Allerton, no longer the artful Miss Aubrey, who drew away poor Mary Granard's lover, but the imperious wife, who had long since taught her cautious, suspicious husband that he had been angled for by a skilful piscator, and secured by tackle the law alone could break. Of this, however, he had little expectation; the lady loved herself, if she loved not him, and, as he knew she had given her heart at one time to a man who deserted her, he lived on in the hope that her affections, awakened by gratitude to an indulgent husband, might some time revert to him sufficiently to secure the respectability of both; more than that he had ceased to hope, perhaps to care for. He was trying to become a politician, but it was by no means his vocation. As he was fatally mistaken in supposing the gentle and artless Mary a designing girl, urged on by a manœuvring mother, so was he in supposing that a man of his temper and habits could find solace for the wants of the heart in the occupations of the mind. Brought up by a widowed mother in the constant exercise of the affections which guarded him from the many temptations to which youth and wealth exposed him, but also narrowed his views and repressed his energies, he was by no means able to contend with the daring, or wind on the sinuous course of the cunning. Suspicion of women had been grafted in his temper as a duty by the mother, who knew how desirable a parti he would be deemed, but other jealousy he had none; for he was much too honourable and ingenuous to
