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 again; and that is the rock on which my domestic happiness splits."

There was a pause while Lady Portmore mused sadly upon this shipwreck of her domestic felicity; and then the conversation began again with the Teviots.

"Did Helen's marriage take you by surprise, Mary?"

"I could not be surprised at any amount of admiration that Helen might excite; but I was in the country at the time, and I had heard very little of Lord Teviot. It was a short romance, you know?"

"My dear Mary, there is nobody who knows so much about it as I do. Miss Douglas will think me very vain, but as she does not know me, I must just let her a little into the secret of my character. She will say I am frank, too frank perhaps; but the fact is, as all the world knows, that before his marriage Teviot almost lived at my house. It was his home, literally his home. He is the most warm-hearted creature on earth, and chose to take a great fancy to me. Why, I am sure I can't guess; but he was on that footing at my house that my own brother might have been. It was the sort of thing that the world might have talked of; and I never know how I escaped all sorts of ill-natured remarks. In fact, but this is between ourselves, I did say to Lord Portmore, 'If you think Teviot had better not come so much to our house, only tell me so, and I will contrive that he shall not dine here so constantly—and yet there shall be no scene, no esclandre.' I thought this right; don't you agree with me?"

"And what did Lord Portmore say?" said Eliza, who was listening in breathless delight to what she thought a very odd and slightly improper story.

"Oh! it was a most gratifying answer to me. He said he had not the smallest objection to Teviot's dining with us as often as he liked, and that he saw no opening for any scene, and no necessity for any explanation; in short, he