as no other source
of happiness which was at once so pure and so permanent. But he was not
one of those men who consider marriage as an extinguisher of all those
feelings and accomplishments which throw a lustre on existence; and he
did not consider himself bound, because he had plighted his faith to
a beautiful woman, immediately to terminate the very conduct which had
induced her to join him in the sacred and eternal pledge. His gaiety
still sparkled, his wit still flashed; still he hastened to be foremost
among the courteous; and still his high and ready gallantry indicated
that he was not prepared to yield the fitting ornament of his still
blooming youth. A thousand unobtrusive and delicate attentions which
the innocent now received from him without a thought, save of Lady
Aphrodite's good fortune; a thousand gay and sentimental axioms, which
proved not only how agreeable he was, but how enchanting he must have
been; a thousand little deeds which struggled to shun the light, and
which palpably demonstrated that the gaiety of his wit, the splendour of
his accomplishments, and the tenderness of his soul were only equalled
by his unbounded generosity and unparalleled good temper; all these
combined had made Sir Lucius Grafton, to many, always a delightful,
often a dangerous, and sometimes a fatal, companion. He was one of those
whose candour is deadly. It was when he least endeavoured to conceal his
character that its hideousness least appeared. He confessed sometimes
so much, that you yielded that pity which, ere the shrived culprit could
receive, by some fatal alchemy was changed into passion. His smile was a
lure, his speech was a spell; but it was when he was silent, and almost
gloomy, when you caught his serious eye, charged, as it were, with
emotion, gazing on yours, that if you had a guardian sylph you should
have invoked its aid; and we pray, if ever you meet the man of whom we
write, your invocation may not be forgotten, or be, what is more likely,
too late.

The Dacres, this season, were the subject of general conversation. She
was the distinguished beauty, and the dandies all agreed that his
dinner was worthy of his daughter. Lady Fitz-pompey was not behind the
welcoming crowd. She was too politic a leader not to feel anxious to
enlist under her colours a recruit who was so calculated to maintain the
reputation of her forces. Fitz-pompey House must not lose its character
for assembling the most distinguished