Page:Romance & Reality 2.pdf/252

250 accepting an invitation, in spite of all our good resolutions against that unnecessary waste of time—visiting. I often think, one makes resolutions to have the pleasure of breaking them; but this is really an urgent case: if we do not see the new Countess of Etheringhame this season, it admits, I think, of a question whether we shall next. I met her this morning, and she asked us in the name of charity. London is so empty, she is fearful of taking cold." "I have heard that Lord Etheringhame was a man of the most recluse habits—what magic has turned him into the most dissipated?" His beautiful wife knows no rule but her own will, and no will but her own. Lord Etheringhame is the very man to be governed: his temper is discontented—he calls it sensitive; his habits self-indulged—he calls them refined; he has literary tastes—he calls them talents; he is indolent to an excess—he calls it delicacy of feeling, which unfits him for the world. He married with some romantic notion of domestic bliss, congenial tastes, moonlight walks, &c. Lady Etheringhame's reading of connubial felicity was different: first, the old Castle was