CHAPTER III.
THE INFLUENCE OF AN INVITATION.
Life is so little in its vanities,
So mean, and looking to such worthless aim,
Truly the dust, of which we are a part,
Predominates amid mortality.
Great crimes have something of nobility;
Mighty their warning, vast is their remorse:
But these small faults, that make one half of life
Belong to lowest natures, and reduce
To their own wretched level nobler things.
Lady Marchmont was listlessly turning over the praises of her beauty, duly set forth by heroic verse in a poem just dedicated to her, when there came one of those solemn raps at the door, which she well knew announced Lord Marchmont. An expression of disgust passed over her features, and a slight elevation of the shoulders accompanied the answer,
