and Queen were equally delighted with the wife and daughter
of the terrible rebel; and although, of course, not an allusion was
made to his existence, Lady Annabel felt not the less acutely the
cause to which she was indebted for a notice so gratifying, but
which she afterwards ensured by her own merits. How strange are the
accidents of life! Venetia Herbert, who had been bred up in unbroken
solitude, and whose converse had been confined to two or three beings,
suddenly found herself the guest of a king, and the visitor to a
court! She stepped at once from solitude into the most august circle
of society; yet, though she had enjoyed none of that initiatory
experience which is usually held so indispensable to the votaries
of fashion, her happy nature qualified her to play her part without
effort and with success. Serene and graceful, she mingled in the
strange and novel scene, as if it had been for ever her lot to dazzle
and to charm. Ere the royal family returned to London, they extracted
from Lady Annabel a compliance with their earnest wishes, that
she should fix her residence, during the ensuing season, in the
metropolis, and that she should herself present Venetia at St.
James's. The wishes of kings are commands; and Lady Annabel, who thus
unexpectedly perceived some of the most painful anticipations of her
solitude at once dissipated, and that her child, instead of being
subjected on her entrance into life to all the mortifications she had
imagined, would, on the contrary, find her first introduction under
auspices the most flattering and advantageous, bowed a dutiful assent
to the condescending injunctions.

Such were the memorable consequences of this visit to Weymouth! The
return of Lady Annabel to the world, and her intended residence in the
metropolis, while the good Masham preceded their arrival to receive a
mitre. Strange events, and yet not improbable!

In the meantime Lord Cadurcis had repaired to the university, where
his rank and his eccentric qualities quickly gathered round him a
choice circle of intimates, chiefly culled from his old schoolfellows.
Of these the great majority were his seniors, for whose society
the maturity of his mind qualified him. It so happened that these
companions were in general influenced by those liberal opinions which
had become in vogue during the American war, and from which Lord
Cadurcis had hitherto been preserved by the society in which he
had previously mingled in the