for myself."

"Nay, Frances, love! speak not so childishly, so pettishly, so unfeelingly; you know how I love you."

"Yes, I do indeed, to my cost; you have just given me a specimen: so childishly, indeed! It is you, my Lord, who are a child, pleased to tyrannize over your new bauble, a wife :" and she looked at him contemptuously, and left the

room.

"Impertinent! foolish!" muttered Lord Bellamont, and was on the point of following

her to vent his choler; but while he hesitated, his kindly feelings returned. "Perhaps it is I who am foolish," said he; " after all, why try her temper uselessly? why contradict her in a trifle? I will prove to her at least, that if I am childish, I can have the gentleness of a child," and he flew after her. "Frances! dearest Frances, forgive me! I cannot bear to quarrel with you. Quarrel with you? impossible !—that will I never."

Lady Frances smiled; and though she smiled in disdain as he pressed her to his honest heart, still she smiled, and he was pleased, if not satisfied.

So long as Godolphin Castle remained full of visitors, Lady Frances professed herself vastly well amused. Now and then, she bantered Lord Bellamont upon his talents for playing the Celadon, saying,-" You must really, my dear Lord, learn some new part for the London boards, or we shall be the laughing-stock of all our acquaintance: besides, it is beneath your dignity to be following me about like my lap-dog. One of two things will infallibly be

concluded; either that you are ridiculously jealous, or that I have by my conduct given you cause to suspect me. I leave you to draw the inference. But I need not say more; I am sure you could not bear to be put on a footing with that soufre douleur, Sir James Dashwood, who has gone about like a sick turtle-dove these last two years; or if you bore it, I could not bear it for you: positively I should die of shame or run away from you.”

"Dear Frances, you are more amusing than any one," and the fond husband laughed faintly, and with a bad grace, while several other young men who were surrounding Lady Frances laughed in good earnest at what they termed matrimonial sport, while Lady Frances joined in the mirth which she excited at her husband's expense. But when all opportunity of exercising this amiable talent failed, owing to the departure of every visitor from the Castle, Lady Frances sank into a quiescent state of torpor, which at first her husband hailed with delight, as he mistook it for