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MRS. ARMYTAGE: 
 
 FEiMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 AUTHORESS OF 
 MOTHERS AND DAUGHTERS.' 
 
 SECOND EDITION. 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 HENRY COLBURN: 
 
 13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH-STREET. 
 
 1837. 
 

 FEMALE DOMANITION. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Such a nature. 
 
 Tickled with good success, disdains the shadow 
 Which she treads on at noou. 
 
 Shakspeare. 
 
 " The post is late this morning ! " said Mrs. 
 Armytage, having finished her second cup of 
 tea, and pushed away a plate disordered with 
 chippings of egg-shell and French roll ; while 
 her daughter Sophy, to whom the apostrophe 
 was addressed, aw^are that her mother mea- 
 sured the proceedings of the world, and the 
 progress of time, by a dial peculiarly her own, 
 did not venture to observe that, as they had 
 sat down to breakfast half an hour earlier 
 
 VOL. I. R 
 
}i FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 than usual, the newspaper could scarcely ar- 
 rive in time for its usual office of concluding 
 the ceremonial of the morning meal. 
 
 Another moment, and her forbearance was 
 rewarded. Old Simmons, the butler, on mak- 
 ing his appearance to remove the urn, placed 
 upon the table, in addition to the two daily 
 papers, two letters from the post-bag ; one for 
 his lady, and another, a double one, for Miss 
 Sophia. A double letter, and in her brother 
 Arthur's hand-writing ! — What rich repay- 
 ment for having forborne to tax her mother 
 with being unreasonable ! 
 
 Mrs. Armytage, of Holywell Park, was one 
 of those parents who, w^hile affecting to encou- 
 rage in their family all possible freedom of 
 thought and action, exercise over their chil- 
 dren the utmost rigour of petty despotism. 
 Deluding herself into a belief that she was 
 the most liberal of mothers, she had been 
 heard to thank heaven, and the late Mr. 
 Armytage, for having left her son and daugh- 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 3 
 
 ter independent of lier, so that no mutual 
 restraint could exist between them ; although 
 it was w^ell known that this independence con- 
 sisted in a provision of a few hundreds a year 
 for each ; while she, in her own right as an 
 heiress, enjoyed an estate of thrice as many 
 thousands ! Even while pretending to sanc- 
 tion the most affectionate mutual confidence 
 between Sophy and her brother, it was re- 
 markable how minutely she contrived to in- 
 form herself of all that was said or ^vritten 
 between them. Mrs. Armytage was, in short, 
 a woman of arbitrary temper; whose dispo- 
 sition had been cultivated into all the un- 
 graciousness of egotism by the indulgence of 
 an inert and adoring husband. 
 
 " What does Arthur say ? " — She inquired 
 of her daughter, as soon as Sophy reached the 
 second page of her correspondence. 
 
 '' Nothing particular, mamma !" replied the 
 young lady, with a deep blush, folding up the 
 letter, though manifestly half unread; and 
 
 b2 
 
4 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 insinuating it under her waistbelt, as if deter- 
 mined against offering the contents to her 
 mother's participation. 
 
 " ' Nothing particular ' seems to possess a 
 very particular influence over your feelings/' 
 persisted mamma, whose temper had been 
 already set on edge by the perusal of her 
 own letter — a missive from her London soli- 
 citor, giving an unfavourable account of a 
 lawsuit. " But do not distress yourself; be 
 assured I have no wish to pry into the mys- 
 teries conjured up between yourself and Ar- 
 thur." 
 
 " Thank you, mamma. There are no mys- 
 teries between us," said Sophy, in a some- 
 what more decided tone than usual. " But I 
 own I had rather not show you my brother's 
 letter." 
 
 *' Did I ask you?" cried Mrs. Armytage, 
 apparently bent upon being affronted. 
 
 " No, — oh ! no ! — only I was afraid — " 
 
 " Afraid ! you would fain make people be- 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 5 
 
 lieve that I keep my children in desperate 
 awe of me!" 
 
 '' Indeed I would not^ mother/' replied 
 Sophy, casting round the room a glance which 
 implied — " We are alone ; whom can I be in- 
 tent upon deceiving?" 
 
 " Yes ! I understand your meaning ! — you 
 would say, now we are tete-a-tete, I may 
 triumph in having my own way. There is no 
 one here to notice in how many trivial par- 
 ticulars I can contrive to vex and mortify my 
 mother !"' 
 
 Sophy was for a moment tempted to appeal 
 to Mrs. Armytage's sense of justice, against 
 this harsh interpretation ; but, warned by fre- 
 quent experience that expostulation was fatal 
 on such occasions, and that it was better to 
 leave her mother to the reaction of a naturally 
 generous mind, she rose from the table, con- 
 tenting herself with observing, '' Arthur de- 
 sires me to say that he will write to you to- 
 morrow." 
 
b FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 " I am much obliged to him ! — no doubt he 
 will !" — was the indignant rejoinder of Mrs. 
 Armytage ; '•' as soon as you have settled in 
 what terms I am to be addressed, and what 
 is to be told me, and what concealed between 
 you." 
 
 And this hypothesis of the irate lady was 
 unluckily too near the truth, to admit of 
 Sophy's hazarding a word of reply. She ac- 
 cordingly quitted the breakfast-room for her 
 own apartment, in order to bestow her undi- 
 vided attention upon the communication of 
 her brother. 
 
 For Arthur's was indeed no common letter ! 
 It was not, as usual, a barren catalogue of 
 names ; a list of the persons whose balls he 
 frequented, or whose dinners were hospitably 
 bestowed upon the only son of the rich Mrs. 
 Armytage. There was not a single invective 
 against his commanding officer, nor a murmur 
 against his mother's obstinacy in passing the 
 season in the country. — No ! Arthur seemed to 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 1 
 
 have forgotten himself; his whole existence 
 was suddenly merged in that of another ; he 
 was in love, avowedly and desperately in love. 
 
 That, however, to his sister's knowledge, he 
 had been a thousand times before ; but a new 
 feature was now added to his disorder, which 
 caused poor Sophy's hands to tremble as they 
 upheld the letter containing the announce- 
 ment: Arthur was about to be married! — 
 Without any previous reference to his mo- 
 ther's wishes — without so much as having 
 acquainted her with the name of the object 
 of his attachment — he had actually proposed 
 and been accepted. His hand was irrevo- 
 cably pledged ; and the ominous admeasure- 
 ment of his Marian's taper finger already 
 under the custody of a fashionable forger of 
 matrimonial fetters. 
 
 Such are the destinies of positive people ! 
 Mr§. Armytage exercised, in fact, far less 
 influence over the conduct of her children than 
 many a parent, indifferent to the maintenance 
 
8 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 of parental prerogative. " If I were to fall in 
 love with an angel, blest with a peerage in her 
 own right, and a million in the five per cents/' 
 was Arthur's frequent argument with himself, 
 and occasionally with his sister, " my mother 
 would be sure to raise objections ; and I shall 
 therefore evade the sin of disobedience by 
 setthng the whole affair without her knowledge. 
 She will be much less likely to refuse her con- 
 sent, Avhen she knows that resistance is use- 
 less !" 
 
 Yet, although thus prepared for her bro- 
 ther's proceedings, Sophy regretted that he 
 had been so precipitate. She knew Arthur. 
 She knew that to all his talents, all his 
 excellencies, was united a very moderate 
 degree of sobriety of judgment ; and, though 
 she loved him the better for his rash but ge- 
 nerous singleness of heart, she felt that these 
 qualities w^ere little calculated to exercise an 
 advantageous influence over his choice of a 
 wife. Her dear Arthur was certain to make 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. VJ 
 
 an imprudent marriage ! In this one in- 
 stance, perhaps, the petulance of her mother's 
 opposition might have been beneficial to his 
 prospects. 
 
 But it was too late ! Arthur Armytage ad- 
 mitted that he was actually engaged, — actually 
 what is called '' o^oino^ to be married." The 
 projects of his settlement in life seemed fully 
 organized. He announced his intention of 
 selling his commission, and hiring a small 
 place in some hunting county, — a farm, — a 
 cottage orne, — an Eden surrounded by low 
 fences and green pastures ; Avhere he and his 
 Marian might settle down to all the sublunary 
 happiness compassable within a hawthorn- 
 hedge and four hundred and fifty pounds 
 a-year. 
 
 A world of intelligence was conveyed to 
 Sophia in this exact specification of income. 
 The amount sufficed to prove that '' Marian," 
 instead of being a divinity with the often- 
 named peerage, and the million in the five per 
 
 B 3 
 
10 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 cents, was as unencumbered by worldly pelf as 
 the most disinterested lover could require ; and 
 that Arthur had good reason to know his 
 match was not of a nature to open his mother's 
 heart, or her purse-strings. Sophy was sorry ! 
 Whatever might be Mrs. Armytage's infir- 
 mities of temper, her interest in her children's 
 welfare was warmly maternal ; and Sophia felt 
 that ill-advised indeed must be the choice which 
 her brother had set down as hopelessly irrecon- 
 cileable with her prejudices. When, therefore, 
 she reached, at the end of his second page, an 
 admission that his adored Marian was unen- 
 hanced in her attractions by the vulgar recom- 
 mendations of birth and fortune, — that she was 
 the offspring of a Mr. and Mrs. Baltimore, of 
 Baker-street, — the mother ill-mannered, the 
 father ill-connected, — she could not persuade 
 herself to join in Arthur's self-gratulations, that 
 he should become the means of separating a 
 creature so angelic from a family so thoroughly 
 disagreeable. It appeared that he had been 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 11 
 
 introduced to Miss Baltimore, at some ball to 
 which she had accompanied a rich West Indian 
 aunt, who was buying her way into society ; — 
 that Marian's charms had done much to en- 
 slave him, and the advances of her family the 
 rest. 
 
 " Mamma always predicted that Arthur 
 would be taken in !" murmured Sophy to her- 
 self, when a second time she closed the letter. 
 " And though I feel that he is incapable of 
 bestowing his affections on an unamiable or 
 vulgar-minded girl, I do not half like this 
 hasty match!" 
 
 Sophia could not presume to hope that the 
 four hundred and fifty pounds per annum, and 
 the cottage in the hunting county, would gra- 
 tify the ambition of her mother ; for even she, 
 with all the liberality of nineteen and an 
 honest disposition, was of opinion that such a 
 prospect was inadequate to the inherited and 
 personal pretensions of Arthur Armytage, of 
 Holywell. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 able, if she chose, to please, 
 
 Punctual and right in common offices. 
 She lost all sight of conduct's only worth, — 
 The scattering smiles on this uneasy earth. 
 
 Leigh Hunt. 
 
 Notwithstanding the prohibition expressed in 
 her brother's postscript — of '' Leave me to 
 make the disclosure to my mother ; I will write 
 to-morrov\'," which had motived, in the first 
 instance, her reserve with Mrs. Armytage, 
 Sophy, following the impulses of her ingeniious 
 nature, soon longed to reveal the important 
 family secret of which she was the depository. 
 Secrets of her own she had never had to con- 
 ceal ; — it was only with regard to Arthur's in- 
 discretions that she had now and then been 
 compelled to caution ; and OA^ery thing like 
 mystery was painful to her. She began to fear, 
 too, that Arthur s proceedings were not the 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 13 
 
 more likely to meet lier mother's approbation 
 for having been the cause of four- and- t^Yenty 
 hours' ill-humour. 
 
 But Mrs. Armytage, when once seriously 
 thwarted, became impracticable ! It was in 
 vain that her daughter strove to lead the way 
 towards the subject weighing on her mind, in 
 hopes she would again evince some inquisitive- 
 ness, or perhaps insist on a disclosure. But 
 having readily discerned the compunctious 
 visitings of Sophy's candour, Mrs. Armytage 
 laid aside all curiosity — all interest. She 
 would not be consulted, — she would not be in- 
 structed : — without giving utterance to the in- 
 stigations of her obstinacy, she plainly showed 
 herself determined to know nothing about the 
 matter. She declined her usual morning drive, 
 lest she should find herself tete-a-fcte with the 
 delinquent ; and twice in the course of the day, 
 when Sophy, by what she flattered herself was 
 dexterous management, contrived to introduce 
 her brother's name, Mrs. Armytage replied. 
 
14 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 once by reciting the pedigree of ahorse she had 
 commissioned her head coachman to purchase 
 at Doncaster; and once by expressing her 
 wonder whether their neighbours, the Wem- 
 mersleys, of Mill Hill, had received any further 
 intelligence concerning the arrival of a rich 
 uncle they were expecting from Carolina. 
 
 Sophy felt herself defeated. The blood 
 tingled painfully in her soft transparent cheek, 
 when thus out-generalled by her mother. But 
 the more she pondered on the case, the more 
 she became convinced of its urgency ; and no 
 sooner had the servant withdrawn after placing 
 dessert upon the table, than she burst out, with- 
 out further premeditation, into, " Mother, I see 
 you are determined I shall not talk to you 
 about Arthur ; but I am so eager to consult 
 you, and so conscious you ought to be con- 
 sulted, that " 
 
 " What makes you imagine that I do not 
 choose to talk about Arthur ?" inquired Mrs. 
 Armytage, coolly; ''on the contrary, I was 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 15 
 
 talking about him for half an hour this after- 
 noon With, the Wemmersleys." 
 
 " Have they been here ?" 
 
 " They called while you were walking in the 
 shrubbery." 
 
 " I am sorry I did not see them." 
 
 '' They would have told you nothing with 
 which you were not already acquainted — to me, 
 it ^vas news ; and, certainly, news which I did 
 not expect to hear from strangers — that my 
 only son was going to be married 1" 
 
 " You knew it then, and would not relieve 
 my mind by conferring with me on the sub- 
 ject/* ejaculated Sophy, in dismay ; for, of all 
 things, she most apprehended in her mother 
 a cool fit like the present. 
 
 " I am aware of nothing to require con- 
 ference," answered Mrs. Armytage, peeling an 
 almond with the most minute assiduity. " My 
 opinion has not been asked ; neither my feel- 
 ings nor my judgment have been consulted; 
 and all I have to desire for our sake, if not for 
 
16 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 his, is, that Arthur's match may turn out less 
 unfortunate than circumstances induce me to 
 anticipate." 
 
 '' My dear mother, you alarm me ! What 
 have you heard ? What did the Wemmers- 
 leys know about it ? And how came they to 
 be so officious as to talk about the matter ?'' 
 
 " They came here on the neighbourly errand 
 of conarratulation." 
 
 " So like Mr. Wemmersley ! When anything 
 disagreeable occurs in a family, he is so sure 
 to make his appearance with his congratu- 
 lations !" 
 
 " You are not very gracious to your brother, 
 my dear, in terming his marriage ' something 
 disagreeable.' But you can hardly blame Mr. 
 Wemmersley for paying me the respect of 
 wishing me joy on a family event, which, being 
 so far public as to have been communicated to 
 him in a letter from town, he had no reason to 
 suppose was still a secret from the mother of 
 Arthur Armytage." 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 17 
 
 " And what did lie tell you of tliese Balti- 
 mores ?" 
 
 " Not much. When he found me'^ totally ig- 
 norant of the affair (indeed, but for the myste- 
 rious face you assumed in reading your letter 
 this morning, I should have been inclined to 
 deny the whole as an idle rumour), he seemed 
 to think it might be unfair to my son to fore- 
 stall his own communication." 
 
 " And thus, by implication, managed to 
 create a suspicion in your mind that — " 
 
 " He implied nothing P' hastily interrupted 
 Mrs. Armytage : " he owned frankly and fairly, 
 the match was considered so very briUiant a 
 one for the young lady, that he feared it would 
 scarcely turn out a satisfactory one for my 
 son." 
 
 " How does he know ?" 
 
 " In the way most things are known in this 
 world : throuo-h the bad habit in which we 
 indulge of gossiping about the affairs of our 
 neighbours. Arthur Armytage of the Life 
 
10 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 Guards — tlie dashing, laughing, flirting Ar- 
 thur Armytage, the supposed heir to Holywell 
 and fifteen thousand a year, — is a person of suf- 
 ficient importance to have his follies discussed 
 in society ; till, at last, his imprudent marriage 
 comes to form a paragraph in a London letter 
 to a countr}^ correspondent. Shall we go into 
 the drawing-room ?" 
 
 " But Mr. Wemmersley had heard no posi- 
 tive harm of the Baltimores ?" persisted Sophia, 
 rising to follow her mother. 
 
 " I fancy they are obscure people, of whom 
 no one is likely to have heard either good or 
 harm," said Mrs. Armytage, taking her place 
 beside the drawing-room work-table. " And 
 now, my dear Sophia, as we shall certainly hear 
 enouo^h of them in the course of the next six 
 months, oblige me by dismissing the subject.^' 
 
 *' You will not read Arthur's letter ?" fal- 
 tered Sophy. 
 
 " You know I never read wi'iting by candle- 
 light." 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 19 
 
 " Will you give me leave to read it to you, 
 my dear mother ?" 
 
 "No ! my dear ; keep j^our brother's secrets 
 — keep your own. When his interests are to 
 be served by the disclosure, no doubt my son 
 will communicate with me on the subject of the 
 step he has taken." 
 
 '' Oh ! no, mother, you cannot accuse Ar- 
 thur, of being interested! — of that failing, at 
 least, he is altogether guiltless." 
 
 " Like most people whose wishes and whims 
 have been forestalled through life. We have 
 yet to learn what impulse his character will 
 receive from his connexion with sucli people 
 as the Baltimores." 
 
 '' Such i^eople ! I am convinced you know 
 more about them than you like to tell me." 
 
 " I know nothing — absolutely nothing ; ex- 
 cept that (without having met with reverses in 
 life), they are people of very small fortune ; 
 and a man with a large family, who remains 
 
20 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 poor at fifty years of age, must be wanting in 
 intelligence, activity, connexion, or probity." 
 
 Sophy, who could not always follow her 
 mother's line of reasoning, contented herself 
 with answering in a dispirited voice, — '' Let us 
 hope that Mr. Baltimore may be wanting in 
 the first. Distress, at least, need not entail 
 an hereditary stigma." 
 
 " His daughter has certainly displayed no 
 want of intelligence in ensnaring a young man 
 of Arthur's prospects," said Mrs. Armytage, 
 her cool fit giving way to rising choler. " A 
 girl without name — without a shilling — with- 
 out—" 
 
 " Dearest mother, let us — as you proposed 
 just now — defer the discussion till we hear 
 what Arthur has to say for himself." 
 
 " You have read what he has chosen to write 
 for himself; yet you have not a single argu- 
 ment to offer in favour of the match !" 
 
 *' I am persuaded my brother is incapable 
 of allying himself unworthily." 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 21 
 
 " I am equally sure that no one is more 
 likely to be deceived as to the worth of those 
 with whom he comes in collision. Arthur was 
 born to be a dupe ! and instead of fortifying 
 his judgment by taking counsel with those who 
 have more worldly wisdom than himself — ^" 
 
 " Ah ! mother ! — Who takes council in mat- 
 ters of love ? Arthur seems to have made his 
 proposals before he knew what he was about." 
 
 " That was a rash measure!" answered Mrs. 
 Armytage, taking up a book; a well-known 
 signal to her daughter that she wished to put 
 an end to the conversation. "\ suspect he 
 knows what he has been about, by this time." 
 
 And thus silenced, poor Sophy had only to 
 betake herself for consolation to her worsted- 
 work for the remainder of the evening, sur- 
 rounding her roses and pansies with sky-blue 
 leaves, while she pondered and pondered upon 
 the state of family affairs. She saw that her 
 mother was irritated; and hoped she would 
 sleep off" her sense of vexation. Mrs. Armytage 
 
22 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 was a lover of early hours and family order ; 
 and being left to herself, would probably per- 
 ceive the wisdom of making the best of a bad 
 business. 
 
 But Arthur seemed intent on ruining his 
 own cause. At two o'clock in the morning, 
 three hours after the family had retired to rest, 
 the dogs began to bark violently in the quiet 
 courtyard. The house-bell rung, the office - 
 doors slammed, scuffling feet were heard in 
 the hall ; and, at length, Mrs. Armytage having 
 rung up her own maid to ascertain the cause 
 of so unusual a disturbance, had the dissatis- 
 faction of learning that " the Captain was come 
 down from town, in a chaise and four." 
 
 Unluckily, too, the maid was an ancient and 
 most rheumatic spinster; who, much inclined 
 to resent being called out of her warm bed in 
 the middle of the night, for the first time since 
 the birth of Miss Sophia, thought proper to 
 add that " Everything was at sixes and sevens ; 
 that Miss Sophy was up, and supping with her 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 23 
 
 brother in the dining-room ; and the whole 
 house turned topsy-turvy." 
 
 Mrs. Armytage immediately fancied she 
 could discern from the hall the asthmatic 
 cough of her venerable butler, and felt that 
 the peace of her " regular " establishment was 
 scandalously invaded. Captain Armytage evi- 
 dently considered himself privileged to take 
 all possible liberties in her house. After 
 waking up the servants by arriving at such a 
 preposterous hour, why not at least retire to 
 rest, and let other people rest, without creating 
 further inconvenience ? 
 
 Mrs. Armytage was just then as little in- 
 clined to admit the necessity of a sandwich and 
 a glass of sherry, after a hurried journey of a 
 hundred and ninety-four miles, as the irresisti- 
 bility of Miss Marian Baltimore, with all her 
 sweetness, beauty, and accomplishments. Even 
 sleep did not subdue the peremptory lady's 
 exasperation against her son. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 My blood hath been too cold and temperate, 
 Unapt to stir at these indignities, 
 And you have found me ; for accordingly 
 You tread upon my patience. 
 
 Shakspeaue. 
 
 It was Arthur Arm3'tage's misfortune that the 
 London letter-bag arrived at Holywell at so 
 early an hour as eight of the clock ; it ^Yas his 
 fault that he selected a moment equally mati- 
 nal for his conference with his mother. Before 
 her displeasure of the night had been soothed 
 down by a single cup of mild, balmy, benignant, 
 sorrow and choler-soothing Bohea, he chose 
 to make his way into her dressing-room, and 
 unburthen himself of his secret. Poor fellow ! 
 He had been made such an idol by the whole 
 tribe of Baltimore during his recent courtship. 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 25 
 
 that he was unprepared to fancy he could be 
 in the wrong elsewhere. 
 
 But he was fated to be roughly undeceived. 
 Sophia, v;ho with a beating heart saw her 
 mother and brother descend into the break- 
 fast-room together, and take their seats at the 
 table, perceived in a moment, from a certain 
 compression of her mother's lips, and from the 
 brilliant crimson peeping through the tangled 
 masses of Arthur s rich brown hair, just where 
 his small, well-turned ear was partially visible, 
 that both were labouring under the effects of 
 suppressed passion. She was too well ac- 
 quainted with Arthur's rightness of mind to 
 apprehend for a moment that he had forgotten 
 himself towards his mother ; but she did fear, 
 trembhngly, tearfully, that Mrs. Armytage had 
 been seized with one of her fits of implacabi- 
 lity, and thrown down the gauntlet to her son. 
 What was to be done ; and how was peace to 
 be restored between them ? 
 
 By nature petulant, the character of Mrs. 
 
 VOL. I. c 
 
26 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 Armytage, of Holywell, liad been rendered 
 arbitrary by circumstances. The only daughter 
 of a wealthy, high- principled, high-tempered 
 English squire^, (whose sister had been reduced 
 to beggary by a spendthrift husband, and, as 
 he insisted, chiefly on account of her own igno- 
 rance and carelessness of business) Caroline 
 Maudsley had been brought up by her father, 
 precisely as he was bringing up Charles, whose 
 premature death left her heiress to the fine 
 estate of Holywell. She w^as taught to ride, 
 to run, to settle with the steward and house- 
 keeper, to parley with the farmers, to dispute 
 with the tax-gatherers. A little Latin, and a 
 s-reat deal of arithmetic, bounded her accom- 
 plishments. Of music she knew nothing, ex- 
 cept as an art whose professors might be hired 
 for her entertainment ; or of dancing, except 
 as an exercise far less invigorating than a gal- 
 lop on the wolds. Law and theology. Black- 
 stone and Tillotson, were the studies inculcated 
 by her preceptor, the curate of the parish ; and 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 27 
 
 it was perhaps attributable to the surprise with 
 which the good old man found himself sud- 
 denly transformed into the pedagogue of a 
 beautiful girl of fifteen, that his spiritual pas- 
 torship was so insufficiently exercised in curb- 
 ing the peremptoriness of her disposition. He 
 discerned in the mind of his pupil a fund of 
 sound and sober sense ; and doubted not that 
 it would in time avail to reform her faults of 
 character. But, alas ! there is no point on 
 which the re -action of the mind operates so 
 slowly and imperfectly as on the infirmities of 
 a ^vilful temper. 
 
