There & Back

The rumour of sir Wilton's marriage was, as rumour seldom is, correct. Before the year was out, lady Ann Hardy, sister to the earl of Torpavy, representing an old family with a drop or two of verybad blood in it, became lady Ann Lestrange How much love there may have been in the affair, it isunnecessary to inquire, seeing the baronet was what he was, and the lady understood the what prettywell. She might have preferred a husband not so much what sir Wilton was, but she was nine-andtwenty, and her brother was poor. She said to herself, I suppose, that she might as well as anotherundertake his reform: some one must! and married him. She had not much of a trousseau, but wasgorgeously attired for the wedding. It is true she had to return to the earl three-fourths of the jewelsshe wore; but they were family jewels, and why should she not have some good of them? She startedwith 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 judgeby the appearance of the twain, was empty: twain they were, and twain would be. The man wore alook of careless all-rightness, tinged with an expression of indifferent triumph: he had what hewanted; what his lady might think of her side of the bargain, he neither thought nor cared. As to thewoman, 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 whatshe was thinking, never broke the shallow surface of its frozen dignity. Will any man ever know howa woman of ordinary decency feels after selling herself? I find the thing hardly safe to ponder. Notrace, no shadow of disappointment clouded the countenance of lady Ann that sultry summerafternoon as she drove up the treeless avenue. The education she had received-and education inthe 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 notbeen left unaided in its reversion toward the vague animal type from which it was developed: in thecurve of her thin lips as they prepared to smile, one could discern the veiled snarl and bite. Her eyeswere grey, her eyebrows dark; her complexion was a clear fair, her nose perfect, except for a sharppinch at the end of the bone; her nostrils were thin but motionless; her chin was defective, and herthroat as slender as her horrible waist; her hands and feet were large even for "her tall personage.