Page:Duty and Inclination 1.pdf/156

148 were never extended beyond the bounds of a decent competency. Born and educated in retirement, the luxuries and superfluities of life added but little to her happiness; on the contrary, it was often with regret she observed the extravagances into which her husband launched, and which she had sometimes ventured, with a persuasive voice, to check.

Regardless, however, of such timely caution, De Brooke remained only the more sensible of the unutterable charm of beholding her, the sovereign idol of his heart, surrounded by every splendour it was in his power to procure.

Amidst the scenes of gaiety into which Mrs. De Brooke was introduced, she derived no small acquisition from the friendship of Mrs. Philimore; from whom, also, as her constant companion and chaperone, she became acquainted with the ways and manners of fashionable life. How wholly opposed was such a dazzling sphere to the still serenity of that to which she had been accustomed from earliest childhood, was often strikingly exemplified, by the involuntary admiration and graceful naïveté of her remarks; those festive novelties that now surrounded her being infinitely calculated, from the vivacity of her disposition, to amuse her youthful fancy; and De Brooke was extremely flattered in beholding, that wherever his