 Caroline Maudsley, therefore, grew to wo- 
 man's estate, and was still positive, still ungo- 
 vernable ; yet neither squire nor curate could 
 detect a fault in her. It had been the long- 
 planned project of her father to unite his 
 beautiful heiress with the head of another 
 branch of his family. Sir John Maudsley, of 
 Maudsley Hall; but at nineteen, Caroline an- 
 nounced a decided preference for the son of 
 
 c 2 
 
28 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 her father's old schoolfellow, Arthur Armytage, 
 a less dignified, but more attractive suitor ; and 
 the old gentleman, according to his custom, 
 eventually submitted to her will. Nay, he 
 soon began to participate in his daughter's 
 affection for his estimable son-in-law ; and it 
 was generally considered, that nothing but old 
 Maudsley's sudden death a few years after 
 their marriage, had prevented the re-modifica- 
 tion of a will by which he left the whole of his 
 property at the separate and absolute disposal 
 of his daughter. WilUngly would Mrs. Army- 
 tage have resigned her authority to her hus- 
 band, for she was of a generous disposition, 
 not yet confirmed into the love of sway ; but 
 Armytage Avould not hear of it. The estate 
 could not be better than in her hands ; for 
 even his own small property of a thousand a 
 year gave him more trouble in the manage- 
 ment than suited his reckless habits. He de- 
 voted himself, accordingly, to hunting, fishing, 
 shooting, eating, and drinking, without much 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 29 
 
 care for the estate or the morrow ; and died 
 on the field — not of glory, but of fox-hunting 
 — killed by a fall from his horse, at the early 
 age of eight-and-twenty ! And thus, his young 
 Avidow became sole arbitress of the destinies 
 of his children : a very trifling accession to the 
 authority she had exercised as his wife. 
 
 Caroline never married again : perhaps, be- 
 cause she honoured the memory of so subser- 
 vient a husband ; perhaps, because she fancied 
 that no other human being would be content 
 to eclipse himself in the shadow of her talents 
 and her virtues. She fancied that the sacrifice 
 (for she had many and advantageous suitors) 
 was made to the interests of her children — and 
 to do her justice, she was a prudent and affec- 
 tionate mother — Avhile their tender years admit- 
 ted not the apprehension of their opposition 
 to her autocracy at Holj^well. 
 
 Nothing could be happier than the union of 
 the little family, so long as the arbitrary ten- 
 dencies of Mrs. Armytage's temper were re- 
 
30 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 stricted to the management and legislation of 
 her dependants and country neighbours, a task, 
 indeed, which afforded her ample emploj^ment. 
 From the period of her husband's untimely 
 end, she had never suffered the hounds to tra- 
 verse her territories ; and this prohibition in a 
 sporting county, and from the daughter and 
 widow of sportsmen, involved her in endless 
 disputes. Electioneering, too, brought its 
 squabbles ; and Mrs. Armytagc, who knew 
 that the Holywell rents had never been raised 
 during the agrarian extortions of the trumpet- 
 ing time of war, had no idea of lowering them, 
 after the example of her less liberal neigh- 
 bours, during the piping times of peace. In 
 short, she had a will of her own in the county ; 
 and, in a county so wide and so various in its 
 interests as Yorkshire, it is much easier to 
 have a will and to maintain it, than in such 
 provinces as Herts or Hunts, where every 
 public opinion is traceable to the influence of 
 Hatfield or Hinchinbrooke. 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 31 
 
 The Lady of Holy\yell, whose throne was 
 fixed ill her own domam from Christmas to 
 Midsummer, as well as from Midsummer to 
 Christmas, and who was consequently exempt 
 from the fashion-hunting meanness of party- 
 g-iving", or going, manoeuvres, was perhaps, 
 somewhat too sturdy in her sense of indepen- 
 dence. Disgusted by the servility she ob- 
 served in the Wemmersleys of Mill Hill, and 
 others of her country neighbours, she prided 
 Jierself on keeping up a surly sense of dignity 
 with her neighbour Lord Eotherham, merely 
 because he was an Earl ! There might, per- 
 haps, have been virtue in her ungraciousness 
 towards the noble inhabitants of Greta Castle, 
 had Lord and Lady Rotherham affected the 
 transcendent self- exaltation exhibited by the 
 family of the Duke of Spalding, resident at the 
 other side of the county. But Lord Eother- 
 ham was the simplest-hearted and most 
 straightforward of men ; while his lady knew 
 nothing, and cared for nothing, but the re- 
 
32 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 gistry of the ages, misery, and ailments of her 
 ten children : so that the majesty of Mrs. Ar- 
 mytage's hauteur was completely thrown away. 
 
 But for some time past her manners, if not 
 her feelings, had considerably thawed towards 
 the family. Her son, at Eton and Oxford, was 
 the chosen friend of young Lord Greta ; Lady 
 Laura, the only one of the girls grown up, 
 was not to be repulsed in her attachment to 
 Sophy Armytage, and in the end, the Lady of 
 Holywell found it impossible to keep up the 
 defensive barriers of coldness and reserve she 
 had erected against the advances of her noble 
 neighbours. 
 
 Besides, her authority had already ample 
 exercise in restraining the turbulence of her 
 son. Arthur was now grown into a fine young 
 man, with a head and heart glowing with im- 
 petuosity ; and a struggle for mastery soon 
 arose between them. Mrs. Armytage, among 
 her masculine propensities, cherished a strong, 
 sturdy, wholesome ambition. She felt that her 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 33 
 
 son, in his heirship to fifteen thousand a-j-ear, 
 possessed a stake in the country, entitling him 
 to pretend to a place in its representation ; 
 and, in order to add the qualifications of mind 
 to those of body and estate, it was her desire 
 that, on leaving College, he should address 
 himself to the study of the law. But Arthur 
 was inflexible : he was willing enough to pro- 
 mise to " come forward," at some future time, 
 for the neighboiu'ing borough of Thoroton, for 
 he thought "franking letters would be devilish 
 good fun, and had a project of his own about 
 farming the mail-roads, which he should thus 
 have an opportunity of bringing before Par- 
 liament." But as to studying in the Temple 
 — he, Arthur Armytage — the gayest man of 
 Ch. Ch., — the man whose bills with Milton, 
 Hudson, and Baron Stulz, might, on attaining 
 his majority, have added a farm to his estate 
 — the thing v,'as preposterous ! His cronies, 
 Dumbarton and Lord Edward Brereton, were 
 gone into the Life- Guards, and into the Life- 
 
 c 3 
 
34 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 Guards lie must go ! — Of age, and competent 
 in fortune, there was no resisting tliis deter- 
 mination ; and Mrs. Armytage, unenlightened 
 by London-seasoning, touching the habits and 
 recommendations of His Majesty's Household 
 Brigade, and measuring the pretensions of the 
 gallant corps in which her son had written 
 himself down a Cornet, by those of certain 
 regiments of the line, quartered aforetime in 
 her neighbourhood, could by no means recon- 
 cile herself to his outburst of heroism. She 
 hated the notion of a son of hers galloping 
 after the King's coach, or ^vasting his days 
 loun^inor out of a v.indow in Whitehall; and 
 Arthur, whose limited fortune was already im- 
 paired, saw that there was not the slightest 
 chance of the enlargement of his means by any 
 concession from his mother's liberality. She 
 purchased for herself a new set of bays on the 
 day of his presentation at Court ; but vouch- 
 safed not to add so much as a charger to his 
 outfit — bra^-ing the imputation of parsimony 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 35 
 
 for the satisfaction of marking her displea- 
 sure. 
 
 And now, after thwarting her in the choice 
 of a profession, this only son was about to 
 .thwart her in the choice of a wife ! He, to 
 whom she had so often expressed her disap- 
 proval of early marriages, was about to throw 
 liimself away on a girl without fortune, with- 
 out family— or rather, icith a family ! But 
 there was no use in discussing the subject : 
 Arthur had proposed, been accepted, and ad- 
 mitted his engagements to his mother. All 
 he had now to do was to sit in patient humi- 
 lity, and watch her working her deliberate way 
 through her breakfast, with a degree of gravity 
 becoming a Chancellor of the Exchequer in 
 the examination of his Treasury accounts ; 
 and then, back to London — back to Baker- 
 Street — back to Marian, Avith what appetite he 
 might ! 
 
 Poor Sophy, meanwhile, trembling with anx- 
 iety to learn the issue of his private conference 
 
36 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 with her mother, kept mistaking tea for coffee 
 and coffee for tea, in her presidency over the 
 duties of the table ; auguring ill from the ob- 
 stinate silence of Mrs. Armytage, yet dreading 
 to hear the sound of her voice. Scarcely a 
 word passed between them during the con- 
 tinuance of the meal. It was not till Simmons 
 and the newspapers arrived, and his mistress 
 received from his hand no fewer than five 
 letters, — all of w^hich, as Arthur rightly con- 
 jectured, bore reference, remote or proximate, 
 to his marriage, — that she rose in all the 
 rustling dignity of her gros-de- Naples, and in- 
 dignation, to quit the apartment. 
 
 '' I conclude you will immediately return to 
 London ?" said she to Capt. Armytage, as she 
 reached the door. '' As you are of age and 
 independent, I fancy my signature will be 
 needless in your marriage settlements. If I 
 am mistaken, let me hear from Messrs. Pennett 
 and Nibwell. Hardy wood is waiting for me in 
 the study, so that I shall not see you again be- 
 fore you quit the house. Good morning." 
 
FEMALE D0M1MATI0^. 37 
 
 • " Good morning, mother !" — answered her 
 son, in as pacific a voice as he could command ; 
 — but feeling deepl}^ — bitterly, — that the kind- 
 ness and watchfulness of four-and-twenty years 
 were already obliterated from his mind by the 
 display of such repellent reserve at so eventful 
 a moment of his existence. 
 
 Had it not been for the soothing influence of 
 his good and gentle sister, he might, perhaps, 
 have been tempted to indulge in expressions of 
 resentment, only more fatally injurious to his 
 future prospects. But Sophy implored him to 
 forbear; and who could resist the mild per- 
 suasive voice of Sophy Army tage ? 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Jack Falstaff with my familiars; John with my brothers 
 and sisters. 
 
 Shakspeaue. 
 
 In the present frame of European society, vir- 
 tue and vice are no longer '' ultimate facts ;^ 
 tliere are virtues and vices for every station 
 and degree. For an Honourable Jolin Percy, 
 for instance, to be called -' Jack Perc}^" im- 
 plies the currency of good fellowship in the 
 world of fashion ; but for a Mister Baltimore, 
 of Baker-street, to be called '' Jack Baltimore," 
 infers decided disorderliness of morals or 
 finances. Such a Jack must needs be a man 
 cunning in the odds, expert at billiards, ad- 
 dicted to punch, knowing in horseflesh, the 
 very Samuel Johnson of the slang dictionar}^ : 
 and unfortunately, the father of Arthur Ar- 
 mytage's Marian was commonly called " Jack " 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 39 
 
 — a Jack with a small and decreasing income, 
 and a large and increasing family ! 
 
 Mrs. Baltimore, though not in her turn called 
 Jill, was scarcely a more eligible connexion than 
 her husband. Well born, but endowed only 
 Avith a very pretty face, she had eloped in a 
 tandem, at sixteen ; expecting to live with her 
 dear Baltimore the same dressy, noisy, mail- 
 driving, racketing life, she had seen him living 
 at the watering-place where their ill-starred 
 acquaintance originated. But Jack, disap- 
 pointed in his notion of having married an 
 Irish heiress, wisely judged that bachelor plea- 
 sures are by no means calculated for conjugal 
 participation. He did not choose that there 
 should be a Mrs. Jack; and Mrs. Baltimore, 
 accordingl}', being totally deficient in the qua- 
 lifications which inspire a woman 
 
 ^' Well-order'd home man's best delight to make," 
 
 became a dawdle and a slattern. Finery she 
 could not renounce ; but poverty willed that it 
 should be faded and shabby finery;— and 
 
40l FEMALE DOxMlNATION. 
 
 ringlets and rouge combined with soiled satins 
 and rumpled linen, to endow her with an air, 
 the last a well-thinking woman would wittingly 
 incur. 
 
 Still, with all her offences to the eye, there 
 was something not wholly despicable in Mrs. 
 Baltimore. She was a doating mother to the 
 ten children, whose necessities encroached so 
 largely on her luxuries ; and much as she loved 
 a smart cap or showy gown, willingly resigmed 
 all, to afford a good tilbury and a fine horse to 
 her dear Jack, whom she alone, by the way, of 
 all the world, called Baltimore ! 
 
 The society of such a house, as may easily 
 be conjectured, w^as any thing but select. A 
 few young noblemen in their nonage were oc- 
 casionally to be seen at Jack Baltimore's, who, 
 on attaining their majority, were heard of there 
 no more; — but for the most part, the circle 
 was composed of '' coaching," smoking, fancy 
 sort of men, — each with his terrier or his bull 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 41 
 
 dog familiarly at his heels ; — each having his 
 good song, or his good story, appropriately his 
 own ; — each the best fellow in the world, and 
 each incessantly involved in squabbles with the 
 fellow-creatures his inferiors. Fortunately for 
 Mrs. Baltimore, strong conjugal and motherly 
 affections had preserved her in morals and re- 
 putation free from blemish, amidst such injuri- 
 ous associations; but they had not tended to 
 improve her manners or refine her mind. All 
 these best fellows in the world were heartily 
 welcome to her house. They evinced no 
 disgust towards her slipshod habits ; — were 
 ever ready to lend their sticks or Avhips to her 
 seven little boys, and to swear by George or 
 the Lord Harry, that her baby was the most 
 promising puppy of the kennel ! 
 
 We have described Mrs. Baltimore's better 
 yjropensities : her ruling foible was an ardent 
 aspiration after fashion. She knew that, as 
 the wife of a sporting man, and still more as 
 the mother of his large family, she could not pre- 
 
42 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 tend to much enjoyment of the pomps and 
 vanities of the world. Still, she could not 
 refrain from bending a wistful eye upon the 
 ball-describing details of the Morning Post, 
 or the flashy vis-a-vis that rolled along be- 
 neath her windows ; although without exactly 
 wishing that heaven had made her Baltimore 
 such another man as the yellow nabob whose 
 hoards were the origin of that gaudy hammer- 
 cloth; or of those banquets with their plateaux 
 of gold. It was, therefore, a great dehght to 
 her when her sister, Mrs. Dyke Robsey, who, 
 instead of marrying a Jack, had married a 
 Jacob, came to settle in a handsome house in 
 Portland Place, on occasion of her husband's 
 taking his seat in Parliament; for although 
 Jack Baltimore expressed an opinion that a 
 man who, with ten thousand a year drove 
 job horses, and had his carriages turned out 
 by a bargain-builder in the borough, " was not 
 worth his salt," Mrs. B. saw in her sisters 
 opera-box, equipages, and gorgeous establish- 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 43 
 
 ment, an endless source of pride and pleasure 
 to the family. 
 
 Let us do her justice ! — it was not of her- 
 self she thought, but of her pretty Marian 
 — her promising Marian, who w^as now leaving 
 the school at wliich it had cost her mother 
 so many personal sacrifices to place her ; 
 and as Mrs. Dyke Robsey was almost as 
 good-natured a woman as her more prolific 
 sister, it was soon settled among them that, 
 instead of taking possession of the attic 
 destined to her use in Baker-street, Miss 
 Baltimore, however humbly brought up by 
 her parents, should be '' brought out" by 
 her aunt with all the advantages derivable 
 from ostentatious, vulgar, bustling, fussy 
 wealth. Jack, who had sense enough to 
 feel that among his companions there was 
 no one he should like to see entano^le the 
 
 affections of his daughter, sanctioned Marian's 
 
 / 
 translation, with a half- grumbling adjuration 
 
 that "Much good might it do her!'' — and 
 
44 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 Mrs. Baltimore, when perusing in the morning 
 papers the name of " Mrs. Dyke Robsey, and 
 Miss Baltimore," in the list of the company 
 at the Opera, or at some charity-ball at 
 Willis's, felt herself amply repaid for the 
 sacrifice of her dear girl's aid in making frocks 
 for the children ; or her dear girl's company 
 throughout those long evenings, which the 
 " good fellowship" of Jack so often rendered 
 solitary. 
 
 Meanwhile, Mrs. Dyke Robsey was never 
 weary of asserting that Marian's beauty pro- 
 duced the greatest sensation, and that she 
 would certainly make a very brilliant match. 
 The first season, how^ever, passed away with- 
 out any such consummation ; for Marian was 
 generously permitted by her father to refuse 
 the offer of a man of some hundreds of thou- 
 sands ; a little old-fashioned Creole kinsman of 
 her uncle's, who wore nankin shorts, and 
 looked like some curious shrivelled reptile, 
 imported in spirits from the Caribbees. But 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 45 
 
 she was only nineteen ; and '^ Marian is sure 
 to make a good match!" was still often and 
 sanguinely repeated, — even in Marian's pre- 
 sence. 
 
 >S7i{?, at least, was unsolicitous on the subject. 
 The good match, so frequently predicted, was 
 chiefly an object of ambition, because she saw 
 that the hearts of her fond mother and hind 
 aunt were set upon her triumph ; while her 
 father had more than once assured her that, 
 were she to marry '' well,'' it might be the 
 making of her brothers and sisters. All that 
 might be included in that one word " well," 
 Marian could not at first determine. From 
 the moment she became acquainted with 
 Arthur Armytage, her notions of '' marrying 
 well" became fixed as fate. She now perfectly 
 understood the meaning of the term ! To marry 
 '' well" was to marry a captain in the Life- 
 guards, of ancient family, heir to a fine pro- 
 perty in Yorkshire ; — gay as herself, candid 
 as herself, and if less fortunate in the tender- 
 
46 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 heartedness of a mother. Miss Baltimore at 
 present knew nothing of the deficiency. — 
 From the first time he sought her as a part- 
 ner, — (and Marian had lain awahe tlie re- 
 mainder of the night, pondering over every 
 word addressed to her by the yomig soldier 
 in the course of the memorable quadrille) — 
 her fate was sealed. She felt that her future 
 happiness must depend on becoming the wife 
 of one who was at once so gentle and so 
 sprightly, so refined yet so un-fine ; and as 
 Arthur was equally prompt in pinning his 
 trust upon the purity of nature which, in spite 
 of two seasons in town and the chaperonage 
 of a Mrs. Dyke Robsej^ sent the blushes 
 so w^armly into his partner's cheek, whenever 
 he hazarded a compliment somewhat tenderer 
 than the routine of ball-room common-place 
 — she was not long kept in suspense. The 
 Robseys, fully appreciating the advantages of 
 such an alliance for their protegee, invited 
 him to Portland Place, gave him the best of 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 47 
 
 dinners^ and the elite of tlieir muscovado 
 " fashionables" as his fellow guests ; and 
 Arthur, still more and more enchanted by the 
 beautiful girl who was undisguisedly still more 
 and more enchanted by his homage, e\dnced 
 the most praiseworthy deference for the aunt 
 in her gold-tissue turban, and silver-tissue 
 gown ; no less than for the little diminutive, 
 wheezy Mr. Dyke Robsey, who, having been 
 wrapped in cotton during the first six months 
 of his life, had for the remaining sixty years 
 been swathed in furlongs of fleecy hosiery, to 
 render his attenuated frame tolerably equal 
 in volume to the average of the human race ; 
 and who with a " petit filet de voix,'" which 
 had never attained sufficient vigour to frighten 
 a canary-bird, had considered it a duty due 
 to his thousands a-year to buy his way int® 
 parliament. 
 
 Having constantly seen Miss Baltimore do- 
 miciliated with these weak but worthy people, 
 Arthur flattered himself she was an orphan. 
 
48 FEMALK DOMINATION. 
 
 He liked the thouglits of marr3dng an orphan, 
 — an orphan without brothers or sisters ; who 
 would have no one but himself to love, and 
 who loould love him so dearly ; who vrould find 
 a parent in his mother, and a sister in Sophy ; 
 and it was a great disappointment, on making 
 his proposal to the nineteenth part of a man 
 which called itself Jacob Dyke Robsey, Esq., 
 M.P., for the hand of his niece, to be referred 
 to Mr. and Mrs. Baltimore, of Baker-Street, 
 and to be introduced to the nine little Balti- 
 mores. Jack, in his single-breasted coat, — 
 Jack, so well known at Tattersall's, — Jack, with 
 a heavy book for the Derby, — Jack, who, with 
 a gripe of the hand and a slap upon the 
 shoulder, told him he was a devilish fine young 
 fellow, and heartily welcome to his daughter — 
 struck him with consternation ; for now, for the 
 first time, he reflected on the fastidiousness of 
 his mother ! The picture of proud, well-built, 
 well-ordered, airy Holywell, rose like an exha- 
 lation before his mind's eye, as he sat in the 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 49 
 
 littered drawing-room in Baker Street, full of 
 children and bird-cages ; with Mrs. Baltimore,, 
 attired in all her tawdry best, and excited by 
 the joy of the moment into a flightiness of 
 speech which he was not skilled to trace to its 
 true origin. Never did he so warmly wish 
 that his lovely Marian had been an orphan ! 
 
 It was on that day he wrote to his sister. It 
 was in the course of that evening that Jack, 
 who accounted a rattle in a well-horsed mail 
 or post-chaise among the recreations of life, 
 strongly advised his son-in-law elect to get the 
 start of rumour, and make the best of his way 
 to Holywell. Knowing Mrs. Armytage by 
 report only, as having warned off the hounds 
 from her estates, he settled it that she must 
 be a "queer one 3" and succeeded in starting 
 Arthur on the Great North Road, to smooth 
 down her queerness by telling his own story. 
 At one moment, he even talked of bearing his 
 future son-in-law company in the expedition ; 
 
 VOL. I. D 
 
5@ FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 but this, young Armytage was obliged to nega- 
 tive as hazardous to its success. 
 
 " I knew that girl would be the making of 
 the family, God bless her ! " cried Jack to his 
 wife, giving his hearty benediction to Marian 
 on her return to Portland Place, after the 
 departure of her lover. " I like the chap 
 she has picked up prodigiously. I went with 
 him to his stables, this afternoon ; and a cle- 
 verer thing than that bay pony of his I never 
 set eyes on." 
 
 "He seems very good-tempered," replied 
 Mrs. Baltimore. 
 
 - The pony ? " 
 
 *' No ! Captain Armytage. He has promised 
 to take Harry and Billy to the Opera, as soon 
 as he returns from Yorkshire.' 
 
 " Better take them to Astley's; there is some 
 sense in that ! I don't much hke what I hear 
 of the old mother. Tom Warley was hunting 
 down in that country last season, and he tells 
 me she is a devil of a Tartar ! " 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 51 
 
 ''I trust she won't be unkind to dear Marian. 
 There is no occasion for the young people to 
 live with her." 
 
 " The question is \vhat she will give 'em to 
 live on elsew^here. They can't do with less 
 than two thousand a-year. Armytage won't 
 hear of remaining in the army ; and as I've 
 been telling him since dinner, the best thing 
 he can do is to settle in a snug box, some- 
 where where the sporting's good and come-at- 
 able ; and with a good horse or tw^o in his 
 stable, a good bottle of wine in his cellar, 
 and a spare bed for a friend, he will be the 
 happiest fellow in the world ! And, then, when 
 the old lady drops, — there he is, plump into a 
 splendid property ! But, as I said to him to- 
 night, if they should happen to fall out in the 
 mean time, there will be no chance of the 
 estate falling in. Ha! ha! ha!" 
 
 " But why should they fall out ? " eagerly 
 inquired Mrs. Baltimore, more interested in 
 
 D 2 
 
52 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 her daughter's happiness than her husband's 
 jocularity. 
 
 " Oh ! I don't know ! If the dowager's so 
 stuck up as they say, she mayn't think it a 
 good match for her son." 
 
