uited to uphold his dignity and the
style of his establishment, at the same time conferring on the little
Clara the care of a mother, and the society of a playmate in the person of
Charles Mardyn, Lady Daventry's son by her first marriage. But the
marriage of convenience did not end more felicitously than the marriage of
love--at the end of six months Sir John found himself a second time a
widower. His position was now a somewhat unusual one--at twenty-seven he
had lost two wives, and was left the sole guardian of two children,
neither past the age of infancy; Clara Daventry was but two years old,
Charles Mardyn three years her senior. Of these circumstances Sir John
made what he conceived the best, provided attendants and governesses for
the children, consigned them to the seclusion of the Hall, while he
repaired to London, procured a superb establishment, was famed for the
skill of his cooks, and the goodness of his wines, and for the following
eighteen years was an _habitue_ of the clubs, and courted by the elite of
London society; and this, perhaps, being a perfectly blameless course, and
inflicting as little of any sort of trouble or annoyance as possible, it
must needs excite our surprise if we do not find it producing
corresponding fruits. Eighteen years make some changes every where. During
these, Clara Daventry had become a woman, and Charles Mardyn, having
passed through Eton and Cambridge, had for the last two years emulated his
stepfather's style of London life. Mr. Mardyn had left his fortune at the
disposal of his widow, whom he had foolishly loved, and Lady Daventry, at
her death, divided the Mardyn estates between her husband and son--an
unfair distribution, and one Charles was not disposed to pardon. He was
that combination so often seen--the union of talent to depravity; of such
talent as the union admits--talent which is never first-rate, though to the
many it appears so; it is only unscrupulous, and consequently, has at its
command, engines which virtue dares not use. Selfish and profligate, he
was that mixture of strong passions and indomitable will, with a certain
strength of intellect, a winning manner, and noble appearance. Clara
possessed none of these external gifts. Low and insignificant looking, her
small, pale features, narrow forehead, and cunning gray eyes, harmonized
with a disposition singularly weak, paltry, and manoeuvring. Eighteen
years had altered Sir John Daventry's appearance less th