ss Mary's account. Beauty, merit, fortune,
connexion, every advantage was hers calculated to do honour to a noble
alliance; and as her father often exclaimed, with a bitter sneer, in
answer to the mild pleadings of Selina--"Such a girl as that--a girl
born to be a duchess--to sacrifice herself to the son of a Congleton
manufacturer!"

Two years did the struggle continue--during the greater part of which
I was a constant eyewitness of the sorrows which so sobered the
impetuous deportment of the light-hearted Mary Stanley. Her father
took her to London, with the project of separation he had haughtily
announced; but only to find, to his amazement, that Eton and Oxford
had placed the son of Mr Sparks of Lexley Park, a member of
Parliament, on as good a footing as himself in nearly all the circles
he frequented. Even when, in the desperation of his fears, he removed
his family to the Continent, the young lover (as became the lover of
so endearing and attractive a creature) followed her, at a distance,
from place to place. At length, one angry day, the General provoked
him to a duel. But Everard would not lift his hand against the father
of his beloved Mary. An insult from General Stanley was not as an
offence from any other man. The only revenge taken by the
high-spirited young man, was to urge the ungenerous conduct of the
father as an argument with the daughter to put an end, by an
elopement, to a state of things too painful to be borne. After much
hesitation, it seems, she most unhappily complied. They were
married--at Naples I think, or Turin, or some other city of Italy,
where we have a diplomatic resident; and after their marriage--poor,
foolish young people!--they went touring it about gaily in the
Archipelago and Levant, waiting a favourable moment to propose a
reconciliation with their respective fathers--as if the wrath and
malediction of parents was so mere a trifle to deal with.

The first step taken by General Stanley, on learning the ungrateful
rebellion of his favourite child, was to return to England. He seemed
to want to be at home again, the better to enjoy and cultivate his
abhorrence of every thing bearing the despised name of Sparks; for now
began the genuine hatred between the families. Nothing would satisfy
the obstinate old soldier, but that the elder Sparks had, from the
first, secretly encouraged the views of his son upon the heiress of
Lexley Hall; while Mr Sparks naturally resented with enraged