 '' A good match, indeed ! " 
 
 '' Why you see, my dear, IVe told this young 
 chap, as I've told 'em all, whoever marries Ma- 
 rian must take her in " 
 
 " Hush ! my dear Baltimore ! You do use 
 such expressions. But as the Captain is so 
 rich, he don't want fortune in a wife ; and as 
 to merit and cleverness, where will he find 
 Marian's equal? Such a daughter, — such a 
 sister ; and did you hear her sing the ' Light 
 Guitar,' this evening ? It was equal to Miss 
 Inverarity ! And then for family " 
 
 ''My father was one of the first clothiers 
 in Gloucestershire, and yovu-'s was an Irish 
 Baronet; I don't know what the old lady can 
 reasonably wish for more. And yet *" 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 53 
 
 "Well, well I " ejaculated Mrs. Baltimore, 
 puffing out the supernumerary lights which 
 had graced the drawing-room in honour of the 
 illustrious courtship in the family, "let the old 
 lady only see Marian, and there will be an end 
 of her opposition ! Moving in the first circles, 
 as the girl has been doing along with the Rob- 
 seys, it is hard if she is not lit company for the 
 widow of a Yorkshire 'squire." 
 
 " I would advise the widow of the Yorkshire 
 'squire to find her so,'' retorted the angry father, 
 " or I may perhaps be tempted to make her 
 better acquainted v/ith the name and nature of 
 Jack Baltimore." 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 I'll be thine, my fair. 
 Or not my mother's. To Ibis I am most constant, 
 Though destiny say, No ! — 
 
 Shakspeare. 
 
 Such were the expectations which it became 
 Arthur's ungracious office to undeceive, on his 
 return from Holywell. Of course he made 
 the best of his story, but it was a hard story 
 to make the best of. " His mother did not 
 interdict his marriage ; his mother entertained 
 no prejudice against the Baltimore family, for 
 she had never heard of them till on occasion 
 of his attachment. But she did not approve 
 of his marrying so young — she did not ap- 
 prove of his quitting the army — she would 
 do nothing to promote the match." 
 
 " Will give nothing, you mean?" interro- 
 gated Jaclc, coming to the point. 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 5^ 
 
 I fear not." 
 
 And you have of your own " 
 
 " Not five hundred a-year" (which, being 
 interpreted, meant little more than four) ; 
 *' but we might live very happily on five 
 hundred a-year," added Armytage, gaining 
 courage from the silence of the parents. 
 
 " We had not so much, when we settled in 
 life," sighed Mrs. Baltimore, arranging her 
 gilt bracelets. 
 
 " Times were different then; — and ice had 
 no situation in life to keep up." 
 
 •' There is no personal sacrifice I would not 
 make," observed Armytage, turning a deaf 
 ear to the latter explanation, *' in order to 
 secure Marian s comfort." 
 
 " And Marian is the least expensive crea- 
 ture in the world! — She never wants any- 
 thing," cried Mrs. Baltimore; forgetting that 
 her daughter s wants had been hitherto fore- 
 stalled by the liberality of the Robseys. 
 
 " Well, we must see about it ; there will be 
 
|B FEMALK DOMINATION. 
 
 no harm in waiting !" said Jack, not a little 
 damped in his ardour for the match by this 
 change of stakes. 
 
 *' Waiting ?"" interrupted Armytage, who 
 saw the utmost harm in leaving his precious 
 Marian in the society of her own family. 
 '' Pray do not talk of waiting !" 
 
 " I am sure a long engagement would break 
 poor Marian's heart," added the mother, with 
 perfect simplicity. — " She is such a nervous, 
 susceptible creature!" 
 
 " My mother cannot but come round," in- 
 terposed Arthur ; " I am an only son ; and 
 when once she knows that the marriage is 
 irremediable, she will do all that is right and 
 handsome.'' 
 
 " Old women are bo deuced obstinate !" 
 cried Jack ; " 'tis like pulling at a hard- 
 mouthed colt." 
 
 " If, therefore," resumed Arthur, colouring 
 deeply at the latter observation, so much at 
 variance with the reverence he was in the 
 
fl:male domination. 57 
 
 habit of testifying towards his mother — "if 
 you will but give your consent, the sooner we 
 are married the better. Time will bring all 
 things straight." 
 
 The axiom was one of established authority; 
 but before he ventured on a definitive answer. 
 Jack had two or three Toms, Dicks, and Bobs, 
 whom he chose to consult about marrying his 
 daughter, as he would have done about selling 
 his horse. But Tom, Dick, and Bob, remem- 
 bering how many fillies friend Jack had still 
 at grass, were strongly in favour of the alli- 
 ance. The Robseys were next referred to; and 
 Mrs. Dyke, who had set her heart upon giving 
 a " dejeuner a lafourchette,'' as the newspapers 
 politely call a luncheon, to the happy pair 
 at her splendid mansion in Portland Place, 
 would not hear of a postponement. Naj^ 
 finding the great lady of Holywell so remiss, 
 the Robseys even ventured on the presen- 
 tation of a hundred per annum to their 
 niece, which they would have scarcely thought 
 
 d3 
 
^ FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 worth offering, had Mrs Armytage done jus- 
 tice to her son: Mrs. Dyke Robsey super- 
 added the gift of a handsome set of topazes 
 to the bride, purchased on the very day of 
 Arthur's proposals ; while Mr. Dyke Robsey 
 promised a new carriage to the young couple, 
 a promise which tended to accelerate their 
 union, — for Jack immediately set off for Long- 
 acre, to give orders, and superintend the 
 buUding of a " capital charott." 
 
 In short the thing was to be ! — Arthur, 
 dreading to encounter the mess -raillery of 
 his brother officers, accepted the first terms 
 offered for his commission ; the proceeds of 
 which formed a handsome addition to his for- 
 tune ; and when, after a considerable expen- 
 diture of arithmetic, and fifty pounds-worth of 
 conference with the lawyers, it was ascertained 
 that Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Armytage would 
 begin the world with an income of six hun- 
 dred and twenty pounds a-year, Mrs. Balti- 
 more observed with a sigh, that so long as 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 59 
 
 tliey had no family, they might do wonderfully 
 well. 
 
 Arthur did not think it necessary to inform 
 them that it was his own fault the six did not 
 amount to eight ; that his excellent sister had 
 remitted a deed making over to him two 
 hundred a year of her own fortune ; with an 
 earnest assurance that, as all her wants and 
 wishes were amply provided for by her mother, 
 his acceptance would only prevent her from 
 becoming a hoarder. But Arthur knew, or 
 suspected, to what object his sister's hoardings 
 were dedicated ; and would as soon have 
 thought of robbing a church as of profiting by 
 her disinterestedness. Besides, he had still 
 full faith in his mother. He wrote to her 
 firmly, but respectfully, to announce the com- 
 pletion of the arrangements for his marriage. 
 He was too proud to implore her sanction, 
 fearing the prayer might be interpreted into 
 an appeal to her generosity; and as she re- 
 mained silent, and as Sophy gave him little 
 
m. 
 
 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 encouragement to hope for any immediate con- 
 cession in his favour, the ceremony was per- 
 formed ; Mr. and Mrs. Dyke Robsey's raised 
 pies and decorated hams were duly eaten and 
 commended, and the bride and bridegroom 
 despatched upon a tour to the continent. If 
 it had not been that Jack Baltimore (seeing 
 double from the effects of his brother-in-law's 
 Champagne, and leaning over the balcony to 
 ascertain what sort of a turn-out did honour 
 to the Acre and to his inventive genius) — pre- 
 dicted that the off-leader of the four posters 
 would prove a bolter, there was no fault to be 
 found with the weddins". 
 
 Meanwhile, Sophy Army t age's position was 
 far from being of an enviable nature. During 
 those six weeks of suspense, although her 
 mother knew her to be in almost daily com- 
 munication with Arthur, not a word was uttered 
 by Mrs. Armytage expressive of interest or 
 curiosity in his measures. From that unlucky 
 morning, when Sophia, unwisely following her 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 61 
 
 brother's directions, had kept secret the subject 
 of his momentous epistle, their mother had 
 scrupulously refrained from interference in their 
 correspondence. She had expressed her opi- 
 nion concerning his projected marriage, forcibly 
 and unreservedly. It had remained for him to 
 decide between following her advice, or his own 
 rash inclinations ; and the result had demon- 
 strated the extent of his filial duty and affec- 
 tion. Fifty times a day did Mrs. Armytage 
 remind herself that since his passion for Miss 
 Baltimore had obtained the ascendency, it was 
 not for a woman of her principles to sanction 
 so flagrant an example of family insubordina- 
 tion. 
 
 But much as she laboured to maintain her 
 ordinary aspect and demeanour, Sophy could 
 not but notice that her mother's feelings were 
 powerfully excited. Mrs. Armytage's fine 
 commanding countenance, indeed, remained 
 unruffled. She came and went as usual; — 
 busied herself with the affairs of the country 
 
62i FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 and the county, the parish, the farm, the house- 
 hold; — but there was irritabiUty in all her ges- 
 tures, restlessness in all her proceedings. She 
 accepted engagements in the neighbourhood, 
 gave dinners and received them ; — but Sophy 
 was grieved to observe the incoherence \Yhich 
 absence of mind tended to impart to her dis- 
 course, usually so luminous with sense and 
 meaning. People might now contradict her as 
 they pleased, — she had no spirit for argument. 
 Even when Mr. Wemmersley vented his covert 
 sneers upon the agricultural system adopted at 
 her pet farm, she bore his taunts, — she bore 
 his blunders ; — she suffered ignorance itself to 
 be a plummet over her 1 
 
 As a climax to Sophia's sorrows, she began 
 to fancy that her mother's health was giving 
 way under the susceptibility of her temper. 
 The countenance of Mrs. Armytage frequently 
 bore evidence at breakfast that she had not 
 closed her eyes through the night. She was at 
 once feverish and languid ; she who had never 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 63 
 
 inlier life experienced a head- ache, or consulted 
 a physician ! It is true, she still protested she 
 was well, — never better ; — and expressed such 
 vehement displeasure when Sophy hinted at 
 the propriety of consulting the apothecary, that 
 a stranger might have been deceived concern- 
 ing the extent of her ailments. But the eye of 
 an affectionate daughter is not so easily blinded. 
 Following the indications of her own noble and 
 womanly nature, Sophy fancied that her mother 
 might be repenting her severity, and that she 
 needed only a pretext for displa3dng milder 
 dispositions towards her son. But having 
 hazarded a few words expressive of Arthur's 
 uneasiness on her account, and the desire of all 
 their friends that a reconciliation might take 
 place, Mrs. Army t age replied with so much 
 sternness that " There could be no reconciKa- 
 tion where there had been no estrangement ; — 
 that she was not in the habit of exposing her 
 family affairs to the suffrage of her acquaint- 
 ance," and added in so decisive a tone — '' If you 
 
64 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 wish that things should go on well between us/ 
 Sophy, evince for the future your sense of 
 duty by refraining from all allusion to this 
 forbidden subject !" — that Miss Armytage ad- 
 mitted the impossibility of any further at- 
 tempt. 
 
 Sophy had the vexation, too, of suspecting 
 that every one was in combination against her 
 brother. The Holywell servants, for instance, 
 were of a class only to be met with in opulent 
 provincial families, v»'ho do not indulge in 
 yearly migration to London. — As much a part 
 of the house as the turret-clock of the offices, 
 — weatherworn in body and moss-grown in fa- 
 culties, like the very walls of the ancient man- 
 sion. Most of them were servitors of the 
 parents of Mrs. Armytage, — had seen her born 
 as well as her children ; and looked up to her 
 with a veneration somewhat similar to that 
 lavished by the Russian nation on their mother, 
 their beloved '' matouschka," Imperial Cathe- 
 rine. That a child of the house, a son, an heir. 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 65 
 
 should have ventured on such a step as mar- 
 riage, in direct contradiction to her will, ap- 
 peared to them flat blasphemy; and the old 
 deaf housekeeper, the old blind steward, the old 
 lame lady's maid, the old asthmatic cook, the 
 old drunken coachman, the old toothless house- 
 maid, protested, in unanimous chorus, against 
 his filial ingratitude! Master Arthur was 
 unpardonable; the steward's room passed an 
 unhesitating vote of censure upon his conduct ! 
 At that critical juncture, the business of the 
 stables, or, perhaps, business of his own de- 
 vising, took the drunken head coachman to 
 Doncaster; and who better known at Don- 
 caster than Jack Baltimore — and what more 
 urgent on the landlord of the Flying Childers, 
 himself an out-pensioned dependant of the 
 Holywell family, than to apostrophize John 
 Coachman with a Jeremiad over the decadence 
 of their master's house ? All that Jack had 
 ever done or left undone — all his dishonoured 
 bills— all his bets disputed— all that is inva- 
 
66- FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 riably said or insinuated against a man not 
 rich enough to buy the favour of the rabble — 
 not powerful enough to silence their slanders, 
 or virtuous enough to defy them — was said 
 and insinuated against Arthur's father-in-law ; 
 and the list of delinquencies strangely jumbled 
 together and fermented by the process of a 
 twenty miles' jog homewards after the absorp- 
 tion of little less than a gallon of strong Octo- 
 ber, produced a family portrait of a hero, within 
 a crime or two of deserving the canonization 
 of the Newgate Calendar ! 
 
 The sketch was soon unfolded by this 
 double- sighted youth of sixty-four to the 
 toothless housemaid, by the toothless house- 
 maid to the asthmatic cook, by the asthmatic 
 cook to the lame lady's maid, and by the lame 
 lady's maid to the deaf housekeeper ; who, by 
 virtue of her infirmity, was privileged to add 
 a few shades of turpitude to Jack Baltimore's 
 vices, ere she laid the sum total before the 
 recognition of the blind steward, the only 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 67 
 
 menial of the houseliold admitted to the ho- 
 nour of gossiping \^'ith his lady; for he was 
 the contemporary of 'Squire Maudsley. Old 
 Hardywood's grey hairs Avere sacred in her 
 eyes as the monument of her father; and 
 when, with tears rolling down his furrowed 
 cheeks, he confided to his beloved mistress 
 that the next Mrs. Armytage of Holywell 
 would have a scamp for her father, the pre- 
 sent Mrs. Armytage had not courage to silence 
 his lamentations. 
 
 " Hardywood can have no prejudices against 
 these Baltimores ; Hardywood has no filial 
 ingratitude to resent against your brother," 
 said she, when recapitulating to Sophia the 
 evidence of the old steward, " and he admits 
 that this fellow, by whom Arthur has been 
 taken in to marry his daughter, is little better 
 than a swindler !" 
 
 A still harder trial awaited her when she 
 went to pass a few days at Greta Castle, soon 
 after the newspaper announcement of the event 
 
68 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 ill her f*amil3\ Conscious of the former un- 
 gracious coldness of her demeanour towards 
 the Rotherhams, she could not help feeling, 
 as she drove along the avenue, that now was 
 their time to triumph over her — now that they 
 saw her defeated alike in the maintenance of 
 her parental authority, and her careful con- 
 servation of the purity of her family con- 
 nexions — now was the time for the house of 
 Greta to oppress her with the magnitude of 
 its superiorit3\ 
 
 But Mrs. Armytage reckoned vvithout her 
 host^ — without her hostess. Lord Rothcrham 
 met her, as was his courteous custom, at the 
 foot of the great staircase, and instead of affect- 
 ing lofty ignorance of what had been passing 
 at Holywell, or (in the style of Mr. Wem- 
 mersley) a magnanimous determination to see 
 the thing in its best light, he observed in a 
 low voice, as she leaned on his arm to ascend 
 the stairs, " Believe me, I am truly grieved 
 that so old a neighbour should have expe- 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 69 
 
 rienced the vexation I know you must have 
 been vmdergoing. Arthur has disappomted 
 us all. For now the business is over, I may 
 own to you, my dear Madam, without indeli- 
 cacy, that both Lady Rotherham and myself 
 had cherished a remote hope of his becoming 
 our son-in-law. Laura and your son had been 
 playfellows from children ; and — but it is use- 
 less now to talk of it!" he continued, pressing 
 her arm — when he saw that, for once in her life, 
 his stern neighbour was almost affected to 
 tears ; and Lady Rotherham, guessing what 
 had been their subject of conversation when 
 her husband and Mrs. Armytage approached, 
 added in a feeling voice, as she pressed her 
 hands to welcome her to the Castle — " It ought 
 not to have happened to you, who have been 
 so exemplary a mother ! " 
 
 What a lesson for Mrs. Armytage ; know- 
 ing, as she did, how harshly her jealous pride 
 had uttered an interdiction to Arthur, four 
 
70 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 years before, against the frequency of Ms visits 
 to Greta Castle ! Suspecting him to be at- 
 taching himself to Lady Laura, she dreaded 
 lest her aristocratic neighbours should for a 
 moment imagine her intent upon forming an 
 alliance with the family. '' I will not have you 
 continually inviting Lord Greta to Holywell; 
 he will imagine we are making up to him on 
 Sophy's account !" she had imperiously ob- 
 served to Arthur. " Nor can anything be 
 more unsatisfactory to me, than that you should 
 pass your life at the Castle, exposing us to 
 the degradation of letting people suppose you 
 intend to make your appearance in the county 
 under sanction of Lord Rotherham's patron- 
 age !" 
 
 Yet these Rotherhams were the very people 
 who, without the smallest drawback of affecta- 
 tion or selfishness, frankly came forward to 
 avow their disappointment that Arthur Army- 
 tage had not proposed to their rich and beau- 
 tiful daughter. 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 71 
 
 Sophy felt deeply for her mother. She saw 
 that the proud woman was immeasurably les- 
 sened in her own esteem by the superior gene- 
 rosity of the Rotherhams. They had proved 
 themselves nobler than herself. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Be it remembered that whoever envies another, confesses 
 
 his superiority ; and let those be reformed by their pride, who 
 
 have lust their virtue. 
 
 John SON. 
 
 "I NEVER saw ai"iy one look more completely 
 down in the month than poor Mrs. Armytage 
 at dinner to-day ! " said Wemmersley, of Mill 
 Hill, to his wife, as they were returning home 
 together on the night of Mrs. Armytage's visit 
 to Greta Castle. 
 
 Mrs. Wemmersley answered nothing. Being 
 one of the fastidious, she was grieved to hear a 
 husband of hers give utterance to such an ex- 
 pression as •' down in the mouth ! " He had no 
 right to indulge in such vxdgarisms, while she, 
 so elegantly attired, and so intimate a friend, of 
 the Duchess of Spalding, was sitting primly by 
 his side. 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. ^3 
 
 " After all, you see, our friend Mrs. Army- 
 tage's pretensions are beginning to find their 
 own level," he resumed. "Hitherto she has 
 evidently thought herself the first person in 
 this part of the country." 
 
 " The Duchess of Spalding declares slie 
 ■would as soon associate with a corporal of 
 dragoons ! " 
 
 " Electioneering pique ! The Duchess knows 
 the old lady wants Arthur to stand for Thoro • 
 ton, against Leicester Spalding. But really 
 the authority Mrs. Armytage has long aifected 
 to assume among us, w as growing unbearable. 
 Her pride has now received a check ; and we 
 shall have her on our own terms." 
 
 " I made it a point to inquire of Sophy this 
 evening, (when I knew she must overhear me,) 
 how her mother kept up her spirits through 
 this disagreeable affair ; and whether it would 
 be possible for them ever to visit such people 
 as the Baltimores ? But while she hesitated 
 what to answer. Lord Greta, whose convcrsa- 
 
 VOL. 1. E 
 
/4 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 tion with lier I had mterrupted, observed, 
 * Why not ? In this world, circumstances com- 
 pel one to be acquainted wdth such very odious 
 people ! ' Which certainly was treating the 
 connexions of the Armytages more cavalierly 
 than even I should have ventured." 
 
 "Are you quite sure the impertinence was 
 intended for them ? '' inquired Mrs. Wemmers- 
 ley, sensitively. " Greta is such a strange, dry 
 fellow, that I hardly know what to make of 
 him ! " 
 
 " Sophy Armytage evidently thought so, for 
 she gave him such a reproachful look !" 
 
 '' That does not re-assure me. Miss Sophia 
 affects magnanimity. And either that love- 
 affair between her and his friend Edgar Kains- 
 ford, or his own friendship for her brother, or 
 some other cause, which I suppose they under- 
 stand, has caused a prodigious intimacy be- 
 tween Lord Greta and the young lady." 
 
 "I am sure I don't wonder ; he is so charm- 
 ing, so conciliating, so considerate. He never 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 75 
 
 meets me without inquiring all sorts of parti- 
 culars concerning the progress of my green- 
 house." 
 
 " Yes ; that he may have the gratification 
 of hearing you play Mrs. Malaprop with the 
 botanical names." 
 
 " You put sucli strange misconstructions on 
 things. It vras only to-day, at dessert, he made 
 me give him the w^hole account of our tour in 
 Swdtzerlancl last autumn." 
 
 " Elinor, you had better take care of Lord 
 Greta. You are just the sort of person on 
 whom he would delight in playing off his 
 mystifications." 
 
 " What do you mean ? What sort of per- 
 son ? " 
 
 " Oh ! no matter ! He tried once or twice 
 with me, but found me too hard for him. To- 
 day, for instance, when I asked him ' what 
 news from town ? ' he pointed to the papers 
 lying on the table, and said he had not found 
 time to read the great letters ; to which I re- 
 
 E 2 
 
76 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 plied, that ' since I had discovered the great 
 letters to be written by the Treasury Secre- 
 taries, I never found time to read them at all.' 
 You may suppose that my young Lord Sec. 
 looked rather blue ! As if I intended to learn 
 from him the stale news to be found in the 
 public prints I " 
 
 " I see what you mean now ; but I defy liim 
 to make a fool of me, ' said Mrs. Wemmersley, 
 as the carriage stopped at the lodge-gates of 
 Mill Hill. •• I defy him." 
 
 " And so do 1/' muttered her husband, help- 
 ing her up the steps of the little portico ; and 
 at very little trouble to conceal his contempt 
 for his silly affected wife. ^- But at all events, 
 take my advice, and beware of Lord Greta and 
 his sister.'^ 
 
 This caution, however, was supei^uous. The 
 young people at Greta Castle only despised 
 Mrs. Wemmersley for the ignorance and inanity 
 which rendered her society so wearisome and 
 unprofitable ; it was only Wemmersley whom. 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 77 
 
 though clever and well-informed, they really 
 disliked. Wemmersley was a mean-minded 
 man. Envy was the gnawing- worm that ren- 
 dered his form so spare and his sovd so can- 
 kered. With a fortune of two thousand a-year, 
 good health, and good character, he might 
 have been pronounced without a care, without 
 a want. Yet he was miserable ; from mere 
 covetousness of the position or possessions of 
 every man of his acquaintance ! The two 
 friendships which he happened to form at 
 college, had proved the bane of his happiness 
 through life. His chum, Sir George Lumley, 
 having married a very pretty woman, Wem- 
 mersley, bent upon securing a prettier, had 
 united himself to a fool ; while his other crony, 
 Harry Vincent, having inherited a hunting- 
 box in Bedfordshire, Wemmersley, unable to 
 support the sight of his shrubberies and pad- 
 docks, had immediately purchased Mill Hill 
 to complete the measure of his misfortunes. 
 Mill Hill was doubtless intended as a place 
 
78" FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 of purgatory for an envious man. Fifty acres, 
 jammed in between the fine property of Mrs. 
 Armytage and the noble estates of the Earl 
 of Rotherham. Fifty acres, overlooked from 
 the lofty height of Greta Castle, and covered 
 in from public observation by the spreading 
 woods of Holywell. Mrs. Armytage's park- 
 wall ruined the view from its sloping lawn, 
 while an unsightly farm of Lord Eotherham's 
 disturbed the symmetry of its pleasure-grounds. 
 Wemmersley's pride was hurt at every turn ; 
 and the soreness of his selfishness constantly 
 rubbing against the superiority of his neigh- 
 bours, caused the unfortunate man to lead a 
 life of penance. Mill Hill, gay, pretty, ele- 
 gant — Mill Hill inflicted as severe mortifica- 
 tions on its ovrner as the humiliations of the 
 workhouse on some high-spirited pauper ! But 
 Wemmersley had one consolation in his woes : 
 either Lord Rotherham or Mrs. Armytage 
 would have given a large sum to have bought 
 him out. Mill Hill, an object of importance 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 79 
 
 to the estates of both, had been disposed of 
 without their knowledge, by a Thoroton attor- 
 ney of the name of Gumption, who owed them 
 an election grudge ; and Wemmersley was 
 chiefly induced to retain the property by his 
 secret certainty, that the proud proprietors of 
 Greta and Holywell never passed his gates 
 without longing to pull them down, and incor- 
 porate his well-woodecl paddock within their 
 own ring-fence ! Yes ! he was an object of 
 envy ! AVhat a consolation for one so much a 
 mart^T to that embittering passion ! 
 
