egarding business, had been a complete
success,--and a success, too, when on the one side, that of Lady
Glencora, there had been terrible dangers of shipwreck, and when
on his side also there had been some little fears of a mishap. As
regards her it has been told how near she went to throwing herself,
with all her vast wealth, into the arms of a young man, whom no
father, no guardian could have regarded as a well-chosen husband for
any girl;--one who as yet had shown no good qualities, who had been
a spendthrift, unprincipled, and debauched. Alas, she had loved him!
It is possible that her love and her wealth might have turned him
from evil to good. But who would have ventured to risk her,--I will
not say her and her vast inheritances,--on such a chance? That evil,
however, had been prevented, and those about her had managed to marry
her to a young man, very steady by nature, with worldly prospects as
brilliant as her own, and with a station than which the world offers
nothing higher. His little threatened mischance,--a passing fancy for
a married lady who was too wise to receive vows which were proffered
not in the most ardent manner,--had, from special reasons, given some
little alarm to his uncle, which had just sufficed at the time to
make so very judicious a marriage doubly pleasant to that noble duke,
So that all things and all people had conspired to shower substantial
comforts on the heads of this couple, when they were joined together,
and men and women had not yet ceased to declare how happy were both
in the accumulated gifts of fortune.

And as regards Mr Palliser, I think that his married life, and the
wife, whom he certainly had not chosen, but who had dropped upon him,
suited him admirably. He wanted great wealth for that position at
which he aimed. He had been rich before his marriage with his own
wealth,--so rich that he could throw thousands away if he wished it;
but for him and his career was needed that colossal wealth which
would make men talk about it,--which would necessitate an expansive
expenditure, reaching far and wide, doing nothing, or less than
nothing, for his own personal comfort, but giving to him at once that
rock-like solidity which is so necessary to our great aristocratic
politicians. And his wife was, as far as he knew, all that he
desired. He had not dabbled much in the fountains of Venus, though
he had forgotten himself once, and sinned in coveting another man's
wife. But his sin