CHAPTER I. "What! old and rich and childless too, They'll love you dearly-in your grave." THE Countess of Wolverton's boudoir door was thrown open, and Sir Anthony Fielding ushered into the apartment. He started as he beheld the Countess, for although Lord Wolverton's Cousin, he had not seen any of the family for many years. He recollected Lady Wolverton as a lovely girl, but he knew her to be the mother of four children, the eldest of whom had nearly attained his majority, whilst the second had already made her début in the circles of fashionable life. He had therefore expected to see a comely matron, rather than the girlish yet surpassingly beautiful woman, who rose languidly B from the sofa to receive him. There was nothing of the mère de famille about Lady Wolverton. She allowed her two eldest children to enter her presence, because they were handsome; in fact she loved them as well as any very fashionable, very egotistical mother does love those beings whose appearance on the stage of life, causes her suddenly to decline when she feels only in the zenith of her power. She full well knew that "she has a son at college" whispered round the ball room, where with all the fascination of her nature, she is energetically seeking to draw new votaries to her beauty's shrine, are words fatal to her prospects. "Patches, wigs, false teeth, rouge" mutter the retiring worshippers as they leave her for more youthful belles. When her eldest daughter, Lady Marion Calder, was old enough to accompany her into society and she saw all her own beauty, reflected in that graceful being and beheld those who had hitherto paid her, all the homage her vanity demanded, surround Marion, whenever she approached, she would bite her lips with ire, till they were crimsoned with blood, though her placid features, gave no indication of the storm that raged |