 For it is by no means indispensable for an 
 envious person to appreciate the thing he 
 envies ; sufficient for him that it should be 
 coveted by others I The regard of Mrs. Ar- 
 mytage, accordingly, was desirable to Wem- 
 mersley, because he observed that the Rother- 
 hams and others of their common neighbours 
 were ambitious of her good graces ; nor could 
 he bear, on the other hand, to see a larger 
 portion of the courtesies of the Rotherhams 
 
80 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 dispensed to Mrs. Armytage than to himself. 
 He, accordingly, never omitted an occasion of 
 exciting the inflammable temper of the latter 
 against their neighbours at Greta Castle, or 
 neglected an opportunity of proving to Lord 
 and "Lady Rotherham, that Mrs. Armytage was 
 undeserving their esteem. 
 
 But there he was less successful ! Lord Ro- 
 therham's temper was as serene as his mind 
 was honourable. It was difficult to make him 
 see things in a distorted shape. Honouring 
 Mrs. Armytage as a valuable member of the 
 community, a conscientious steward of the gifts 
 of Providence, and, moreover, a staunch Whig 
 like himself, (for political opinions form, after 
 all, one of the strongest bonds of modern 
 amity,) he was not to be shaken in his friend- 
 ship by the insinuations of a tale-bearer. 
 Besides, his son Greta dearly loved Arthur 
 Armytage, and his daughter Laura, Sophia; 
 nay, he sometimes fancied that these reciprocal 
 attachments went further still : and that Lord 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. Si 
 
 Greta and Sophy, and Arthur and Lady Laura, 
 were hkely to cement a nearer alliance be- 
 tween the families. He desired nothing bet- 
 ter. To see his daughter settled at Holywell, 
 within half an hour's ride of her family, as the 
 wife of a plain, honourable and, (as he never 
 failed to add,) Whig country gentleman, would 
 have gratified every desire of his honest heart ; 
 and as to his son-in-law, although he could 
 have desired that Lord Greta's marriage might 
 have done somewhat more towards the exten- 
 sion of his family dignities, he had not a word 
 to urge against so pleasing and so highly- 
 principled a girl as the daughter of Mrs. Ar- 
 my tage of Holywell. 
 
 But whatever might be the views of the 
 Earl, those of the soft-eyed Sophia were of a 
 different nature. She had already disposed 
 of herself She was not engaged — had never 
 even received a proposal, (except from one 
 rash Cornet of Dragoons, who had invited her 
 to become his for ever and ever, as Cornets 
 
 E 3 
 
82 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 do^ after three days' acquaintance at Doncaster 
 Races^) and yet slie was as much disposed of 
 as if seriously betrothed. Edgar Eainsford, 
 her brother Arthur's chosen friend and vaca- 
 tion companion, too sensible to her merits to 
 disguise his passionate admiration, too poor to 
 venture on a tender of his hand to the daugh- 
 ter of Mrs. Armytage, was w^orking his way to 
 distinction, and through distinction to fortune, 
 encouraged by the hope of finding in Sophia's 
 preference his exceeding rich reward ; and 
 though not a word in admission of mutual 
 attachment had been uttered on either side, 
 each had perfect confidence in the constancy 
 of the other. With respect to Arthur's passion 
 for Lady Laura, time had already proved the 
 fallacy of Lord Rotherham's expectations. 
 
 "Your mother is looking very ill, Sophy," 
 said her ladyship to Miss Armytage, as they 
 stood together in the dressing-room of the 
 latter, waiting for the ladies' maids, on the 
 first night of the Armytages' visit to Greta 
 Castle. 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 87 
 
 " They are gone to the contment, I under- 
 stand ?" 
 
 '•' They are ;" replied Sophia, needing no 
 explicit interpretation of her friend's " they /" 
 — " Perhaps, under all the circumstances, the 
 best step Arthur could have taken. My 
 mother will be less in the way of hearing them 
 talked about; and by the time they return, 
 her displeasure may have subsided." 
 
 Lady Laura shook her head. " A poor 
 chance, in any case ! Well — we must hope for 
 the best; — that Mrs. Armytage may not prove 
 too implacable, or Mrs. Arthur too odious !'' 
 said she, bending forward to kiss the forehead 
 of her friend, as their attendants approached 
 the door. 
 
 " Good night," said Sophia in reply to her 
 salutation. " Oh ! my dearest Laura ! When 
 I reflect upon the prospects in w^iich I once 
 ventured to indulge on Arthur's account " 
 
 '' Not a word on that subject," interrupted 
 Lady Laura, hastily taking up her candle. " It 
 
88 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 is not his fault, if we were all sillier than lie 
 was ! But for Mr. Wemraersley's way of wish- 
 ing us joy on your brother's marriage, I should 
 have forgotten that. But, no matter !" said 
 she, checking herself, — '' Let us now go quietly 
 to bed, to sleep if we can ; without indulging 
 in dreams that may only tend to disturb our- 
 selves and our neighbours." 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Stand not amazed, here is no remedy! — 
 
 In love, the heavens themselves do guide the state; 
 
 Money buys lands, but wives are sold by fate. 
 
 Shakspeaue. 
 
 Meanwhile, Arthur Armytage and his bride, 
 hand clasped in hand^ were reclining in the 
 " capital charott" as it rolled smoothly along 
 the banks of the Rhine. '' Jack" woiild have 
 found much to commend in the patent axles ; 
 Sophia, in the scenery through which they were 
 passing ; Arthur and Marian admired nothing, 
 saw nothing, enjoyed nothing but 
 
 Their own hearts' most sweet society ! 
 
 Both were at a time of life when the positive 
 has so limited an influence, and the ideal so 
 wide a range, — when so little of the world is 
 
90 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 known and so much conjectured, — that, though 
 there was no end to their speculations, there 
 was a very speedy one to their reminiscences. 
 Neither of them seemed desirous of chnging to 
 the past. Their existence was now beginning ; 
 their future all brightness and hope. On 
 Marian's happiness, indeed, there was no draw" 
 back ; that of Arthur's did occasionally receive 
 some check, when a halt at Brussels, Frankfort, 
 or Stutgardt produced letters from England ; 
 for Sopliia's to himself afforded no prospect of 
 a reconciliation with his mother; while Marian's 
 communications from her family, in which she 
 insisted on his participating, w^ere of a nature 
 to transfix him with dismay. Such a family ! 
 If his mother had decided so resolutely against 
 them unknown, unheard, unseen, undreamt of, 
 what would be her abhorrence, when Jack Bal- 
 timore had hallooed for half an hour at her 
 elbow" ; or when she should have perused one 
 of the Cheltenham epistles of Mrs. Dyke 
 Robsey ! 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 91' 
 
 '' Your aunt seems very fond of gaiety, for 
 her time of life/' observed Armytage one da}-, 
 after listening to Marian's animated account 
 of a pic-nic at Hounslow, " with the officers," 
 which she had enjoyed the preceding season. 
 
 *' Is she not ? — my aunt cannot bear being 
 alone ; and Mr. Eobsey, you know, counts for 
 next to nothing. Besides, he is almost always 
 taken up with Parliament and that sort of 
 thing." 
 
 " I was not aware that he was at all active 
 in the House?" 
 
 '' In, I don't know ; but out, he is particularly 
 busy. Three or four members used to dine 
 with him three or four times a-week, and they 
 talked of nothing but Mis, and motions, and 
 divisions, and I can't tell what." 
 
 " Nor they neither, I suspect I — Is Mr. 
 Robsey with government ?" 
 
 '•' He has no place under government." 
 
 ^•' I know. — But does he vote with mi- 
 nisters ?'* 
 
92 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 " I have not the least idea with whom he 
 votes. But I know that he is constantly say- 
 ing ' I am all for Railroads and Radical Re- 
 form.* He repeats that sentence fifty times 
 a-day, let people be talking of what they 
 please, as if it were an answer to everything; 
 with his little wheezing voice and short dry 
 cough, ' I am all for Railroads and Radical 
 Reform/ you must have heard him say it a 
 thousand times !" 
 
 ' " There is so much difficulty in hearing 
 what he says, poor man ; — and I am afraid I 
 never paid much attention to his sayings or 
 doings." 
 
 " You are very ungrateful, then. My uncle 
 took a fancy to you at first sight. I recollect 
 his observing at breakfast, the morning after 
 you were first introduced to us, and my aunt 
 was telling him Avhat a fine property you 
 had in Yorkshire, ' Well, I hope, with all my 
 heart, it may benefit by some of the new 
 railroads.' " 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 93 
 
 A jealous pang shot through the heart of 
 Arthur ! How very early in his acquaintance 
 with Marian had his fine property in York- 
 shire been discussed ! How could he tell what 
 share it might have had in biassing her pre- 
 ference 1 
 
 ^^Mr. Dyke Robsey, then, is a Radical?" 
 said he, in a petulant voice. 
 
 '•' I do not exactly know, and I should 
 think it was not of much consequence, to him- 
 self or anybody else. Only I remember, that, 
 at Brighton, my aunt was always lamenting 
 he was something which prevented our being 
 asked to the Pavilion." 
 
 " What absurd nonsense !" 
 
 " Yes, very absurd ! — As she often said, 
 why should Mr. Robsey's politics affect her ? 
 — and certainly many of our acquaintance went 
 to the royal balls, who had not half so much 
 right as my aunt, with all her fine diamonds, 
 — and'she a Baronet's daughter." 
 
 Arthur smiled at the simplicity of his wife. 
 
94 FEMALE DOMINATJON. 
 
 There is a period of married life when the 
 simphcity of a wife is peculiarly attractive. 
 
 *' By-the-way," said he, " the O'Moran 
 Baronetcy is extinct, I fancy? Had your 
 grandfather Sir Emilius O'Moran more daugh- 
 ters than your mother and Mrs. Robsey ?" 
 
 " Oh ! there is my imcle Dominick, who lives 
 always in Ireland ; — agent, you know, to Lord 
 Ballina, — and then there is my poor uncle 
 Bob, and poor Sir Marcus." 
 
 *' What uncle Bob ? — what poor Sir Mar- 
 cus ?" 
 
 " Mamma and my aunt never talk of them 
 if they can help it. My uncle Bob has been 
 in the Limerick Lunatic Asylum these twenty 
 years; and Sir Marcus, you know, has been 
 obliged to reside in America ever since the 
 Rebellion." 
 
 ^^ Is it possible?" 
 
 " My aunt has been very kind to him ; Mr. 
 Robsey settled an annuity on Sir Marcus 
 Vvhen he married." 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 95 
 
 " How very strange that no one should 
 have mentioned their names to me ?" 
 
 *' Not at all. Mamma and aunt are natu- 
 rally anxious to have them forgotten, for my 
 uncle Dominick's sake ; because, perhaps, he 
 might lose his situation, if the history of his 
 family came to Lord Ballina's knowledge." 
 
 " I will answer for it,"' mused poor Arthur 
 in secret, as he threw himself back in the car- 
 riage in no very en\dable mood of mind, '' that 
 by this time Wemmersley has managed to ferret 
 out the vvhole O'Moran pedigree and to carry 
 it to Holywell. And my mother, who will not 
 even take an Irish servant into her house !" 
 
 Another time, when Marian in high spirits 
 had been recounting anecdotes of her gay 
 winter at Brighton, her brilliant season in 
 town, Armytage had the vexation to perceive 
 that her circle of acquaintance was of the class 
 most disagreeable even to himself. During 
 the period of his courtship, the coterie in Port- 
 land Place had been comparatively small, and 
 
96 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 comparatively select ; and either he had not 
 perceived, or had not cared of what material it 
 might be composed. He had, of course, never 
 expected to find the best society frequent 
 such a house as the Robseys. But he was 
 now mortified in the discovery that, as in most 
 instances where great wealth is allied to great 
 want of tact, Mrs. Dyke's good-nature had 
 been imposed upon to accept the acquaintance 
 of every tiger in town ; and that, in addition 
 to these tinsel stars, she had been induced, 
 by her unlucky appetite for finery and the 
 fine, to compromise with the want of respec- 
 tability of a certain number of persons of high 
 birth, who affect to secede from the society of 
 people of their own caste, from which they 
 have been, in fact, ejected as unworthy. Poor 
 Marian's Lords and Ladies were all of very 
 questionable notoriety. 
 
 Deeply hurt by the facts thus successively, 
 and as it were, accidentally, brought to his 
 knowledge, Arthur began to get somewhat 
 
FEMALK DOMINATION. 97 
 
 uneasy on the score of the former associations 
 of his wife. Trusting that he now knew the 
 worst, he wished to know no more — to hear no 
 more. He checked her by a sudden change 
 of subject whenever she recurred to home, 
 and directed her attention with eagerness to- 
 wards new scenes and new objects, in hopes 
 of storing her mind with new ideas ere she 
 encountered the ordeal of an introduction to 
 his mother. 
 
 And the pretty little bride was easily in- 
 fluenced. The moment Arthur expressed a 
 desire that she would improve herself in 
 French, and join with him in the study of 
 German, she applied herself in right earnest ; 
 and soon, if the truth must be told, outstepped 
 the progress of her fellow-student. There was 
 one point meanwhile, on which she needed no 
 encouragement to application. Mrs. Arthur 
 Armytage was, not by nature, but by art — 
 strictly by art— a brilliant musician. Very few 
 
 VOL. 1. F 
 
98 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 professional performers exceeded her in execu- 
 tion on the piano ; and though Arthur would 
 have been content to lay Herz and Hummel 
 and their works at the bottom of the Rhine or 
 the Red Sea, he felt it his duty to commend a 
 proficiency which must have cost his wife so 
 much time and diligence to acquire. He only 
 wished in his heart that her performance had 
 not so much resembled the gabbling of a 
 parrot. He admitted to himself, that the more 
 Marian's temper and disposition developed 
 themselves to his acquaintance, the more he 
 saw in her that was honest and endearing ; but 
 he also admitted, that it was scarcely possible 
 for him to have selected a wife whose tastes 
 were less congenial mth his own, or whose 
 connexions wese less eligible. He thought it 
 strange that all this had never struck him pre- 
 vious to his marriage ; but nothing now re- 
 mained but to make the best of it. He would 
 turn to the bright side of things ! Luckily, a 
 bright side existed. Marian was the most docile 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. '99 
 
 well as the as prettiest creature in the world : 
 she needed only a little training ; and no one 
 could be trained more easily. 
 
 Under such circumstances, nothing could be 
 more reasonable than Arthur's determination to 
 pass the winter abroad, previously to soliciting 
 the notice of his mother for his wife, and set- 
 tling for life in his own country. Paris would 
 be a very agreeable sejour for both of them : 
 Marian might have as much music as she 
 pleased, and mix in society both pleasant and 
 profitable, mthout hurting his pride by con- 
 tact with her own family and connexions ; and 
 as to himself, "he knew lots of fellows in Paris ; 
 he could easily get into the Ckib ; he should 
 make it out very well." 
 
 In Paris, therefore, they established them- 
 selves, and in a handsome style. By the pru- 
 dent forecast of guardians and solicitors, there 
 is usually a loose sum of money left tangible 
 when two young people marry, under the name 
 
 F 2 
 
100 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 of outfit, which enables them to acquire, during 
 their first year of independence, habits of ex- 
 penditure they can never afterwards lay aside ; 
 and accordingly, the money predestined to 
 procure tables and chairs, plate and linen, for 
 the box in the sporting country, with a good 
 bottle of wine in its cellar, a good horse in its 
 stable, and a spare bed for a friend, (or a 
 father-in-law,) was fated gradually to melt 
 away in Opera-boxes, finery, and the most pro- 
 fitless of unprofitable hospitality. 
 
 Still, Arthur fancied he was gaining time. 
 His kind sister, unwilling to distress him b}- 
 acknowledging the implacable spirit still main- 
 tained against him by her mother, constantly 
 wrote that, she trusted '' a few more months 
 would effect the re-iniion of the family ;" and 
 aware that, as the winds blow where they list, 
 Mrs. Armytage resented or relented at her 
 own good time and pleasure, he waited — waited 
 patiently. His Club was a pleasant Club — 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 101 
 
 his wife an affectionate wife — his life agree- 
 able — his prospects not hopeless. There 
 conld be no occasion for him to humble 
 himself to the dust at the feet of Mrs. Ar- 
 my tage. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 The gentleman is learn' d — a most rare speaker — 
 To tutors none more bound ; his training such, 
 That he may furnish and instruct great teachers. 
 
 Shakspeare. 
 
 At Holywell, meanwhile — sober, steady, so- 
 lemn, oak-sliaded Holywell — all proceeded 
 with as much regularity as though its economy 
 were part of the system of the universe. Old 
 Hardywood received the rents for his lady, and 
 Simmons his orders from her ; and the new 
 park-wall between the west lodge and Wood- 
 in's farm (commenced for the purpose of 
 giving employment on the estate) was slowly 
 proceeding ; the drainage of Maudsley Moor 
 begun, and the planting of an adjoining heath 
 prepared for. All the activity usually visible 
 on the vast property of a wealthy and wise 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 103 
 
 proprietor, was perceptible in the occupations 
 of Mrs. Armytage. It seemed almost sacri- 
 lege to Sophia, that things could go on so well 
 while Arthur was wandering on the Continent 
 and at variance with her mother. 
 
 "Do not make yourself uneasy, my deai 
 young lady," had been Dr. Grant's consolatory 
 admonition. " Your mother has resisted ex- 
 postulation, has resisted persuasion; her en- 
 lightenment must be the work of Providence ! 
 and, believe me, the greater her harshness, the 
 more flagrant her injustice, the warmer will be 
 her return towards her son. Let her exhaust 
 her indignation. Mrs. Armytage will end by 
 growing angrier Avith herself than with him."" 
 
 But Sophy's anxieties soon acquired a new 
 stimulus. By the elevation of one of its sit- 
 ting members to the peerage, a vacancy having 
 occurred in the representation of the borough 
 of Thoroton, Mrs. Armytage sent off an ex- 
 press for the eldest son of her cousin. Sir John 
 Maudsley, of Maudsley Hall, and estabhshed 
 
104 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 his head-quarters at Holywell for the canvass. 
 
 
 parliamentary projects in favour of her son ! 
 Now Reginald Maudsley was a person on 
 many accounts most objectionable to poor 
 Sophia. Mrs. Armytage, strongly attached to 
 her own family and its interests, and regard- 
 ing Sir John Maudsley as head of the house, 
 and heir- presumptive to Holywell, in case of 
 failure of her own issue, entertained a high 
 regard for him and all his generation ; more 
 especially for Reginald, a 3^oung gentleman 
 brought up on the high-pressure-of-intellect 
 system, to know more than the rest of the 
 world, and to despise it in proportion. Be- 
 tutored from his cradle, the little great man, 
 the embryo Newton, the incipient Lord Chat- 
 ham, was the most pragmatical of pretenders ; 
 dwarfed in his moral nature by the excessive 
 interference of art. But his kinswoman at 
 Holywell saw no faults in him. The regu- 
 larity of his conduct at college had been no 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 105 
 
 less edifying than that of poor Arthur Army- 
 tage was indiscreet ; and when, during their 
 hoUdays and vacations, Eeginald Maudsley 
 joined their parties at Holywell, he was in- 
 variably held up to his young cousins as an 
 object for emulation and admiration; from 
 which it naturally followed that Arthur could 
 not endure the sight of his cousin. He called 
 him a prig, — ^lie thought him a hypocrite, — he 
 detested his ostentatious habits of study and 
 moderation. In process of time, Sophy began 
 to dislike him too; for her brother's lively 
 friend, Edgar Rainsford, suspecting, and per- 
 haps with reason, that Mrs. Armytage enter- 
 tained a project of uniting her daughter with 
 the representative of the elder branch of her 
 family, spared no occasion of showing up the 
 shallow egotism of young Maudsley. 
 
 And this was the man who, now that Arthur 
 was banished from Holywell, and his friend 
 Rainsford an absentee from its threshold, was 
 about to be established by her mother's fire- 
 
 f3 
 
106 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 side, as the rival of her son, and the opponent 
 of Lord Leicester Spalding ! 
 
 '' I wish you had seen Spalding''s face this 
 morning, my dear Miss Armytage," said Lord 
 Greta, having accompanied his sister one morn- 
 ing on a visit to Holywell. " As Laura and I 
 rode hither, we met him with his electioneering 
 cavalcade ; and when I told him your mother 
 had just driven into Thoroton with her tri- 
 umphal coach and four, and Maudsley, like a 
 man in buckram, by her side, conning a speech 
 with four quotations from Horace, and three 
 from Juvenal, my sister was obliged to throw 
 him her salts-bottle, to save him from faint- 
 ing." 
 
 '' As if your sister carried one ! " exclaimed 
 Lady Laura with indignation. " Allow her to 
 leave such fine-ladyisms to Mrs. Wemmersley 
 and the Duchess of Spalding." 
 
 "Or Leicester, himself; pray dont forget 
 Lord Leicester — Leicester is the finest lady in 
 the Riding — writes silken verses in the silken 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. ^07 
 
 Book of Beauty — and washes his poodle in 
 milk of roses. I quite enjoy the thoughts 
 of Leicester Spalding matched against that 
 polyglot edition of Erasmus, your cousin 
 Reginald ! " 
 
 " Don't abuse Mr. Maudsley to Sophia," 
 observed Lady Laura. "The Wemmersleys 
 assured me yesterday that she is engaged to 
 her cousin ; Mrs. Armytage having disinhe- 
 rited Arthur, and entailed her whole property 
 upon the son and heir of Sir John." 
 
 " Under such circumstances, mamma would 
 scarcely choose the Wemmersleys as her con- 
 fidants," said Sophy, scarcely knowing what to 
 answer. 
 
 ''Do you imagine," inquired Lord Greta, 
 colouring highly on observing how small a 
 portion of the report Miss Armytage thought 
 proper to disavow, " that Wemmersley waits to 
 be chosen as confidant ? No, no ! Wemmersley 
 knows of every change of ministry before the 
 King ; of every vacant mitre before the Arch- 
 
103 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 bishop of Canterbury ; of every decision in 
 chancery before the mace and seals ! He is 
 quicker in his intelligence than courier or 
 king's messenger : nay, when mischief is in the 
 wind, the very telegraph is a snail to him. I 
 should not be much surprised if Wemmersley 
 had already drawn out a draught of the mar- 
 riage-settlements between the future member 
 for Thoroton and Miss Sophia Armytage." 
 
 " I should be much surprised to hear of Miss 
 Sophia Armytage signing them/' interrupted 
 Lady Laura, perceiving from her brother's 
 volubility that Wemmersley 's report had ex- 
 cited his uneasiness. 
 
 " If you saw the Wemmersleys yesterday,'' 
 interrupted Sophia, " perhaps you can inform 
 me whether their relation, Mr. Lomax, has 
 made his appearance at Mill Hill ? ]\Iy cousin 
 Reginald is anxious for his arrival. I believe 
 they have been in correspondence for some 
 months past concerning the state of prison- 
 discipline in the United States." 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 109 
 
 "'Do you mean a long-limbed man, who 
 Avears an immense muslin neckcloth ; speaks in 
 aphorisms ; maintains a perpetual single com- 
 bat with what he calls the aristocratic usurpa- 
 tion ; and cannot so much as take a pinch of 
 snufF without connecting the measure with 
 some precept of political economy ? " 
 
 " I never saw Mr. Lomax." 
 
 " There, Laura ! I told 3'ou that bore of a 
 man at Wemmersley's left hand yesterday was 
 a rich relation. I was certain no one less co- 
 gently qualified would presume to be so dis- 
 agreeable." 
 
 "Disagreeable? / thought him the plca- 
 santest person I had ever met at Mill Hill ; so 
 original ; so sturdily Yankee ; so undisguised 
 in his wonder at Lord Leicester Spaldings 
 languid impertinence; so different from the 
 old-world people, who are careful never to seem 
 astonished ! But tell me, Sophia, what docs your 
 mother say to Lord Leicester taking up his 
 
110 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 quarters at Mill Hill during the election ? Is 
 she not indignant against the Wemmersleys ?" 
 
 '' Not in the least. They are people whose 
 offences she overlooks with the greatest indif- 
 ference ; as if too small to excite her anger. 
 ^Vllen there was a report that Lord Kotherjiam 
 had taken Lord Leicester Spalding by the 
 hand, then she was indeed angry ! If your 
 father had backed him against my cousin 
 Maudsley, I think mamma would have risked 
 half her fortune to secure Reginald's elec- 
 tion." 
 
