led a representative government, though Omniscience
once deigned to trace out the polity which should rule it.'

At this moment the servant announced Lord and Lady Marney.

Political sympathy had created a close intimacy between Lord Marney
and Coningsby. They were necessary to each other. They were both men
entirely devoted to public affairs, and sitting in different Houses,
both young, and both masters of fortunes of the first class, they were
indicated as individuals who hereafter might take a lead, and, far
from clashing, would co-operate with each other. Through Coningsby
the Marneys had become acquainted with Sidonia, who liked them both,
particularly Sybil. Although received by society with open arms,
especially by the high nobility, who affected to look upon Sybil quite
as one of themselves, Lady Marney, notwithstanding the homage that
everywhere awaited her, had already shown a disposition to retire as
much as possible within the precinct of a chosen circle.

This was her second season, and Sybil ventured to think that she had
made, in the general gaieties of her first, a sufficient oblation to
the genius of fashion, and the immediate requirements of her social
position. Her life was faithful to its first impulse. Devoted to the
improvement of the condition of the people, she was the moving spring
of the charitable development of this great city. Her house, without any
pedantic effort, had become the focus of a refined society, who, though
obliged to show themselves for the moment in the great carnival,
wear their masks, blow their trumpets, and pelt the multitude with
sugarplums, were glad to find a place where they could at all times
divest themselves of their mummery, and return to their accustomed garb
of propriety and good taste.

Sybil, too, felt alone in the world. Without a relation, without an
acquaintance of early and other days, she clung to her husband with a
devotion which was peculiar as well as profound. Egremont was to her
more than a husband and a lover; he was her only friend; it seemed to
Sybil that he could be her only friend. The disposition of Lord Marney
was not opposed to the habits of his wife. Men, when they are married,
often shrink from the glare and bustle of those social multitudes which
are entered by bachelors with the excitement of knights-errant in a
fairy wilderness, because they are supposed to be rife with adventures,
and, perhaps, fruitful of a heroine. The adventure som