season, in "the odious English climate,"
as she was wont to call it—let us look into
her life, and see her as she really was.

Lady Caroline Mansergh had married,
or rather, her mother had married her to,
a gentleman of considerable importance,
wealth, and more than mature years, when
she was just seventeen. Very fair and
very sweet seventeen, whom it had been
somewhat difficult to convince of the
delights and advantages of being "an old
man's darling." But Lady Hetherington
had not accustomed her children to gentle
or affectionate treatment, or to having their
inclinations consulted in any way. She no
more recognised Lady Caroline's right to
choose her own husband than she would
have consulted her taste in her babyhood
about her own sashes; and the girl's feeble
attempt at remonstrance, in opposition to
the solid advantages of the proposals made
by Mr. Mansergh, did not produce the
least effect at the time. Her ladyship
carried her point triumphantly, and the
girl found her fate more endurable, on the
whole, than she had expected. But she
never forgave her mother, and that was
rather odd, though not, when looked into,
very unreasonable; Mr. Mansergh never
forgave her either. The countess had
accomplished his wishes for him, the countess
had bestowed upon him the wife he coveted,
but she had deceived him, and when he
won his wife's confidence he found her
mother out. He had not been so foolish
as to think the girl loved him, but he had
believed she was willing to become his
wife—he had never had a suspicion of the
domestic scenes which had preceded that
pretty tableau vivant at St. George's,
Hanover-square, in which every emotion
proper to the occasion had been represented
to perfection. Fortunately for Lady Caroline,
her elderly husband was a perfect
gentleman, and treated her with indulgence,
consideration, and respect, which
appealed successfully to her feelings, and
were rewarded by a degree of confidence
on her part, which ensured her safety and
his peace in the hazardous experiment of
their unequal marriage. She told him
frankly all about herself, her tastes, her
feelings—the estrangement, almost amounting
to dislike, which existed between herself
and her mother—the attempt she had
made to avoid her marriage; in short, the
whole story of her brief life, in which there
had been much to deplore. Mr. Mansergh
possessed much firmness of character and
good sense, which, though it had not
preserved him from, the folly of marrying a
girl young enough to be his daughter, came
to his aid in making the best (and that
much better than could have been
expected) of the perilous position. Lady
Caroline did not, indeed, learn to love her
husband in the sense in which alone any
woman can be justified in becoming the
wife of any man, but she liked him better
than she liked any one in the world, and
she regarded him with real and active
respect; a sentiment which she had never
entertained previously for any one. Thus
it fell out, contrary to the expectations of
"society," which would have acted, in the
aggregate, precisely as Lady Hetherington
had done, but which would also have
congratulated itself on its discernment, and
exulted hugely, had the matrimonial
speculation turned out a failure, that Lady
Caroline Mansergh was happy and respectable.
She never gave cause for the smallest
scandal; she was constantly with her
husband, and was so naturally, unaffectedly,
cheerful and content in his company, that
not the most censorious observer could
discover that he was used as a shield or a
pretence. There was a perfectly good
understanding between Mr. Mansergh and
his young wife on all points, but if there
was more complete accord on one in
particular than on others, it was in keeping
the countess at a distance. The
manœuvring mother profited little by the
success of her scheme. To be sure she
got rid of her daughter at the
comparatively trifling expense of a splendid
trousseau, and the unconsidered risk of the
welfare and the reputation of the daughter
in question; and she had the advantage
over the majority of her friends of having
married her advantageously in her first
season! But the profit of the transaction
terminated there. In her daughter's house
Lady Hetherington remained on the same
ceremonious footing as any other visiting
acquaintance, and every attempt she made
either to interfere or advise was met by a
polite and resolute coldness, against the
silent obstinacy of which she would have
striven unsuccessfully had she not been
much too wise to strive at all. If the
barrier had been reared by Lady Caroline's
hands alone, though they were no longer
feeble, the countess would have flung it
down by the force of her imperious will,
but when she found that her daughter had
her husband's opinion and authority to back
her, Lady Hetherington executed the
strategic movement of retreat with celerity and