 " Reginald /" — thought Lord Greta ; but he 
 said nothing, though Lady Laura directed a 
 significant glance towards him. 
 
 " What news from your brother ?" was his 
 well- imagined mode of changing the conver- 
 sation. 
 
 " None that I consider very satisfactory. 
 Arthur and his wife appear to be entering 
 eagerly into the dissipation of Paris, which is 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION, 111 
 
 the last thing likely to be satisfactory to my 
 mother." 
 
 "Wemmersley assures me he has taken to 
 playing desperately. I never thought Arthur 
 fond of play?" said Lord Greta. 
 
 " I never heard of his touching a card !" 
 exclaimed Sophia. " Play 9 No. I am quite 
 certain he is not addicted to play. And 
 yet," continued she, checking herself, " how 
 can I be certain of anything about him now, 
 under the influence of a person with whom I 
 am not even acquainted !" 
 
 She had no time to inquire further. The 
 Holywell carriage with its utmost complement 
 of postilions and outriders, covered with the 
 ribbons of the "Maudsley for ever" party, 
 drove rapidly past the windows ; and the mo- 
 ment her mother and cousin entered the room, 
 Sophy saw by the countenances of both that 
 something was wrong. 
 
 '^ The head- ache which prevented your ac- 
 companying us to Thoroton does not appear 
 
112 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 to have been very troublesome," said Mrs. 
 Armytage, addressing Sophia in an angry 
 voice, after she had gone through the usual 
 greetings to her young visitors. 
 
 " Pray, my dear madam, do not attribute 
 our presence here either to Miss Armytage's 
 convalescence, or her generosity !" hastily in- 
 terrupted Lord Greta. " We were under the 
 necessity of personally assaulting old Simmons 
 in order to obtain admittance, and of assuring 
 him that his pretext that ' Miss Sophia was 
 lying down' was in every sense a lying one. 
 The pun of course was Laura's, although she 
 affects to look so scandalized !" — he continued, 
 not a little amused to perceive how much his 
 harum-scarum mode of drawing off the enemy 
 from Sophia provoked the lofty contempt of 
 Mr. Candidate Maudsley. 
 
 " To own the truth," he added, — resolved to 
 convert the scorn of Reginald into fury, — "I w^as 
 chiefly anxious to lake the entrenchments of 
 Holywell by storm, in order to secure Miss 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 113 
 
 Armytage's hand for the first dance of the ball 
 which I conclude Ave shall have at Thoroton in 
 honour of Mr. Maudsley's return." 
 
 " But at v.'hich, as a matter of course, Sophia 
 would hold herself engaged to her cousin/' 
 said Mrs. Armytage haughtily. 
 
 " Pardon me ! — the prize is mine by all the 
 rules of chivalry and Beau Nash /" cried Lord 
 Greta, with a glance that defied Sophia to con- 
 tradict his assertion. " Priority of demand, 
 priority of assent^, pre-engagement ! Besides, 
 Miss Armytage was probably as well aware as 
 myself, that Mr. Maudsley, the new member, 
 and Mr. Mandsley, her cousin, are one, but not 
 the same. The successful candidate will, of 
 course, belong to Miss Dip, the daughter of 
 the Mayor, or Miss Gumption, the sister of his 
 attorney, or Miss Eitherside, the cousin of the 
 returning officer. A popular member forgets 
 all kindred and its claims, and during Mr. 
 Mandsley's election week, the majesty of H0I3'- 
 
114 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 well must defer to the majesty of the Blue 
 Boar." 
 
 Sophia, dreading an explosion of the ^\Tath 
 which she saw lowering in her mother's coun- 
 tenance, now attempted to conciliate Mrs. Ar- 
 my tage by interesting herself in the result of 
 their canvass. She could not have chosen a 
 more unlucky topic ! By the intrigues of the 
 same attorney who had contrived to sell MiU 
 Hill to Mr. Wemmersley, Arthur Armytage 
 had been actually put in nomination for Thoro- 
 ton ! The strife between mother and son 
 must now become apparent to the whole 
 county ! A poll had been demanded ; and 
 Maudsley ... 2 
 Spalding ... 34 
 
 Armytage . . . 109 
 was already officially registered ! 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the 
 staple of his argument. I abhor such fanatical phantasms, 
 such point-device companions, such rackers of orthography ! 
 
 Shakspeare. 
 
 '' I AM free to admit that I cannot altogether 
 reconcile to myself the discordant phases of 
 your social and political phenomena !" observed 
 Mr. Leonidas Lomax, the uncle from Carolina, 
 as he sat sipping a cup of weak tea that even- 
 ing at Mill Hill, with his pocket-handkerchief, 
 a " stout cotton article," protectingly outspread 
 over his nether habihments, while he senti- 
 mentally '' colloquized" with his kinsman Wera- 
 mersley. " You inform me. Sir, that under the 
 operation of the Reform Bill, Thoroton has 
 become a free and independent borough; and 
 
116 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 the inhabitants, I perceive, arrogate to them- 
 selves the privileges of independence, by hold- 
 ing meetings of a political tendency ; by drink- 
 ing Radical toasts, and venting free opinions 
 upon the very parliament which has endowed 
 them with a political existence." 
 
 " Nothing very new in popular ingratitude," 
 replied Wemmersley, annoyed to perceive that 
 his silly wife's wise uncle had set in for a 
 prose. 
 
 " Nothing ! admitted ! fully admitted, m}^ 
 dear Sir. But that which is very new to me, 
 and at present very incomprehensible, is that 
 the individuals in question, born in a class of 
 life which entitles us to believe them edu- 
 cated, and if educated, enlightened, express 
 week after week, month after month, year 
 after year, their dissatisfaction at the insup- 
 portable heaviness of taxation, the overwean- 
 ing influence of the aristocracy, the corrup- 
 subserviency of the press, the un- apostolic 
 avidity of the clergy, the supine inactivity of 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 117 
 
 government ; yet the moment a lad in a showy 
 coat, with white kid gloves, a full pocket, an 
 empty head, such as the fribble who quitted 
 Mill Hill this morning, stands half-laughing 
 in their faces, half-holding his nose, to demand 
 their sweet voices in favour of his return as 
 their representative to parliament, — heigh I 
 presto ! they are ready to toss up their caps in 
 liis honour, and to cry ' Spalding for ever !' — 
 Twenty thousand souls ! — men with beards 
 upon their faces, and accountable to posterity 
 for the conservation of their rights and char- 
 ters, to invest their civic authority in the per 
 son of a gristle-boned, vellum-skinned, flute- 
 voiced automaton ; whose business in life is 
 to gild over the iron buttresses of despotism, 
 which uphold the brazen statue of that Mo- 
 loch, the English Oligarchy; and all, if I 
 rightly interpret the information of my dear 
 niece. Mistress Wemmersley, because the 
 Duchess, his mother, purchases a few ells of 
 fustian for her charity-school, and a few deal- 
 
118 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 tables for her laundry, of tlie retail- traders of 
 the borough! Such conduct is irreconcile- 
 able with the impulses of rational man !*" 
 
 " The Duke of Spalding has the finest pro- 
 perty in this part of the country," said Wem- 
 mersley, as hastily as he dared. "It is but 
 natural that the people of Thoroton should 
 consult his wishes concerning its parliamentary 
 representation; or that he should prefer a 
 member of his own family, as most devoted to 
 the care of its interest." 
 
 " To the care of his interests, you mean. 
 To his interests, I can well understand this 
 young gentleman, whom I can scarcely call a 
 man, to be thoroughly devoted. I am yet to 
 learn by what process his unstudious ignorance 
 is to be enlightened ; or by what art his pre- 
 sumptuous frivolity is to be rendered sedative." 
 
 " We will leave it to the electors of Thoro- 
 ton to determine," said Wemmersley, not ven- 
 turing to contradict the rich relation w^hom 
 he could not hope to convince. 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 119 
 
 " Each of whom mil leave it to the other/' 
 resumed Leonidas ; '' and between the stu- 
 pidity of some and the venality of the rest, 
 your borough w^ill be compromised in the eyes 
 of the country, and contribute its mite to the 
 gradual deterioration of the British character 
 and the retardation of the march of federal- 
 ism. 
 
 " Oh ! my dear Sir," cried Mrs. W., snatch- 
 ing at the word character, " indeed, you go 
 too far ; Lord Leicester Spalding is a young 
 man of the highest honour ; and you know it 
 is sometliing to be represented by a gentle - 
 man." 
 
 ''My notions of the word cjentleman, and 
 yours, are somewhat at variance, my dear 
 lady. Integrity, for instance, enters indis- 
 pensably into my list of the characteristics of a 
 gentleman ; yet, if I rightly understood your 
 friend the young lord, yesterday, in the narra- 
 tive of his proceedings at the last Newmarket 
 meeting " 
 
120 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 " Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?" 
 cried Wemmersley. " The boastmgs of a 
 vapourmg boy like Spalding are not to be 
 measured by rule and compass. Besides, he 
 saw your amazement, noted the solemnity of 
 your commentary, and instantly set about mys- 
 tifying you by a thousand exaggerations." 
 
 " ' You gentlemen of England, who live at 
 home at ease,' seem to derive wonderful plea- 
 sure in insulting more laborious persons, and 
 in misleading seekers after information," con- 
 tinued Lomax, in the same didactic tone. 
 '-' Since my arrival in the mother-country, 
 whenever I have raised objections to the 
 flightiness of this person's conversation, I am 
 assured that he is quizzing me ; or expressed 
 misgivings respecting that -pei'sorCs veracity" — 
 
 " Scarcely a safe subject on which to express 
 mistrust," interrupted Wemmersle}^ enter- 
 taining a shrewd suspicion that his Yankee 
 kinsman alluded indirectly to himself. " To 
 return, however, to Lord Leicester Spalding. 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 121 
 
 *• Pray set your heart at ease respecting his 
 parliamentary dignities — for, by the dextrous 
 manoeuvres of one of the most blackguard 
 attorneys in existence, both the Spalding and 
 Maudsley parties are defeated, and Arthur 
 Armytage placed at the head of the poll I'"* 
 
 " Arthur Armytage ? — Any relation to that 
 handsome Semiramis-looking woman who 
 called here the other day ?''' 
 " Her son, — her only son." 
 " A young man ?" 
 " Three-and-twenty." 
 
 '' And freely elected ! — Well, she has now 
 just cause for her pride ; for proud enough she 
 is, or I am considerably mistaken. I could 
 plainly discern that she despised your house, 
 and everything, and every one within it !" 
 
 " Without losing time by proving you mis- 
 taken in your last assertion, permit me to 
 set you right concerning your first. Nothing 
 could have been more galling to the pride 
 VOL. r. G 
 
122 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 of Mrs. Armytage, than tlie election of her 
 son." 
 
 " More quizzing, I calculate/' said Lomax 
 with a grim smile. 
 
 " Mere matter of fact, I assure you. She 
 was the means of bringing forward Mr. 
 Maudsley, and will resent any injury offered 
 to him as offered to herself. I should not be 
 surprised if this electioneering manoeuvre of 
 Gvnnption's were to be the means of perpe- 
 tuating the dissensions between Mrs. Army- 
 tage and her son." 
 
 ' hey are on bad terms, then ?" 
 
 " So we have reason to conclude. But all 
 we know in the neighbourhood of Mrs. Army- 
 tage''s private affairs is known but by infer- 
 ence. She never unbends, never unfolds !" 
 
 " And what motive does inference lead you 
 to adduce for the ill-will subsisting between 
 your arrogant neighbour, and her son and 
 heir ? It cannot be the same natural pride. 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 123 
 
 my dear Sir, which causes her, for instance, 
 to look down upon yourself? The lineage 
 of which she boasts, is his also; the posses- 
 sions in which she glories, will one day be his 
 own." 
 
 " Ca depend ! depend /" interrupted Wem- 
 mersley, with a fastidious smile. 
 
 '' I beg your pardon ?" 
 
 " I meant to say that must depend on cir- 
 cumstances," he rejoined, pettishly. 
 
 " If you meant to say so, it is a pity but that 
 you had said so. The English tongue is a 
 fine and copious language, and needs no in- 
 terpretation from French gibberish. Although 
 no longer spoken here, with the degree of pu- 
 rity and precision we meet with in the States, 
 where the ' pure well of English undefiled' 
 has descended to us, limpid and uncontami- 
 nated, from the Elizabethan age, still I have 
 found many persons in the Old Country, speak- 
 ing English with tolerable correctness/' 
 
 '' They are infinitely obliged to your indul- 
 
 G 2 
 
124 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 gence !" observed Wemmersley, with a fiery 
 glance, such as might almost have ignited the 
 quid secretly cherished within the lanky cheek 
 of uncle Lorn ax. 
 
 " But, to return to Mrs. Armytage and her 
 family feuds. Has her son been convicted of 
 any moral turpitude, to have provoked her 
 unnatural enmity ?" 
 
 " I am half afraid of guessing the meaning 
 of your "^ English undeiiled,'" replied Wem- 
 mersley. " Here, in England, perhaps we 
 might be tempted to call the offence of spit- 
 ting on a lady's carpet, an act of moral tur- 
 pitude." 
 
 " Did the new member for Thoroton offend 
 his parent by spitting on her carpet?" calmly 
 inquired Lomax, defying the sneer directed 
 against him. " I calculate, then, that her 
 abode is insufficiently furnished with spitting- 
 boxes ? It is amazing how many indispensa- 
 ble articles of civilized enjoyment I observe 
 wanting, even in the first-rate houses in this 
 country." 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 125 
 
 " I meant only to observe, that such terms 
 as ' moral turpitude' bear a local interpre- 
 tation. Arthur Armytage's offence against 
 his mother consisted in marrying a pretty 
 girl." 
 
 '' Of disreputable character?" 
 
 '' Of worse ! — of obscure connexions — when 
 she happened to have set her heart upon 
 uniting him with a ladysliip — the daughter of 
 Lord Rotherham." 
 
 " The nobleman whose aristocratic oaks 
 overshade your pinery ? The owner of Greta 
 Castle ?" 
 
 '' Precisely : the owner of one of those re- 
 liques of feudal grandeur and national pride, 
 which must so greatly startle and interest you 
 Americans, on your first glance at the Mother 
 Country." 
 
 '' Naturally enough ! — as being the mansion- 
 houses of our own ancestors, abandoned by 
 us to the enjoyment of such of their descend- 
 ants as can be content with the possession of 
 
126 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 aiicient halls and hoary forests, unenhanced 
 by those glorious gifts of civil and religions 
 liberty, which ive presume to regard as the 
 noblest portion of their inheritance." 
 
 '' And, after all," demanded Mrs. Wemmers- 
 ley, growing fidgetty when she observed the 
 discussion to be assuming so personal a turn, 
 " how^ will all this end about Arthur Army- 
 tage's election ?" 
 
 '-' That you must consult the stars or the 
 sybils to determine," answered her husband. 
 " The position of Mrs. Armytage is an unpre- 
 cedented one ; but no doubt, with her lofty 
 w^ay of carrying things, she will contrive to 
 make the whole county believe she has not 
 been taken by surprise." 
 
 " I beg your pardon. What you call her 
 lofty way of carrying things, is, after all, mere 
 gaucherie." 
 
 *' Mere ivhat ?" interrupted pertinacious 
 uncle Lomax. 
 
 " Mere awkwardness of mind and manners. 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 127 
 
 The Duchess of Spalding declares that Mrs. 
 Armytage has no more tact than a Muscovy 
 duck !" 
 
 " Not to cavil at her Grace's simile, of which 
 I confess I do not perceive the aptitu.de, permit 
 me to inquire whether it may not be possible 
 that Mrs. Armytage despises tact ?" asked Lo- 
 max. '• Tact, I take to be the accomplishment 
 of a narrow mind — indispensable, perhaps, to 
 a Duchess ; but I do not see why the inde- 
 pendent widow of an independent Squire 
 should " 
 
 '• Remember your promise, my dear Sir," 
 interrupted Wemmersley, scarcely able to re- 
 strain his indignation when he saw a sacri- 
 legious hand outstretched to profane one of 
 the molten calves, the objects of his gross 
 idolatry ; — '' pi*ay, remember your promise, 
 and do not decide on points connected with 
 the state of English society, till at least a few- 
 weeks'' experience of the stage, and acquaint- 
 
128 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 ance with the actors, enables you to judge of 
 the merits of the piece." 
 
 " Men and women are but men and women, 
 I calculate, although attired in hoop petticoats, 
 and bags and swords," observed Ijomax; " but 
 since you appear so desirous to impress upon 
 my mind that I have hitherto dwelt among 
 savages, and can know nothing of the prac- 
 tices of the civilized species — be it so ! I abide 
 the issue. As Roscommon hath it — 
 
 * A Sat3r that comes staring from the woods 
 Cannot at first speak like an orator.*" 
 
 Meanwhile, the Lady of Holywell did, in- 
 deed, find herself placed in an unprecedented 
 situation ; and one from which even the sturdy 
 good sense with which she was endowed, 
 scarcely sufficed to disembarrass her. She had 
 purposed, in sending for Mr. Maudsley to 
 become the representative of the family inte- 
 rest, to mark her sovereign displeasure against 
 her son, and announce to the world an irre- 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 129 
 
 parable breach between them. That the world 
 should judge for itself in such a juncture, and, 
 deciding the offence of young Armytage an 
 insufficient provocation, pronounce a separa- 
 tion of interests between parent and child im- 
 possible, on grounds so slight, had not entered 
 into her calculations. Her ' people ' had pre- 
 sumed to know her intentions better than her- 
 self, and to conclude that she could not but be 
 secretly pleased that a son of her own should 
 triumph at the expense of a cousin. They, 
 good souls ! would not believe her capable of 
 turning traitress to her flesh and blood — and 
 were of too Christianly a nature to conjecture 
 the existence of a Brutus in petticoats, at the 
 head of one of the prettiest rent-rolls in the 
 Riding ! 
 
 And, perhaps, they were right. Perhaps, in 
 the midst of Mrs. Armytage's storm of indig- 
 nation on finding her plans defeated, and her 
 candidate rejected, she was for a moment 
 secretly gratified to observe the enthusiasm 
 
 G 3 
 
130 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 with which the people gathered to what they 
 chose to consider the Holy-vvell standard, and 
 the warmth with which they lent their hmgs 
 and hands to acclamations of " Armytage for 
 ever ! " Aware of the character of the parties 
 by whom Arthur's nomination had been ef- 
 fected, she exonerated him from all share in 
 the intrigue. 
 
 But Reginald the Sapient had motives of 
 his own for placing a different conclusion on 
 the evidence. However irritated at having 
 been drawn forth and shown up as a defeated 
 man, without intention or desire on his own 
 part, he resolved to turn his afflictions to ac- 
 eount, by assuming the character of a martyr 
 in the cause of Mrs. Armytage. " He trusted 
 it would eventually appear that Mr. Armytage 
 had no share in the plots and manoeuvres of 
 such a fellow as Gumption. He trusted it 
 would be satisfactorily proved to the world 
 that his young relative was incapable of having 
 coalesced with a blackguard attorney, for the 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 131 
 
 purpose of enlisting a party in the county 
 against his mother. Family piques and fa- 
 mily dissensions he could well understand ; 
 but when family piques went the length of 
 blazoning forth to the public every unfortu- 
 nate " he checked himself; he was going 
 
 too far; he recollected that Mrs. Armytage 
 had been the first to call public attention to 
 the disunion in her family. " But, perhaps/' 
 he resumed, in a tone of affected candour, 
 " perhaps, for the sake of all parties, the less 
 said on such a subject, the better." 
 
 But Mrs. Armytage's clear understanding 
 was not to be confused by generalities so com- 
 mon-place. She knew that, though the least 
 said might be best for all parties, much would 
 be said, and much to their disadvantage. It 
 was a dull season of the year in the country ; 
 just that heavy pause which intervenes be- 
 tween the cessation of holiday hospitalities, 
 and the migration of the principal families to 
 London ; when winter pleasures are beginning 
 
132 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 to lose their attraction, and spring gives no 
 immediate promise of relief; when daylight 
 daily increases, only to give to \dew the same 
 leafless trees, the same brown fallows, the 
 same sallow turf, which the obscurities of 
 winter so advantageously tended to conceal. 
 She knew, in short, that it was the most dis- 
 agreeable month of the year, and felt that the 
 recent events at Thoroton would be a god- 
 send to the neighbourhood. The Duchess of 
 Spalding, unblest with a villa near town, was 
 unluckily in the habit of remaining in York- 
 shire till after the Easter holidays, though 
 sadly in want of country entertainment. The 
 Wemmersleys, her grace's obedient humble 
 servants, would take care to supply her with a 
 thousand particulars, real or imaginary, of the 
 Holywell disasters, to console her for the 
 defeat of her son. The Rotherhams and 
 Maranhams would be sincerely concerned, the 
 whole Riding would be busy with her family 
 mis-arrangements ! 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 133 
 
 Nor did the conduct of her discountenanced 
 protege tend to palliate her annoj^ance. Aware 
 that she had unintentionally ill-used him, she 
 discerned the whole extent of his want of 
 generosity, in his mode of holding up the ill- 
 usage to her sympathy, of parading his bleed- 
 ing wounds ! A man of right feeling would 
 have retired instantly from the field ; leaving 
 it to her conscience to reward his magnani- 
 mity. But Reginald had no magnanimity. 
 He persisted in lingering on and on at Holy- 
 w^ell, looking injured and sullen, in the hope 
 that Mrs. Armytage would recompense him 
 for having been sacrificed to her son, by sacri- 
 ficing to him her daughter. He did not even 
 choose to perceive how greatly his presence 
 must add to her embarrassments in the event 
 of Arthur's arrival at Thoroton. 
 
 And Arthur was daily expected ; at least so 
 said the attorney, who had been promising 
 and vowing in his name ; and, if really ex- 
 pected, dates and comparisons of dates 
 
134 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 brought clearly to proof that he must have 
 been a party in all the manceu\Tes of his 
 political sponsor, Mr. Gumption. Sophia, in 
 the teeth of almanacs and printed addresses, 
 still persisted that the thing was impossible ; 
 Mr. Maudsley ^^ hoped/' ^^ trusted/' and, like 
 Leonidas Lomax, '' suspended his judgment ; " 
 while Mrs. Armytage waited in silence, but 
 not in tranquillity. Throughout her three- 
 and- forty years' experience of the world, never 
 had her mind been less at ease ! 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 Here easy quiet, a secure retreat, 
 A harmless life that knows not how to cheat, 
 With home-bred plenty, the rich owners bless — 
 And rural pleasures crown their happiness. 
 
 Dryden. 
 
 Though all the world admits that country- 
 neighbourhoods in England are apt to bear 
 a strong family resemblance, — that, mth few 
 exceptions, all have their grand family — their 
 parvenu family — theu' pattern family; — their Sir 
 Charles Grandison, or charming young man ; 
 their Harriet B)Ton, or sweetest creature in the 
 world ; their censorious old maid ; their book- 
 worm, or their bore ; — still, each has its pecu- 
 liar cachet and characteristics. The very soil 
 of county and county, parish and parish, does 
 
136 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 not vary more curiously than the nature of its 
 human produce. 
 
 It is true, mail-coach roads, daily newspapers, 
 and book-clubs, have done wonders to efface 
 this individuality of organization ; and the 
 habits of the metropolis have diffused them- 
 selves over the provinces with more celerity 
 than may be wholly desirable. The readiness 
 of communication from one end of the empire 
 to the other, precludes all possibility of any 
 nook or corner remaining shut out from the 
 progress of civilization, as we sometimes find 
 the case among the lesser towns of France or 
 Germany. Still there are spots more secluded 
 than the rest — remote from a high road, remote 
 from the manufacturing districts — where the 
 ways are rough and the means of improvement 
 limited ; where the land, divided among a few 
 great proprietors, gives no shelter to specula- 
 tors, and small encouragement to innovation ; 
 where human nature remains unsophisticated, 
 and character, characteristic. 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 137 
 
 And precisely one of these was the neigh- 
 bourhood of Holj-well. Mill Hill was its only 
 duodecimo estate; while the town of Thoroton, 
 situated at six miles' distance, and in a great 
 measure the property of the family of Spalding, 
 Greta, and Armytage, had too recently acquired 
 political independence, to have become fully 
 aware of the purposes of that Hydra-headed 
 power conferred upon it by the liberality of 
 government. Nor had the influences of fashion 
 fallen like a mildew upon the land : distance 
 from the capital, and other causes, conspired to 
 perpetuate a certain old-fashioned quaintness, 
 a sort of oaken-sturdincss of character, nearly 
 extinct in the conventionalized country of news- 
 papers and rail-roads. The Spaldings were at 
 too great a distance to exercise much influence; 
 the Kotherhams were home-staying, unambi- 
 tious, matter-of-fact people ; the V^emmersleys 
 mere dots in the map; and Mrs. Armytage, 
 (fox-hunting excepting), was little else than a 
 
138 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 squire in petticoats, a beardless justice of the 
 peace. 
 
