down, "Lord Allerton is a far more desperate resource than General Trevor."
"If you have any fancy for the General, you can try him first," retorted the Countess. Henrietta's sole reply was to raise her hands and eyes with an expression of dismay. "But I have," continued Lady Rotheles, "quite decided that you shall be Lady Allerton. I could not endure to have one of that odious Lady Anne's daughters for my nearest neighbour. I was enraged when I found that Rotheles had asked them down. But never was there a man so ill educated—his three first wives have completely spoilt him. But he is beginning a new and more rational system—he now finds the necessity of consulting his wife a little. However, in the present instance, it has been all for the best."
"For the best!" cried Miss Aubrey; "that I should find the ground preoccupied!"
"Yes," replied her aunt, "considering the character of the man. It will be far easier to make him fall in love a second time than a first. It was worth a great deal to make the bare idea of his being married possible and familiar to him."
"Very good, had it been with myself," returned Henrietta.
"Le bon tems viendra," said the Countess. "Lord Allerton is that almost impossibility to manage—a young man who has been a good match from his cradle. He looks upon himself as the point of attack to