 But, between Holywell and Spalding Court, 
 precisely as if to form an unassailable out-post 
 of the cordon sanitaire destined to preserve the 
 neighbourhood from the contagion of the times, 
 was situated a certain manor house, called The 
 Grange ; very little altered in its outward show 
 from the period when John of Gaunt is said 
 to have made it his favourite residence ; and 
 not in the slightest degree disturbed in its inte- 
 rior distribution, from the days when Lady Mar- 
 garet Maranham, widow of the thirteenth Baro- 
 net of that name, retired in dudgeon from the 
 fallen court of her gracious mistress, Queen 
 Mary of Modena : pursued even to her dower 
 house on the banks of the Wharfe, by jealousy 
 of the accession of a Protestant dynasty. 
 
 Situated on the lowest level of a hollow, 
 whose springs were collected in the moat that 
 protected three sides of the house, thence 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 139 
 
 to find an unperceived issue towards the river, 
 flowing at the distance of a few hundred yards. 
 The Grange consisted of a low quadrangular 
 edifice of freestone, ornamented by a heavy, 
 disproportionate battlement; with an infinity 
 of tall fanciful Gothic chimneys, apparently 
 running to seed. Facing the main entrance, 
 on the side where a paved court-yard supplied 
 the place of the moat, was a carved screen of 
 stonework, rising to nearly half the height of 
 the principal building, which had been super- 
 added to the Gothic Grange about the reign 
 of First James; while closing in the court-yard, 
 terminated at either side by a turfen ter- 
 race, stood a double row of lofty trees ; — 
 elms, beeches, sycamores — the down-drooping 
 branches of which swept the grassy embank- 
 ments of the terrace, while their elevated tops 
 aiforded shelter to a colony of woodpigeons, 
 and spread a dense shade upon the walk ex- 
 tending round the court, and crossing the arch- 
 way of the old stone entrance gate, which 
 
140 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 formed a prison-like approach to the ancient 
 mansion-house of the Maranhams. 
 
 In the moat might be discerned, from the 
 terrace which at either extremity met and over- 
 hung its precipitous channel, a shoal of vene^ 
 rable grey carp, coeval with the abdicated lady- 
 in-waiting of the abdicated queen, disturbed in 
 their lonely haunts only by the rivalry of a pair 
 of veteran swans of unnumbered generations, 
 with whom they waged a sort of half-amicable 
 war — such as the friendly neighbours of an un- 
 eventful country-parish are apt to cultivate, to 
 while away the long summer days, and longer 
 winter evenings. In the kennel of the adjoining 
 offices, dwelt a species of obsolete mastiff, a 
 breed partaking of the blood-hound, and pecu- 
 liar to the place ; and in the stables (the stalls 
 of which bore, in worn-out capitals, the names 
 of " Highflyer, " Pastorella," '' Miss Prue," 
 " Jew-boy," and " Crocus,") stood at rack and 
 manger, other Highflyers and Pastorellas — 
 great grandchildren of the original tenants of 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 141 
 
 tlie place. The oven was larger than the 
 eoach-house : beside the yawning kitchen fire- 
 place was the turnspit's wheel; — the great 
 hall was surrounded with a music gallery or- 
 namented with stags' heads, — the uneven floors 
 being tesselated with curious inlaying ; — the 
 large Elizabethan window^s admitted no air and 
 little light, — far less indeed than the carved 
 doors, shrunken within their shattered lintels ; 
 — altogether, there was a degree of quaint 
 antiquity about the place which would have 
 transported to rapture even the molluscous 
 nature of an F. R. S. 
 
 Such was the appropriate residence of three 
 venerable spinsters, (like the Manor House, of 
 vast antiquity, but in excellent preservation) 
 co-heiresses of Sir Wolstan Maranham, last 
 representative of one of the first-created Eng- 
 lish baronetages. The founder of the family 
 was said to be a certain gallant Captain Ma- 
 ranham, who, in the time of King Edward VI. 
 of catechismal memory, or thereabouts, shared 
 
142 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 the bitter fortunes of that gallant Admn-al, 
 frozen with all his crew off the coast of Nor- 
 way ; and, from the surviving offspring of the 
 weather-beaten sailor, had arisen a race, appa- 
 rently smitten with the curse of commemo- 
 rating, in their manners and appearance, the 
 miserable destinies of the originator of their 
 house. With few exceptions, the members of 
 the Maranham family might have passed for 
 statues of ice. 
 
 The principal of these exceptions, however, 
 existed in the head of the house. Miss, or as 
 she was usually termed in the neighbourhood 
 Mrs. Di Maranham, who, succeeding on the 
 decease of her father. Sir Wolstan, to the pre- 
 sidency of the estate, had adopted at once, as 
 a duty and a pleasure, all the habits and prac- 
 tices of her predecessor. Mrs. Di was a Mrs. 
 Armytage, cast in a coarser mould ; or rather, 
 perhaps, what Mrs. Armytage might have been, 
 had not matronhood and maternity chanced 
 to recall her to the softer duties of her sex. 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 143 
 
 Mrs. Di had found no affectionate Arthur to 
 share her destinies ; no caressing infants to 
 inspire her with a taste for milder pleasures : 
 her horses and dogs — nay, her kine and her 
 oxen, were all- engrossing favourites ; she 
 looked Uke a gi-oom, and talked like a grazier. 
 Miss Margaret, the third sister, preserved, 
 on the contrary, all the rigid immobility cha- 
 racteristic of the Maranham family. A char- 
 tered invalid, shawled to the teeth, and not 
 allowing even the zephyrs of summer to " \dsit 
 her cheek too roughty," she sat ensconced dur- 
 ing the three summer months of the English 
 year, in a bay-window of the parlour, rivalling, 
 as far as the thickness of its lozenge-glazed 
 casements would permit, the temperature of a 
 modern hot-house ; and, during the nine mu- 
 ter months, in an oven-like chimney-nook of 
 the same apartment. Her infirmities, real or 
 imaginary, formed a pretext for avoiding even 
 the limited circle of society frequented by her 
 sisters ; and either genuine indisposition, or 
 
144 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 the singular variety of distil ments and decoc- 
 tions with which, under the name of simples, 
 she choose to irrigate her fertile field of ail- 
 ments, certainly imparted a most spectral ap- 
 pearance to features originally feminine and 
 delicate. She was said to have been, in former 
 da3^s, the beauty of the family. 
 
 Miss Avarilla, the second of the weird sis- 
 ters, and (although, '" by'r lady, inclining to 
 three- score,") still treated by Miss Di, as a 
 young thing not altogether to be trusted to 
 its own discretion — was a being as rigidly cold 
 and formal as the coldest and most formal of 
 the Maranham kind, yet incessantly perplexed 
 with business — always in a sort of solemn 
 bustle. 
 
 Horace Walpole has described the motions 
 of the Duke of Newcastle as resembling 
 " what one might fancy of a man hung in 
 chains, trying to move from one place to ano- 
 ther:' — those of Avarilla Maranham resembled 
 what the fancy might conjecture of an auto- 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 145 
 
 maton ^yound up to seem in a hurry. Busy- 
 ins^ herself with the cure of all the souls and 
 bodies in the parish, foundress of half-a-dozen 
 institutions of the kind called charitable, cor- 
 responding with Dr. Jenner respecting the 
 incubation of cuckoos and the natural history 
 of hedgehogs — w^ith the ' Gentleman's Maga- 
 zine, ' under the name of ' Philalcthea, ' con- 
 cerning the Gothic origin of the Latin lan- 
 guage — with Pestalozzi, touching the endoc- 
 trinization of the naughty little boys and girls 
 on the Maranham estate — with philanthropic 
 Owen, respecting the re-moralization of man- 
 kind — and with Professor Achtenmachten- 
 gropischkeit of Jena, touching the magnetic 
 origin of the universe — she remained cold, 
 undemonstrative, and inaccessible, as one of 
 the relentless Fates ; — dead to society, so 
 called — forgetting the great world, and by the 
 great world forgot : omitting, like Pope's 
 f Artemisia,' 
 
 " To pare her nails and wear a cleaner smock," 
 VOL. L H 
 
146 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 amid the contending interests of foreign and 
 scientific labours. 
 
 Although heartily despising Mistress Di 
 as an unintellectualized materialist, Avarilla 
 made it a point of conscience to treat her mth 
 the respect due to the head of the family; 
 and, between the conscientious allegiance of 
 the second, and the apathetic acquiescence of 
 the third sister, Diana — chaste, but not fair — 
 maintained undisputed sway at the Grange. 
 Trotting along the high road to Thoroton on 
 her favourite bay, sixteen hands high, wdth her 
 straight grey hair escaping from a napless 
 beaver, she might have been mistaken for 
 Talleyrand in a riding-habit ; — seated in her 
 audit-room among deed-boxes, files of papers, 
 plans, contracts, notices, circulars, and affi- 
 davits, she resembled the spectre of her old 
 father. Sir Wolstan— 
 
 " Tricked in antique lufF and bonnet ! " 
 
 And it was amid this cluster of rusty ever- 
 greens, that the fairest blossom of the country 
 
FEMALE DOxMIKATION. 147 
 
 was opening into bloom and fragrance. It 
 was at the Grange, surrounded by the re- 
 verend Misses or Mistresses Maranham, that 
 Kosamond Devonport was growing into the 
 graces of womanhood; alternately chided and 
 caressed by the three ungainly sisters ; cuffed 
 by Mistress Di for a coward; mourned over 
 by Miss Margaret for her wilful self-exposure 
 to sun and shower ; and lectured unceasingly 
 by Miss Avarilla for the mightiness of her 
 ignorance, and the smallness of her powers of 
 application. And yet they dearly loved her. 
 All three took pleasure in her cheerfulness^ 
 and pride in her beauty ; and sooth to say, it 
 2cas as the brightness of a sunbeam, irradiat- 
 ing that dilapidated abode. 
 
 But Rosamond, or as she was commonly 
 called. Rose Devonport, was not only the idol 
 of the Grange, but the favourite of the whole 
 neighbourhood ; for she afforded a never-fail- 
 ing source of wonder and conjecture to the 
 idle and the garrulous. 
 
 h2 
 
148 FKMALK DOMINATION. 
 
 M^ho she was, or whence, still remained a 
 mystery ; although for twenty years the sub- 
 ject had afforded a text for scrutiny and com- 
 mentation to the gossips, maid, wife, or widow, 
 of the adjoining parishes. Somewhat before 
 that period. Sir Wolstan Maranham, a martyr 
 to hereditary gout, had translated himself to 
 be killed or cured at the good city of Bath ; 
 and been translated back again two years 
 afterwards to the crowning honours of the 
 family vault ; when the three spinsters, his 
 daughters, took possession accordingly of his 
 estate ; and dull enough appeared the tenour 
 of their days, until, in the course of a year 
 or two, there suddenly and mysteriously ar- 
 rived at the Grange, a nurse and child. 
 
 Miss Avarilla, the habitual spokeswoman 
 of the family, explained to those whom it 
 might concern, that the little girl w^as the 
 orphan of a distant relative who had died 
 in the West Indies, bequeathing it to their 
 guardianship. But old Lord Rotherham, 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 149 
 
 father to the present Earl, who was at that 
 time resident at Greta Castle, and of what ^e 
 considered a facetious turn of mind, swore he 
 was intimately acquainted with every marriage 
 and intermarriage of the Maranharas — every 
 twig of the family tree, — not a leaf of which 
 was blazoned with the name or designation of 
 Devonport ; and was fond of insinuating, that 
 the bantling bore a nearer consanguinity 
 to Di, the least starched of the co -heiresses 
 of his friend Sir Wolstan, than comported 
 with her maiden fame (at forty) to avow. 
 For a time the notion gained ground. But 
 when it was seen that Mistress Di evinced not 
 the slightest embarrassment under Lord Ro- 
 therham's inuendoes, that she made no secret 
 of her affection for little Rose, nor any show 
 of inclination to enlarge upon the child*'s 
 West Indian origin, people began to give up 
 their chimera. Rose certainly icas a kins- 
 woman and ward bequeathed to the care of 
 those who had little else to care for ; and 
 
150 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 even Mrs. Armytage, their dear Mrs. Army- 
 tage, the constant object of then- regard and 
 admiration, knew no more of Miss Devonport's 
 claims upon their tenderness, than they had 
 chosen originally to announce. 
 
 It will scarcely, perhaps, have been implied 
 from the founder ship of the family under 
 King Edward of blessed memory, that the 
 Maranhams w^ere adherents to the church of 
 Rome. Yet so it had been, so it was, the 
 ladies were staunch, rather than bigoted. Ca- 
 tholics ; and a venerable man, their father's 
 ancient chaplain and their own, resided in 
 a comfortable house within a short distance 
 from the Grange, to minister to their spiritual 
 wants ; and among the results of the non- 
 conformity of the family, was the education 
 bestowed upon Rose Devonport in the nun- 
 nery at York. Notwithstanding the tender- 
 ness of affection with which she was regarded 
 by her guardians, it seemed impossible to 
 Mistress Di, that her young charge could be 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 151 
 
 trained in the way she should go, otherwise 
 than on the spot, and after the manner that 
 she and her sisters had received their princi- 
 ples of instruction. From the age of ten 
 years, therefore, to eighteen. Rose, except 
 during her vacations, was lost to the Grange. 
 Twice a -year she was welcomed within the old 
 portal; and twice a-year the neighbourhood 
 of Thoroton pronounced that she was fairer 
 and more graceful than ever; and it was a 
 subject of admiration to all that, while her 
 accomplishments were beginning to rival 
 those of Lady Laura Greta and Miss Army- 
 tage. Rose Devonport retained the archness 
 and simplicity of a child. Not all the scold- 
 ing of all her three guardians could subdue her 
 deportment into demureness ; and any one 
 might have conjectured from the girlish liveli- 
 ness alone, that her veins were wholly untem- 
 pered by the un genial currents flowing in 
 direct descent from the frost-bitten Admiral. 
 It was only the winter preceding Arthur 
 
152 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 Armytage's unlucky marriage that Rosamond, 
 emancipated from her conventual thraldom, 
 came to settle at the Grange ; and Sophia had 
 at present enjoyed little opportunity of exer- 
 cising her kind and elder- sisterly intentions 
 towards one who appeared at least half a cen- 
 tury too young for the place and the people 
 among whom her destinies were appointed. 
 Mrs. Armytage luckily entertained a long- 
 standing neighbourly regard for the elder 
 dames ; and from the moment that Rose took 
 her place among them, arrayed in the graces 
 and importance of womanhood, had said to her 
 daughter, '"Be kind to that poor girl, concern- 
 ing whom the Wemmersle3^s have circulated 
 such unjustifiable surmises." Rose had even 
 once or twice been invited to pass a week at 
 Holywell; although the Misses Maranham, 
 two of whom were too busy, and one too idle, 
 to quit home, would neither consent to act as 
 her chaperons during the visit, nor suffer 
 their precious charge to incur alone the perils 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 153 
 
 and dangers of eight days passed in such 
 dissipated society as that of their stately 
 friend Mrs. Armytage and her gentle-minded 
 daughter. 
 
 Had it been otherwise^, had Rose been in- 
 deed a frequent guest at Holywell, and the 
 intimate companion of its heir-apparent, the 
 indignation expressed by Di and Avarilla on 
 hearing of his marriage would probably have 
 Ijeen attributed, by the malignants at Mill 
 Hill and elsewhere, to the disappointment of 
 a speculation of their own, for uniting Miss 
 Devonport with the richest proprietor of the 
 neighbourhood. But as Rose had scarcely 
 happened to meet with the delinquent from 
 the time when, in childhood, they were occa- 
 sionally hohday playmates, it was simply in- 
 ferred by Wemmersley that the elderly spin- 
 sters desired to impress by inference, on the 
 mind of the young lady, the madness of a 
 love-match, and the heinousness of disobedi- 
 
 H 3 
 
154 FEMALE DOMINATIOK. 
 
 ence against the authority of those appointed 
 by law or nature as the governors of youth. 
 
 Yet, harsh as they were, Rosamond dearly 
 loved the three crabbed guardians of her 
 infancy. She loved the Grange with all its 
 quaint reminiscences. She loved to muse 
 beneath the overshadowing trees of the old 
 court-yard; she loved the venerable carp, 
 swans, mastiffs. Highflyers, and Pastorellas, 
 who, after every successive absence, seemed 
 to welcome her home. She would follow Mrs. 
 Di on her pony round the farm, whenever 
 that lady's masculine vocations were such as 
 to admit of the companionship of one of her 
 o\vn sex. She would indite letters and copies 
 of letters, if not unweariedly, at least uncom- 
 plainingly, to lighten the epistolary labours of 
 the painstaking ]Miss Avarilla ; and, above all, 
 she would place the easy chair, the footstool, 
 the pillows, for the studied ease and comfort of 
 Miss Margaret ; and try to entice her out, into 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 155 
 
 the sunshine of a gay summer's morning, or 
 bring to the dreary table of the hypochondriac 
 all the fairest products of her flower-garden. 
 But Margaret was too apathetic, or too selfish, 
 to requite her attentions, even by a smile. Of 
 the three sisters, she was evidently the one who 
 entertained least affection for her little rela- 
 tive ; perhaps because the vivacious movement 
 of the happy, healthy Rosamond reminded her 
 too mortifyingly of her own habitual infirmi- 
 ties, or disturbed the even current of her 
 Lethean blood. 
 
 It was on a chilly afternoon in April that 
 the invalid was sitting, apparently dozing, iri 
 her arm-chair, her shoulders wrapt in an An- 
 gola shawl, her feet covered with a quilt of 
 eider-down ; while Rosamond Devonport, who 
 had done her share of duty by reading her to 
 sleep, sat demurely working at her tapestry, 
 just far enough from the log fire roaring in 
 the chimney, to escape actual roasting. Mis- 
 tress Di had ridden over to Thoroton to ascer- 
 
156 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 tain the progress of the election ; Avarilla was 
 gone down to the village for the weekly ex- 
 amination of her spinning-school ; and nothing 
 but the hospitable practice of the Grange, 
 which forbade all imagination of such a deed 
 as to turn visitors from the gate on the lying 
 plea of " Not at home," prevented the drowsy 
 Margaret from protecting her own departure 
 for the land of dreams, when the hobbling old 
 serving-man entered the parlour to announce 
 that Mr. Wemmersley and a strange gentle- 
 man were dismounting in the courtyard. 
 
 " A strange gentleman ! Rose, my dear, — 
 lay aside your work and go up stairs," mecha- 
 nically responded the old maiden, rousing her- 
 self by a gentle, — a very gentle shake. But 
 Wemmersley was already on the threshold, to 
 intercept the movements of Miss Devonport ; 
 and no sooner did the half-open eyes of Miss 
 Margaret Maranham rest upon the uncouth 
 person of Mr. Leonidas Lomax, than she in- 
 voluntarily ejaculated, " Rosamond, you may 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 157 
 
 remain." The strange gentleman was so very 
 strange, — too strange to be dangerous. While 
 Wemmersley was pouring forth his compli- 
 mentary inquiries after her sisters, his con- 
 gratulations on the amendment of her looks 
 and the evident improvement of her state 
 of health, — congratulations which he knew to 
 be of all things most vexatious to the habitual 
 invalid, — Rosa could scarcely take her eyes 
 from the square-shouldered, sturdy, imgraceful 
 Carolinian, with his frost-puckered visage, and 
 scrutinizing glances. She did not even notice 
 the significant looks hazarded by Wemmersley 
 at his companion, implying — " Did you ever see 
 such a queer old place ? — did you ever meet 
 with a more vapid old twaddle ?" 
 
 " Mrs. Di rode into Thoroton, did you say?" 
 was Wemmersley's first attempt at conversa- 
 tion. " I trust, then, she will extend her ride 
 as far as Holywell, to console poor dear Mrs. 
 Armytage !" 
 
 " Mrs. Armytage ! — What has happened to 
 
158 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 her ?" inquired Miss Margaret, a slight tinge 
 colouring her sallow cheek, and betraying the 
 utmost warmth of sympathy she was ever 
 known to lavish upon the disasters of her fel- 
 low-creatures. 
 
 " Sophy is well, I hope ? " cried Kose, un- 
 able to maintain the rigorous silence imposed 
 upon her by the orders of her preceptresses 
 during the presence of visitors. 
 
 " Very vrell, I believe," replied Wemmers- 
 ley, examining the point of liis riding switch. 
 
 " And the Captain ?" 
 
 " As well as can be expected, I suppose." 
 
 The sick woman coloured more deeply than 
 before at the expression, apprehending some 
 unpleasant double meaning. 
 
 " Has anything occurred to Arthur Armj'- 
 tage ?" said Rosamond, unsuspiciously. " Is 
 he returned?" 
 
 " B}^ a majorit}' of one hundred and thirty- 
 four." 
 
 " A majority?" 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 159 
 
 " Of a hundred and thirty-four." 
 '' I meant/' said Miss Devonport, still per- 
 plexed, " to inquire whether Captain Army- 
 tage was come back ?" 
 
 « Not exactly come hack — he has come for- 
 wardy 
 
 " Come forward?" demanded Margaret, 
 with a puzzled look. 
 
 '' In plain English," interrupted Leonidas, 
 not perceiving the wit of xDrolonging the mu- 
 tual misunderstanding of the parties, Mr. Ar- 
 my tage, or Lioii-tenant, or Captain Army tage, 
 or whatever the young gentleman calls him- 
 self, or is called by his friends ^ " 
 
 " I beg your pardon for interrupting you, 
 Mr. Lomax," said Wemmersley with a grave 
 face, " but his worst enemies never went so far 
 as to call poor Arthur Lioittenant Army tage !" 
 " We may waive the difficulty, I calculate," 
 replied Leonidas, sneeringly, by calling him, 
 at once. Member of Parliament for Thoroton ; 
 for the representation of which loyal burgh 
 
160 FEMALE DOMIKATIOX. 
 
 your sapient friend, my Lord Leicester Spal- 
 ding, has proved a rejected candidate." 
 
 " Lord Leicester Spalding defeated ? I am 
 heartily glad of it !" murmured Miss Mar- 
 garet, in her usual feeble voice, but true to 
 the political principles of her family. 
 
 " Arthur Armytage elected ? I am heartily 
 glad of it !" cried Rose, in a far more cordial 
 tone, but not more cordial spirit. " He must 
 now settle in England; and Sophias happi- 
 ness Avill be complete !" 
 
 " Not unless she happen to find particular 
 gratification in witnessing total estrangement 
 between her mother and brother," snarled 
 Mr. Wemmersley, mortified to perceive that 
 the news he had communicated gave pain to 
 nobody. 
 
 " Oh ! but it will be impossible for Mrs. 
 Armytage to keep up a show of resentment 
 against her son, when she finds herself under 
 the necessity of meeting him constantly, and 
 seeing him well received by all the world !" 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 161 
 
 '' That may not tend to smooth matters be- 
 tween tlicm, so long as he is ill-received by 
 herself." 
 
 " But, after all, what sin has he committed ?" 
 
 '^ Rose — Rose Devonport I'' faltered the 
 guardian spinster, interdictingly. 
 
 '^ Married at three-and- twenty, without his 
 mother s consent !" continued Rose, not hear- 
 ing, or not heeding the imputed injunction. 
 
 '' A very venial transgression, we may con- 
 clude," observed Leonidas sententiously, " in 
 the eyes of a young lady of sixteen !" 
 
 " Eighteen, Sir, if you allude to myself," 
 observed Rosamond, casting on her strange 
 visiter a look of ineffable contempt. 
 
 '' Rose ! Rose Devonport !" again remon- 
 strated the invalid, raising her withered hand 
 with an air of impatience. 
 
 '^ You cannot surely think," cried Rosa- 
 mond, turning towards her reprover with a 
 glowing but unabashed face, " that parents 
 have a right to prolong, over persons grown 
 
162 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 to years of discretion, all the wilfulness, all 
 the caprice of their authority, in matters of 
 such dear importance as a marriage choice ?" 
 
 " The authority of parents over a child 
 cannot be either wilful or capricious,'' replied 
 Miss Margaret, with a degree of cold serenity 
 affording a singular contrast to the ardour of 
 her youthful pupil. " But supposing it both, 
 the first duty of a child is submission." 
 
 '' But, my dearest granny," cried Rosamond, 
 using, in the eagerness of her argument, a 
 term of endearment sometimes permitted by 
 the mild invalid during her earlier j^ears ; 
 " you surely do not mean that you consider it 
 the duty of Mrs. Armytage's son, after obtain- 
 ing the affections of a young lady of good 
 conduct and good family, to throw her off on 
 finding his mother express a vague disapproval 
 of the engagement ?" 
 
 " I do r said Miss Margaret. But her 
 feeble accents were drowned in Wemmersle)''s 
 scornful vociferation of " Good family ! — Mag- 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 163 
 
 nificent consanguinity indeed, for one of the 
 oldest Houses in the county of York ! — Cou- 
 sin to some crackbrained Irish Baronet ! — ^her 
 claim to gentility resting, pow?- tout pofage, 
 upon her blood relationship to some Sir 
 Emilius O'Moran O'Tasus O'Shaughnessy, 
 of Ballynagibbcrish, in the county of Lime- 
 rick !" 
 
 "Rose! Rose Devonport !'' again ejaculated 
 the invalid. But as Rosamond was neither 
 speaking nor intending to speak, nor even 
 gesticulating the dislike she could not help 
 entertaining for the sneering proprietor of 
 Mill Hill, she could not exactly understand to 
 what, in this instance, the disapprobation of 
 Miss Margaret was directed. 
 
 '' Did you speak ? Do you want anything 
 that I can give you ?" said she, perceiving that 
 the looks of her enfeebled companion were 
 more wan and miserable than usual. 
 
 " No child ! — no — nothing. — Go ! and see 
 whether either of my sisters be returned. I 
 
164 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 am hut a poor companion for these gentlemen. 
 I am not equal to conversation, I — I — " 
 
 And from the increasing and deadly pale- 
 ness of her cheeks, Eosamond saw that she 
 had indeed over-exerted herself. 
 
 " Come with me into the library to wait 
 Mrs. Maranham's arrival," cried she abruptly 
 to her guests ; " we have been talking too loud 
 and too inadvertently, considering Miss Mar- 
 garet's nervous condition." 
 
 She did not even pause, as she led the way 
 into Avarilla's scholastic sanctum, to note the 
 looks of pity and contempt exchanged between 
 her brazen-hinged and iron-nerved guests. 
 
 " Thank heaven we have no nervous ladies 
 t'otlier side the Atlantic !" — was the whis- 
 pered adjuration of the Rationalist. 
 
 '' Thank heaven we have got rid of the old 
 lady, even at the cost of a fainting fit !" — was 
 the friendly rejoinder of his amiable nephew. 
 '' But what the deuce could so strangely over- 
 set her ?" 
 
CHAPTER XII, 
 
 You call honourable boldness, impudent sauciness ; if a 
 man will make couit'sey and say nothing, he is virtuous. 
 
 Shakspeare. 
 
 The contempt exhibited by the man of the 
 Western world, for the morbid sensibilities of 
 the ladies of the more civiUzed creation, would 
 have '' pretty considerably" increased, could 
 he have surmised that, at this moment, not 
 only the feeble Margaret Maranham, but even 
 the lion-footed Mrs. Armytage was suffering 
 from a disordered nervous system. Whenever 
 a carriage was heard grating on the gravelled 
 approach to Holywell, strange glances kindled 
 in her eyes, in the apprehension that it must 
 inevitably contain the new member for Tho- 
 roton. Whenever an eastern gale (and such 
 in a Yorkshire April are of no rare occur- 
 
166 FEMALE DOMINATION 
 
 rence) brought across the park uncertain 
 snatches of certain chimes, she started, as if 
 the church bells could no longer signalize any- 
 thing more momentous than the arrival of the 
 young M.P. 
 
 After having implied rather than expressed 
 to her servants and acquaintances a disincli- 
 nation that Arthur's name should be uttered 
 in her hearing, she now grew pettish at their 
 servile acquiescence ; fancying that every one 
 must be in league to withhold from her even 
 the necessary intelligence concerning the 
 movements of her son. She would have died 
 rather than inquire, even of Sophia^ whether 
 any fresh intimations of x\rthur's intentions 
 had reached Thoroton : yet still she was dying 
 to ask. Did Arthur purpose to treat her 
 with utter contempt, with utter defiance ? — 
 Did he mean to take her by surprise, ^vith a 
 view of forcing her into a reconciliation? — 
 What did he, — what could he intend ? — Was 
 he come ? — Was he coming ? 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 167 
 
 Alas ! the coming of the successful candi- 
 date began to appear almost as problematical 
 as the going of the defeated one; while 
 Arthur stayed away, Reginald stayed on; 
 assiduous to his cousin Armytage; thrice 
 assiduous to his cousin Sophia ! — On the fifth 
 day following the election, he was about to 
 accompany them from the breakfast-room to 
 t hedrawing-room, and pursue, by an observa- 
 tion of the N.N.E. of the house, the weather- 
 wise announcements he had been deducing 
 from the aspect of the S.S.W., when the 
 attention of all three was attracted by the 
 sound of approaching wheels; and, for the 
 fiftieth time, Sophy coloured crimson, Mauds- 
 ley bit his lips, and Mrs. Armytage tried, 
 flurriedly, to look unconcerned, in the convic- 
 tion that the vehicle advancing towards the 
 portico of Holywell contained no less a per- 
 sonage than him who had been so long re- 
 garded as its heir ! 
 
 In this belief, not one of them chose to move 
 
168 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 towards the window, for the verification of their 
 hopes and fears ; but each, though pretending 
 to look elsewhere, soon discerned that the ex- 
 pected chaise and four was nothing better 
 than a knowing, natty gig, containing a stran- 
 ger and his servant — a sporting-looking man, 
 with a sporting-looking servant, and a poach- 
 ing-looking prick-eared dog, on the look-out 
 between them ; or it might be, two servants — 
 or two sportsmen — or three poaching dogs — 
 it was impossible exactly to determine in whom 
 or what the party might consist. 
 
 " Mr. Nebwelfs clerk, whom I am expecting 
 down about the renewal of the Farringham 
 lease," said Mrs. Armytage, greatly relieved, 
 and resuming her usual dignity of demeanour. 
 
 '' Rather, the tuner from York," observed 
 Sophia, almost as well satisfied as her mother ; 
 " I wTote yesterday to my old friend, Mr. Blow- 
 pipe, the organist, to beg he would send one 
 of his people to my piano." 
 
 " Piano-forte tuners and attornev's clerks !" 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 169 
 
 reiterated Mr. Maudsley with amazement. 
 " My dear Miss Armytage, you must be blind : 
 that was the finest horse I ever beheld in har- 
 ness." 
 
 " I did not look at the horse, I was thinking 
 of the man." 
 
 '' I did look at the horse," said Reginald, 
 with a grim smile, " and, therefore, form my 
 conclusion that the man was a gentleman^ 
 
 " Why not as easily a horse-dealer ? " said 
 Sophia, who made it a point to dispute her 
 cousin's dictatorial decrees. 
 
 " Because," interrupted Mrs. Armytage, pe- 
 tulantly, '' Mr. Maudsley is probably aware 
 
 that he is " 
 
 " Air. Baltimore !" interrupted a footman, 
 throwing open the door; and in bustled the 
 active Jack, the vivacity of whose movements 
 had left old Simmons some quarter of a mile 
 in the rear. 
 
 " How are you. Ma'am ? — Happy to make 
 your acquaintance, Mrs. Armytage ! — Thought 
 
 VOL. I. I 
 
170 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 to have been here last night ; but the people at 
 the Blue Boar at Thoroton, where I put up, 
 insisted that the road was not good travelling 
 after dark. To be sure, there is a devil of a 
 gravel-pit just before you turn into the lodge 
 gates, where perhaps I might have found neat 
 accommodation for man and horse, and if " 
 
 " Sir ?" interrupted Mr. Reginald Maudsley, 
 advancing with solemn gesture towards the 
 stranger, evidently with the intention of ask- 
 ing him the nature of his business with Mrs. 
 Armytage, whose astonishment and disgust at 
 the intrusion were sufficiently manifest. 
 
 " Mr. Baltimore — the father, I believe, of 
 Mrs. Arthur Armytage ?'' inquired Sophia, 
 timidly intercepting his movements, but judg- 
 ing it necessary to interfere before further 
 offence was given or taken. 
 
 " Exactly !— Arthur's sister. Miss Sophy, I 
 presume ?" demanded Jack, in return. " Ay, 
 I guessed as much, by the likeness. And 
 Mrs. Armytage, too— devilish strong resem- 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 171 
 
 blance to my friend Arthur — might swear to 
 the breed as safely as to a foal of Gohanna's ! 
 But I am keepmg you all standing," cried 
 Jack^ checking himself, and turning with un- 
 suspecting good humour to look for a chair ; 
 in which, having coolly seated himself, even 
 Mrs. Armytage was not proof against the 
 frankness of liis self-possession. They all sat 
 down, overmastered by his impudence. 
 
 " You see. Ma am," said he, (abruptly re- 
 pelling the advances of Sophia's pet spaniel, 
 a blemish in whose genealogy the knowing 
 eye of Jack had mechanically detected,) '' you 
 see. Ma'am, 1 have made my way here on a 
 false scent : ran dovm to Newmarket t'other 
 day, for the Spring meeting, with young Lord 
 Hardup, and was persuaded by Tom Warley 
 and Parson Longodds to push on to Croxton 
 for the first day's running, as Tom's bay filly 
 
 Mrs. Armytage no longer repressed her 
 symptoms of impatience ; and Maudsley 
 
172 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 seemed only waiting her nod, to interfere with 
 the sporting intelligence of her guest. 
 
 " When, as we were journeying it through 
 
 Grantham at the rate of twelve miles an hour, 
 and turnpikes paid," resumed the reckless 
 Jack, '' what should I see placarded in black 
 and white, as large as ' Try Turner's,' on the 
 outside of the Leeds Eegulator, but ' Army- 
 tage at the head of the poll 1' Hailed coachee 
 in a second — pulled up — and in five words 
 made out, to my great surprise, that my son- 
 in-law, whom I fancied to be wasting his time 
 and money yonder among the Johnny Cra- 
 pauds, was electioneering here at home, 
 among the Johnny Bulls — standing, as the 
 saying is, in hopes of getting a seat. Ha ! ha ! 
 ha I So, says I to myself — ' Are ye there, my 
 hearty T and instead of keeping to time with 
 Tom and the Parson, I turned in straight to 
 the George, took a chop and a bed, and 
 spanked on nor'ards at daylight, in the High- 
 flyer as far as Doncaster, to my friend Light- 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 173 
 
 weight's, (a fellow pretty well known, I fancy, 
 in these parts, and as good a jockey as ever 
 crossed a horse !) and after a snack and a pint 
 of Burton that made my ears tingle, he drove 
 me over to Thoroton, where, as I said before, 
 I found I had come eighty miles out of my 
 way, on a fool's errand." 
 
 " My brother is still in France," said Sophia 
 hastily, dreading her mother's interposition. 
 
 *'Ay, so I hear from Mr. Gumption and 
 the other gentlemen of his Committee ; and 
 more's the pity," cried Baltimore; "for, as I 
 said to 'em this morning, what business has a 
 young chap with his prospects, heir to one of 
 the finest estates in the county, to stay gam- 
 bling and masquerading among such a set of 
 outsiders as the fellows in Paris, a pack of 
 snobs, that run their sham matches in a sand- 
 pit, and hunt hedgehogs with buckhounds !" 
 
 " Have you heard lately from Mrs. Arthur 
 Armytage ? " inquired Sophia, almost trem- 
 bling as she spoke. 
 
174 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 " Not these six weeks. Marian used to be 
 a tolerable correspondent when she was gad- 
 ding about with her aunt Robsey to Chelten- 
 ham and Weymouth, Margate and Broad- 
 stairs. But Paris seems to have turned her 
 little head." 
 
 " You will not regret, then, any circumstance 
 that tends to recall my brother to England?' 
 
 " You mean about the election ? Not I ! As 
 I said this morning to the gentleman at Tho- 
 roton who acts as Arthur's factotum, — a know- 
 ing sort of blade, that, and seems to have 
 served my son-in-law con a mory, as they say 
 in France, — if Arthur Armytage, of Holywell 
 Park, hasn't a right to be in parliament, who 
 has, I should like to know ? And, as Gumption 
 observed in answer, the notion of pitting a 
 mettled lad like him against such a cream- 
 faced tailor as young Spalding — (whom they 
 blackballed last year at the Cocoa Tree,) or 
 such a spoony as " 
 
 '' We ought perhaps to have introduced you 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 175 
 
 to my cousin^ Mr. Reginald Maudsley/' stam- 
 mered Miss Arm3^tage, hazarding anything 
 rather than the personal commentary which 
 was half escaping the lips of Jack Baltimore ; 
 and Jack, with an involuntary " Whew ! " half 
 arose from his seat, to duck a courteous bow 
 to the defeated candidate, which the defeated 
 candidate returned with a frozen salutation, 
 such as might have done honour to the statue 
 of the Commendatore in Don Juan. 
 
 But Mrs. Armytage's disgust by this time 
 exceeded all control ; and, rising from her seat 
 with an air of dignified, impatience, she ob- 
 served to her daughter — " If this gentleman 
 have anything to acquaint me with, wliich it is 
 necessary for me to know, you will find me in 
 the library. I have business with Hardywood. 
 Mr. Maudsley, do me the favour, I beg, to 
 remain here with your cousin." And, scarcely 
 curtseying, she withdrew all her majesty 
 from the room. 
 
 "Well — upon my honour!" ejaculated Jack, 
 
176 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 as the door closed after her, " Royalty is a joke 
 to Mrs. Armytage ! " 
 
 "You will have the goodness to remem- 
 ber. Sir, that you are in the presence of her 
 daughter," said Maudsley. 
 
 " I always heard she was as proud as Luci- 
 fer/' continued Jack, in an angry voice, without 
 noticing his interruption, " but this beats cock- 
 fighting! What the devil does she take me 
 for ? " 
 
 "Dear Mr. Baltimore ! " cried Sophia, clasp- 
 ing her hands, while the tears stood in her eyes 
 with terror, lest the elevated tone in which he 
 spoke should reach her mother's cars ; " if you 
 have the least regard for Arthur, let me entreat 
 you to say and do nothing that may widen the 
 breach between him and my mother. You 
 are already aware that, without intending the 
 slightest disrespect to your family, she greatly 
 disapproved of his marrying so early in life." 
 
 "And wh}^ the deuce should she?" inter- 
 rupted Jack. "What had Mrs. Armytage 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. |77 
 
 ever done for Arthur to give her any right to 
 interfere with his actions ? " 
 
 '' She was his mother,'' mildly remonstrated 
 Sophia. 
 
 "And a pretty mother to boast of! — I can 
 tell Mrs. Armytage, most people in the county 
 are of opinion that she ought to have given up 
 the Holywell estate to him on his coming of 
 age. Why, the gentlemen of the committee at 
 Thoroton were saying so only this morning ; 
 and if / were in Arthur's shoes, I Avould take 
 care to overhaul old Mauds! ey's will pretty 
 sharply, and make sure that " 
 
 '• If you continue in this strain, I fear I 
 must put an end to our interview, which would 
 give me very great pain," said Miss Armytage, 
 mildly ; '' for, believe me, I have it deeply at 
 heart that Arthur and his wife should be on 
 comfortable terms with my mother, and live 
 among us as they ought. Mamma has been 
 accustomed to great respect from her children, 
 
 1 3 
 
178 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 great deference from those around lier; and 
 should any unfortunate contrariety occur just 
 now to incense her against my brother, the 
 consequences might be fatal to his interests. 
 I am sure you are too good-natured, too kind- 
 hearted, to wish to inflame our family dissen- 
 sions. Let us, on the contrary, all unite and 
 do our best to bring things smooth again. I 
 am expecting Arthur every day, every hour. 
 Do not, pray do not, aggravate any unkind 
 feelings he may harbour against my mother, 
 by relating to him the unfortunate circum- 
 stances that have occurred this morning ! " 
 
 '' Miss Armytage, you really humiliate your- 
 self by these concessions," said Reginald, com- 
 ing forward from the window, at which he had 
 stationed himself, as if resolved not to sit down 
 again in Mr. Baltimore's company. " It is an 
 injustice to your family to " 
 
 " Who asked for your oj^inion, Sir ? " cried 
 Jack, fiercely, and \\ith a kindling eye. 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 1?9 
 
 " S\Y, I am here by Mrs. Armytage's desire, 
 for the protection of her daughter," replied 
 Maudsley, with ineffable disdain. 
 
 " The protection of her daughter, indeed ! 
 What do you suppose her daughter has to 
 fear ? Do you fancy that a sweet gentle 
 creature like Miss Armytage could provoke a 
 man to forget his manners, like yonder old 
 termagant ? No, no ! Mr. Cousin ! your as- 
 sistance is not wanted ; and unless I'm much 
 at fault, you may chance to find yourself 
 kicked out with the young lady as well as with 
 the old borough ; at the tag end of the poll, 
 here, there, and everywhere ! You under- 
 stand me ? " 
 
 " Sir ! " cried Reginald, in a voice that 
 seemed to make the breakfast-china, still re- 
 maining on the table, chime and jingle — 
 " give me leave to say " 
 
 *' I shall give you leave to do no such thing! 
 You have heard my opinion. Make the most 
 
180 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 of it, or make me answer for it. 'Rough and 
 Ready ! ' is Jack Baltimore's motto; and " 
 
 Sophia's tears now literally began to flow ; 
 and Jack was pacified in a moment. 
 
 " Come, come, my dear young lady," cried 
 he, " I did not mean to say anything to annoy 
 you ; God forbid ! If my bark has proved worse 
 than my bite, you must pardon a straight-for- 
 ward, plain- sailing fellow, whose pride is not 
 a little touched by the way his girl and her 
 family have been treated. Give me your hand, 
 Miss Sophia, and I hope we may live to be- 
 come better friends. I see I must wait for 
 Arthur's return to learn all I want to learn, 
 and know all I want to know ; but take this 
 from me, meantime, and for as true a truth as 
 that God is above us, — that I had rather ten 
 million times have my child at home again 
 among her brothers and sisters, happy and 
 merry, and roughing it with the rest, than see 
 her matched with the greatest lord in the 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 181 
 
 land, to be looked down upon, she and her 
 relations, as I see she is like to be, here at 
 Holywell Park." 
 
 '' No, no, no," cried Sophia. " All will 
 eventually go right ; and I shall live to see 
 my brother as happy as he deserves." 
 
 Mr. Baltimore shook his head. He was 
 already on his legs ; and now began to retreat 
 towards the door. 
 
 " You are going," added Sophia, " and I 
 have not yet thought of offering you refresh- 
 ments!" 
 
 "Refreshments?*' reiterated Jack, with a 
 significant smile. '' Thankee, thankee ! Mrs. 
 Army tage's civilities have refreshed me enough 
 for this week to come. I wish you good morn- 
 ing ; ay, ay ! shake hands, and \velcome. I 
 wish you a very good morning ; and as to you. 
 Sir, I wish you better manners, and my service 
 to you." 
 
 And away shuffled Jack, waiting for no 
 announcement to the servants, no summons 
 
182 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 to Lightweight, no bringing round of gigs; 
 straight to the offices ; muttering curses be- 
 tween his teeth, and totally indifferent even to 
 the magnificent range of stabling ; even to the 
 incomparable dog-jard and kennelling; even 
 to the capital preserves and stretching ^vood- 
 lands that met his eyes, forming part of the 
 future domains of his dear little ill-used Ma- 
 rian. He had no patience to admire anything 
 belonging to Mrs. Armytage ! 
 
CHAPTEE XIII. 
 
 She^ of late, is froward, 
 Reserved and sad, and vexed at little things; 
 Which her great soul, ashamed of, strait shakes off, 
 And is composed again. 
 
 DuRiKG that day, although Mrs. Armytage 
 maintained the strictest silence touching the 
 extraordinary visitation ^Yith which she had 
 been favoured, it was plain that her indig- 
 nation was overpowering. And yet, at times, 
 Sophia could not help fancying that her m.other 
 seemed pleased ; pleased, perhaps, to find her 
 vague prejudices against the odious family of 
 Baltimore so fully justified. 
 
 But if Tuesday had been unpropitious to 
 the cause of the ill-starred Arthur, Wednesday 
 did wonders in his favour. Wednesday brought 
 the foreign post, and the foreign post a letter 
 
184 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 for his mother ; which it would be unjust to his 
 first efforts in parliamentary correspondence, 
 to transfer to the dry periods of narrative. Let 
 the new M.P. speak, — as new M.P.s should, — 
 for himself. 
 
 " Rue de RivoU, April 2nd, 
 "Dear Mother, 
 
 " I have hitherto refrained from writing to 
 you, solely in deference to what I concluded 
 must be your wishes on the subject. If, there- 
 fore, I do w^rong in now addressing you, attri- 
 bute it to my sincere desire of profiting by 
 your judgment, and fulfilling your wishes. 
 You must not suppose that, because I con- 
 sulted only my own inclinations in an affair so 
 nearly concerning m}^ happiness as marriage, 
 I am indifferent to yours on that or any other 
 subject. But, without wearying you with pro- 
 fessions, allow me to come at once to a point 
 of business. 
 
 " I have this day received a hurried letter 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 185 
 
 from a person of the name of Gumption, (whom 
 I think I recollect as a scamp of an attorney, 
 at Thoroton,) stating that, in consequence of 
 old Arable's being raised to the peerage, and 
 a vacancy unexpectedly occurring in the re- 
 presentation of the borough, he had brought 
 me forward and secured my election, ' in his 
 great zeal for my interests, and those of the 
 country ; ' in short, that he had done his 
 officious best to thrust me into Parliament, 
 whether I woidd or no. 
 
 " This business has taken me altogether by 
 surprise. Conscious that I have deeply of- 
 fended you, I foresee that I can scarcely stir 
 in it without offending you further. I am 
 aware that you formerly entertained a project 
 of bringing me forward in political life as the 
 representative of our family interest ; but it 
 seems probable that your views on this point 
 may have changed with circumstances. My 
 own fortune does not place me in a situation 
 to accept the honours so unsatisfactorily be- 
 
186 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 stowed; nor am I desirous that they should 
 be the means of marking to the world the 
 differences existing between us. 
 
 " Now, I appeal to your candour, my dear 
 mother, to acquit me of all intention of ma- 
 noeuvring myself into a happier situation ; 
 and if it be your desire that I should decline 
 the seat offered, I will seize the pretext of 
 health, or some other equally valid, to excuse 
 myself, to my self-constituted constituency. 
 Your silence will suffice to confirm me in this 
 intention ; but if, on the contrary, I receive a 
 word of encouragement from your hand, I own 
 it will infinitely gratify me to return to Eng- 
 land v,dth the hope of restoring myself to your 
 confidence and affection. Act, however, in 
 your decision, as if this desire had not been 
 expressed; and whatever your sentence may 
 prove, believe in the unaltered respect of your 
 affectionate son, 
 
 " Arthur Maudsley Army t age." 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 1S7 
 
 This frank and unanticipated appeal went 
 straight to the heart of Mrs. Armytage. Ke- 
 served people are peculiarly susceptible to the 
 influence of frankness ; and, reserved or not, 
 there was a vein of generosity in the impe- 
 rious woman's nature, that glowed with sym- 
 pathy towards the fine, free, forgiving temper 
 of her son. Within the last few days, Regi- 
 nald Maudsley'*s cool, ungenial inaccessibility 
 had put her somewhat out of conceit wdth 
 the pendencies and expediencies of life ; and 
 now^ that Arthur had proved himself guiltless 
 of all confederacy with her enemies, she was 
 almost ready to pardon him for having been 
 elected in opposition to the candidate of her 
 choice. 
 
 " Sophia," said she, addressing her daugh- 
 ter, who sat anxiously watching the expression 
 produced upon her countenance by the perusal 
 of the letter ; while Maudsley, who w^as seated 
 opposite, and equally scrutinizing, aflfected to 
 give his w^hole attention to the decipherment 
 
188 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 of the ' Times ' — '' I know 3-ou are eager to 
 learn the result of your brother's explanations. 
 You will rejoice to find that he has completely 
 vindicated himself of coalition with the plots 
 of Mr. Gumption." 
 
 " I rejoice to find that you admit his excul- 
 pation, dear mamma/' said Sophia, colouring; 
 " for myself, believe me, 1 never for a moment 
 doubted my brother's innocence." 
 
 *' / did ; and am sorry for it ; nay, more, 
 ashamed of it ;" continued Mrs. Armytage ; 
 and the word " ashamed" sounded strangely 
 when pronounced by lips so stern as hers. 
 
 •' It must assuredly afford you considerable 
 consolation under the very awkward circum- 
 stances in which you have been placed by the 
 unhappy marriage contracted by my cousin,'* 
 observed the sententious Reginald, " to find 
 that he has disavowed all intention of entering 
 into public opposition to your views and feel- 
 ings ; for, as his father-in-law, Mr. Baltimore, 
 was observing, yesterday morning " 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 189 
 
 " We will not talk of Mr. Baltimore now," 
 — hastily interrupted Sophia. " Tell me, dear 
 mother, what are Arthur's intentions about 
 the election V 
 
 " To submit to mine." 
 
 *•' And may I ask, what have you decided ? 
 Is he likely to return to England?'' 
 
 " Immediately." 
 
 " To take his seat in the House of Com- 
 mons ?" demanded Maudsley, sneeringly. 
 
 '' To establish himself in mine,'" replied 
 Mrs. Armytage, provoked into saying more 
 than she intended, by the cold-blooded and ill- 
 timed irony of her kinsman. 
 
 " My dear, dear mamma !" cried Sophia, 
 seizing and kissing her mother's hand. " You 
 will write to-day and tell him so, will you 
 
 not r 
 
 " You are his habitual correspondent,'' said 
 Mrs. Armytage, hesitatingly ; "audit mil save 
 a world of disagreeable explanations, if you 
 undertake the task of expressing my desire 
 
190 FEMALE DOMIIsATION. 
 
 that he should return home without loss of 
 time." 
 
 The word " home/' thus applied to Arthur, 
 produced a delightM effect on the ears of 
 Sophia : but she resisted. 
 
 " No^ — mother ! — you must w rite to him 
 yourself. Think w4iat it will be for my bro- 
 ther to receive a letter from your ow^n hand, 
 after so many months' silence. Pray wTite to 
 him yourself ! " 
 
 " If / can be of the least use, my dear Ma- 
 dam, as your amanuensis," — Keginald began. 
 
 " Not in the slightest, I thank you," replied 
 Mrs. Armytage, gradually recovering her self- 
 possession. " Sophia is right ; it is my busi- 
 ness to WTite to my son ; I will despatch my 
 letter instantly. — Sophy, my love, ^while I am 
 in the library, order the carriage to drive over 
 to Greta Castle. I shall request my friend 
 Lord Rotheram to oblige me by announcing 
 at Thoroton, that Mr. Armytage may be im- 
 mediately expected." 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 19 L 
 
 " No doubt he lias already communicated 
 his intention to Gumption," said Eeginald, 
 curious to discover exactly by what terms of 
 submission Arthur had operated so sudden a 
 revolution in the feelings of his mother. 
 
 '' I rather think not r said Mrs. Armytage, 
 drily. 
 
 '' Poor Mr. Baltimore I If he have not yet 
 quitted the Blue Boar, how will he be charmed 
 to learn this change in the prospects of his 
 son-in-law !" persisted the disappointed man. 
 
 " Not more than all our friends and neigh- 
 bours, to find Arthur once more restored to 
 my mother's affections !'' cried Sophia ; " the 
 Gretas, the Maranhams, the Wemmersleys, all 
 have taken the estrangement so much to 
 heart." 
 
 Mrs. Armytage stopped short as she was 
 leaving the room. Sophia had not benefited 
 her brother's cause as she intended by this last 
 observation. Mrs. Armytage scarcely liked to 
 hear that the position of her son excited so 
 
192 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 strong an interest among her friends and 
 neighbours. — No doubt many of them had 
 silently adjudged her to be in the wrong ! 
 
 " Half the mischief that occurs in families/' 
 she petulantly observed, '' is occasioned by the 
 undue interference of strangers; by the idle 
 habit prevailing in the vrorld of commenting 
 on the business of others, of which we know 
 nothing, and of which, did we know anything, 
 delicacy should interdict the discussion.'* 
 
 It w^as fortunate, perhaps, for Miss Army- 
 tage that Maudsley had attempted to make so 
 much of his advantas^es with his hio;h-minded 
 cousin ; — had he left his injuries to be re- 
 dressed by a voluntary effort of her generosity, 
 Mrs. Armytage w^ould probably have con- 
 firmed her early intentions in his favour. It 
 had, in truth, been long her dearest desire to 
 make him her son-in-law ; but she w^ould not 
 be dictated to, even for the furtherance of pro- 
 jects of her own ; — and when, that evening, the 
 mortified Reginald demanded an audience of 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 193 
 
 her, insisted largely upon the injury already 
 experienced by the Maudsley family at her 
 hands, in her preference of a stranger to his 
 father, and her infructuous election overtures 
 to himself, and seemed to make the hand of 
 Sophia a meed due to the reparation of his 
 wrongs, rather than a generous concession, 
 Mrs. Armytage's pride enlisted itself against 
 his pretensions. She assured him she should 
 leave the decision entirely to the discretion of 
 her daughter. 
 
 Nothing less than some very strong excite- 
 ment would have wrung such a declaration 
 from her lips ! so little, indeed, was she in the 
 habit of vesting any right of option in her 
 children, and so strong was the influence of 
 the ruling passion in her breast, that in her 
 conference on the subject with Sophia, these 
 generous intentions appeared to be already 
 obliterated from her mind. 
 
 " I have undertaken,"^ said she, ceremo- 
 niously, " to lay before you the pretensions 
 
 VOL. 1. K 
 
194 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 of your cousin Reginald to your hand. As 
 the eldest son of my nearest relative. Sir John 
 Maudsley, no less than on account of the 
 honourable character he has already attained 
 in society, he has every claim to your con- 
 sideration : when I add that his suit has ob- 
 tained my fullest sanction, I trust I have said 
 all that is necessary to say on the subject. I 
 have been unfortunate in my recent attempts 
 to promote the interests of my young relative ; 
 1 trust my aid may be more available in se- 
 curing his happiness." 
 
 " Not by a marriage Avith your daughter, 
 my dear mother ! " cried Sophia. " Believe 
 me, no measure >YOuld be more injudicious for 
 all parties. Of all the men I have ever seen, 
 Reginald Maudsley is the one I could least 
 like, — least love, — least honour as a husband." 
 
 '' My opinion, it seems, possesses consider- 
 able value in your eyes ! "' ejaculated Mrs. 
 Armytage. " Far be it from me to exercise 
 authority over you on such a point ; but I did 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 195 
 
 hope my judgment might in some degree 
 operate in the regulation of your own." 
 
 '' Judgment — ah ! mother ; it is too late to 
 talk of judgment ! " replied Sophia. 
 
 *'Do you mean me to understand, then," 
 hastily interrupted Mrs. Armytage, " that pre- 
 en gagement renders impossible the alliance 
 which, for many years past, I have derived so 
 much satisfaction from contemplating ? " 
 
 " Not an engayement. You cannot for a 
 moment suppose I could have taken a step of 
 so much importance without reference to your 
 advice. ' 
 
 Mrs. Armytage's wrath was somewhat ap- 
 peased by this declaration ; but she resolved 
 to make the utmost use of Sophia's mood of 
 submission. '' I am to understand, then," said 
 she, " that your objection to this match is per- 
 sonally and exclusively to Mr. Maudsley." 
 
 " Personally and exclusively." 
 
 " And that, on any similar occasion, I may 
 esteem myself secure of holding a mother's 
 
 k2 
 
196 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 riglit of influence over your decision? — that 
 you will not, in short, engage yourself without 
 my approbation ? " 
 
 "Certainly, certainly! I will do more. 1 
 promise you, my dear mother, that no inclina- 
 tion, no preference of my own, shall induce 
 me to marry without your consent. All you 
 have done, all you are still doing for me, all 
 the authority wdiich you derive over my con- 
 duct from the laws of nature and of God, 
 demand such a pledge. Do not insist upon 
 my marrying my cousin Maudsley, or any 
 other man objectionable to my feelings, and I 
 leave all the rest in your hands. To your 
 wishes I submit the absolute control of my 
 prospects in life." 
 
 Mrs. Armytage, no less surprised than de- 
 lighted, imprinted a kiss on the forehead of 
 her submissive child, ere she proceeded to 
 acquaint Mr. Maudsley with the decision of 
 Sophia. But, even prepared as she now was 
 for the unamiable stiif-neckedness of his ego- 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 197 
 
 tism, she had not anticipated the insolent 
 reproaches with which her communication was 
 received by her protege, the haughtiness of 
 whose temper was only too vmsatisfactorily 
 congenial with her own. She felt herself irre- 
 trievably offended ; and when the carriage 
 of the indignant Reginald drove forth from 
 the court-yard, his kinswoman hardened her 
 heart with the most indignant resentment 
 against even his contingent claims of succes- 
 sion to the family inheritance. She was more 
 enraged against her graceless favourite than 
 she had ever been against her son. 
 
 But while Sophia, elate with the prospect of 
 Arthur's restoration to favour, watched exult- 
 ingly from the window the final exit of the 
 disappointed Maudsley, the rival at home of 
 her lover and her brother, she did not suffici- 
 ently reflect upon the infinite importance of 
 the prerogative with which she had invested 
 Mrs. Armytage. In the triumph of sisterly 
 aff'ection, she forgot that henceforth the control 
 
198 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 of her hopes and happiness was delegated to 
 another ; that she was no longer, even nomi- 
 nally, the arbitress of her own career ! Alas ! 
 the first dark page of her destinies was already 
 unfolding I 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 a learned and a manly soul 
 
 I purposed her, that should with even powers 
 The rock, the spindle, and the shears control 
 Of destiny, and spin her own free hours. 
 
 Ben Jokson. 
 
 The days passed on ; and at length, " 'twixt 
 sun and shower,'* arrived the mormng which 
 was to welcome back Arthur Armytage to the 
 home of his infancy ; or rather, as Mrs. Army- 
 tage considered the question, to the residence 
 of his maternal ancestors. Sophia, when she 
 opened her eyes full an hour earlier than 
 usual, rejoiced to perceive that the skies shone 
 auspiciously on the event; and it struck her, 
 when she looked forth from her window upon 
 the noble park- scenery of Holywell, its turf 
 sprinkled over by the first spring daisies, and 
 
200 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 its plantations vivified b}^ their earliest tinge 
 of green, tliat the place had never looked so 
 majestic or so gay before. The waters of the 
 Wharfe were rippling in the sun ; the rooks 
 circling hither and thither over the avenues, 
 noisy and busy as the members of a new par- 
 liament ; the gardeners had attempted their 
 first mowing of the lawns which intersected 
 (as at wood-encircled Dropmore) the groves, 
 skirting one wing of the mansion; all was 
 alive — all cheerful — and Sophia's heart was 
 light within her bosom, as with the lightness 
 of a bird. 
 
 She was provoked, however, as the business 
 of the day proceeded, to notice that " the sense 
 of the house " was at variance with her own. 
 The domestics of Holywell, like other ancient 
 corporations, were apt to wax obstinate in 
 their opinions; and the steward's-room having 
 originally settled that Master Arthur was in 
 the wrong, chose to abide by the decree; 
 their mistress might see fit to change her 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 201 
 
 verdict, they were less versatile ; the visit of 
 Jack Baltimore in his "one-horse chay," had 
 stereotyped their protest against their young 
 master's matrimonial alliance. Old Hardy- 
 wood, accordingly, with whom his lady's will 
 was absolute, was the only one of the house- 
 hold who chose to make the return of the 
 offender an epoch of rejoicing. He invested 
 himself in his yellow-white Marcella waist- 
 coat, girded on his brown-black satin shorts, 
 smoothed down his long white hair, and dis- 
 posed his feelings for a holiday. But Sim- 
 mons was sulky ; the lame, deaf, and blind 
 ladies of the bed-chamber and still-room put 
 on afflicted faces, inverted the corners of their 
 mouths, and shook their heads whenever Mrs. 
 Armytage came in sight. They would not 
 understand anything ; and for all particulars 
 of preparation connected with the expected 
 guests, chose to demand a thousand unne- 
 cessary instructions. 
 
 Smooth as was the course of hospitality at 
 
 K 3 
 
202 
 
 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 Holywell on all other occasions, and arbitrary 
 as old Mrs. Caudlecup's distribution of its 
 <;hambers and bills of fare, she chose to be 
 told not only what rooms were to be appro- 
 priated to Master Arthur and his lady, but 
 where Mrs. Arthur's maid was to sleep, and 
 where the valet. She even took occasion to 
 inquire whether the blue drawing-room was to 
 be [got ready as a morning-room for Mrs. 
 Arthur, in case it should not be agreeable to 
 her to breakfast with the family ; and was as 
 much puzzled what roast to provide for the 
 second course, " now that game was out, and 
 chickens and ducklings not yet fit for the spit," 
 as if she had not been in the habit of meeting 
 similar exigencies, every spring for her last 
 fifty years of service. 
 
 The head coachman, too, chose to under- 
 stand that he had been ordered to take the 
 set of bays to a post-town at fourteen miles 
 distance, instead of a neighbouring village, 
 enabling Arthur to make his entry into Tho- 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 203 
 
 roton witli suitable honours. The ofF-leader 
 was accordingly announced to be in physic, 
 and Jem Outrider to be dead lame — or the 
 leader to be lame, and the groom in physic — 
 no matter ! — it was some stable catastrophe, 
 intending to prove to Mrs. Armytage the ex- 
 treme inconvenience entailed upon her esta- 
 blishment by Master Arthur's arrival. For a 
 moment Sophia entertained a project of re- 
 pairing to the offices and haranguing the 
 factious members thus inopportunely striving 
 to rekindle the embers of discord. But her 
 usual prudent avoidance of all interference 
 with her mother's absolute sway, warned her 
 that she might do more harm than good to 
 the cause ; and repeating to herself the oft- 
 repeated axiom, that " Time and tide wear 
 through the roughest day," she retreated 
 shortly after breakfast to her own room, trust- 
 ing that her mother's attention was engrossed 
 by her usual avocations. 
 
 But this was not likely. The event of the 
 
204 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 day was a great event to Mrs. Armytage ; her 
 conscience and her pride were equally uneasy. 
 She felt that for years past she had acted 
 somewhat harshly towards her only son : that 
 she had excluded him from her confidence, and 
 jealously repelled his participation in the ad- 
 ministration of the family aifairs. She would 
 have given much for courage to deal more 
 frankly, more generously, with him : but con- 
 scious of her own weakness (a king-like sus- 
 ceptibility to the encroachments of her suc- 
 cessor), she dreaded to lay aside a sceptre 
 which she knew her feelings would the next 
 moment prompt her to re-assimie ! Still, Mrs. 
 Armytage hankered after a better frame of 
 mind ; still she tried to fan her flickering 
 virtue into a flame. In traversing the picture- 
 gallery at the housekeeper's desire, to inspect 
 the suite of rooms prepared for the young 
 couple, she paused opposite the portrait of her 
 husband — the husband of her youth — the hus- 
 band of her choice — the father of her children 
 
FEMALK DOMINATION. 205 
 
 — of Arthur — the confiding, open-hearted, 
 open-handed, reverential husband, who had 
 so readily surrendered all right and authority 
 to the hands of the woman he honoured with 
 his love. It was a spirited picture from the 
 pencil of Gainsborough; full of animation — 
 full of life and health — and full, too, of the 
 peculiarly bland but joyous expression of 
 countenance distinguishing her son. It re- 
 called the days of her girlhood, of her first 
 affections, her first consciousness of perfect 
 happiness : the plighting of her virgin vows, 
 the birth of her first-born child. 
 
 Few widows, after so vast a lapse of years, 
 could have gazed with sj unaccusing a con- 
 science on the resemblance of their husband. 
 From the day of his untimely death, Mrs. Ar- 
 mytage had, in truth, suffered no living man 
 to produce even a momentary impression on 
 her feelings. But she v,as not equally satisfied 
 of her blamelessness in the discharge of the 
 great duty he had committed to her hand. 
 
206 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 Perhaps she ought to have done more for 
 Arthur, and overcome her feeUngs of resent- 
 ment against his opposition to her views : but 
 it was not yet too late. Tears rose in her 
 eyes, as, still gazing upon her husband's pic- 
 ture, she felt rejoiced that it was not. She 
 congratulated herself that her son was on his 
 way home — that he would arrive that very day, 
 and w^ent her way to inspect the blazing fires 
 in the chintz bed-room and its spacious dress- 
 ing-rooms, with a lighter step, and brow less 
 haughty than was the w^ont of Mrs. Armytage. 
 
 Meanwhile, Sophia's reflections, if of a differ- 
 ent, were scarcely of a less mo\4ng cast. Deep 
 was her reverence for her mother ; dear and 
 devoted her sisterly tenderness for Arthur; 
 and the anticipation of their immediate re- 
 union, and the restoration of family peace at 
 Holywell, filled her mind with holy and grate- 
 ful delight. All, henceforth, would be well 
 with those wdiom her soul loved ! 
 
 Like her mother, too, her thoughts were 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 200^ 
 
 straying back into the past — to nursery remi- 
 niscences — to holida}' recollections — to the 
 girlish and bopsh projects of herself and Ar- 
 thur. It had been so often settled between 
 them what wife he was to bring home to Holy- 
 well, and how she was to be welcomed ; but the 
 beau ideal sister-in-law did not, it must be 
 admitted, resemble a Marian Baltimore. A 
 gentle tap at the door at length disturbed her 
 meditations, and Sophia started from her seat 
 at the entrance of her friend Lady Laura 
 Greta. 
 
 " Do not let me disturb you," said she, 
 stealing in on tiptoe, and placing herself with- 
 out ceremony in the seat nearest to Sophia's 
 musing chair : " I dare say you wish me away. 
 1 believe I ought not to have come ; yet, in- 
 deed, dearest Sophy, I could not bear to stay 
 away, knowing how anxious you must be this 
 morning. At what hour do you expect these 
 people ?" 
 
 " Every minute ; we hardly know. A few 
 
208 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 hurried lines written by Arthur on landing at 
 Dover, contain all we have learned of their 
 intentions." 
 
 '' He ought to have written again, knowing, 
 as he does, the tenacity of Mrs. Armytage on 
 all matters of family ceremony. Besides, the 
 Thorotonians are kept in such sad suspense ! 
 I have a suspicion they have been in waiting 
 since daylight to be in readiness to draw the 
 new member into town." 
 
 '• Poor Arthur cannot, of course, be apprized 
 of that." 
 
 " No ! but from many trifles I have noticed 
 since his marriage (with respect to yourself 
 in particular), I am convinced we shall find 
 him less considerate than he used to be of the 
 feelings of others.*' 
 
 " No — no — I cannot listen to such a pre- 
 diction !" 
 
 " Ah ! Sophy ! you may rationalize as much 
 as you will, and preach Christian humility or 
 philosophical equality till you are tired ; but 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 209 
 
 trust me, there is nothing so demorahzing in 
 human nature as the influence of inferior so- 
 ciety/' 
 
 " Jliat is one of Lord Greta's notions." 
 '' His or mine, no matter — accept it for a 
 truism." 
 
 '' First tell me what you mean by inferior 
 society ?" 
 
 "People without refinement — without en- 
 lightenment." 
 
 '' Kefinement is so arbitrary a quality, so 
 wholly dependent on individual views and 
 station." 
 
 '' In one word, then, I mean low people, 
 such as the Baltimores." 
 
 '' I thought so ; and you judge them pre- 
 maturely. What do we know at present of 
 the family? Dearest Laura! allow me to 
 hope for the best !" 
 
 " Well, well — I dare say I am wrong ; at all 
 events wrong to come and plague you about 
 them this morning, when I know you are feel- 
 ing so uneasily.*" 
 
210 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 *' I am, indeed. The events of to-day will 
 probably enable me to form an opinion of 
 Arthur's prospects of happiness in life ; and, 
 if that opinion should be unfavourable ! — such 
 a dear good brother as he is !" 
 
 " It is now my turn to say, make the best 
 of it. But you look so Avorried, dear Soph}', 
 that I hardly like to communicate the nature 
 of my business at Holywell." 
 
 " Business at Holywell ! Have you any, 
 besides the task of saying a cheering word to 
 raise my spirits.'^" 
 
 '' I am come as an ambassadress for my 
 mother. Mamma, in the warmth of her love 
 for me, knowing how infinitel}^ I dislike what 
 is called ' going out ' in town, w^ants to recon- 
 cile me to my fate by persuading you to accom- 
 pany us to London for the season. She pro- 
 mises to take the greatest possible care of you, 
 and so forth; not to torment you to become 
 more dissipated than suits your health and 
 convenience; and to bring you back safe to 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 211 
 
 Holywell whenever you may choose. You can 
 take your own servants or not, as you will ; 
 onl}' papa and mamma are anxious that you 
 should consider yourself completely one of 
 the family. 
 
 " How very kind of Lady Rotherham !" — 
 
 " Very kind towards her daughter. Oh ! 
 my dear Sophy ! — do say yes ! I have set my 
 heart upon your going with, us to London." 
 
 Sophia coloured to the temples ; but said 
 nothing. 
 
 For two years past particular motives had 
 inspired her with the most ardent desire to 
 visit London : and she knew there was no 
 chance of persuading her mother to quit 
 Holywell. But she was prudent enough to 
 deliberate. 
 
 " I came to consult your own wishes before 
 mamma made her petition in form to Mrs. 
 Armytage/' continued Lady Laura, "fearing 
 she might be inclined to urge you to compli- 
 
212 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 ance against your inclinations ; or to refuse 
 her consent, in case jou are inclined to gratify 
 our hopes. So you have only to tell me sin- 
 cerely your desire, and nothing shall be left 
 unattempted to bring it to pass." 
 
 " A thousand thanks ! — Pray, then, beg 
 Lady Rotherham, in my name, on no account 
 to mention her kind invitation to my mother 
 — I think she would wish my acceptance of so 
 kind and friendly a proposal : but much as I 
 should like the visit I must not just now quit 
 Holywell. I may be wanted as an adviser — 
 as a peace-maker ; — I may — " 
 
 *' That odious Mrs, Arthur Armytage 
 again 1" 
 
 '^ Hush!— hush!" 
 
 *' And you are really going to make your- 
 self a martyr, and sacrifice your prospects 
 and inclinations to a stranger?". 
 
 '' Not to a stranger; but Arthur's temper 
 is hastier than mine ; and many little disturb- 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 213 
 
 ances may occur at Holywell needing all my 
 influence to pacify. I should be miserable to 
 be away from home just now." 
 
 '' But mamma will put off her departure for 
 London for a week or ten days, to enable you 
 to smooth away the difficulties of your bro- 
 ther's first arrival." 
 
 " Dear Laura ! Can you indeed suppose 
 that a week will enable persons of such differ- 
 ent ways of living and thinking as my mother 
 and her daughter-in-law, to understand each 
 other, and — " 
 
 " And what can you do to improve their 
 temper or understanding ?" 
 
 " Something, at least, to tranquillize Ar- 
 thur's susceptibility ; ' A soft answer,' you 
 know, ' turneth away wrath ;' and how could 
 1 answer him otherwise than softly — I love 
 him so dearly ! Hark ! I think I hear the 
 sound of wheels — yes ! — they are certainly 
 coming." 
 
 " Do not agitate yourself, — sit down ; drink 
 
214 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 this glass of water 1*' cried Lady Laura, her- 
 self turning alternately pale and red, as a car- 
 riage decidedly entered the sweep. 
 
 But while Sophia, scarcely able to stand, was 
 summoning courage to go down and welcome 
 the new-comers. Lady Laura Greta exclaimed 
 in a voice half- vexed, half-triumphant — " What 
 a waste of our sensibiHty ! — It is only those 
 odious Wemmersleys and their Yankee cousin, 
 come to offer their congratulations, no doubt, 
 to Mrs. Armytage ! Let us leave them to the 
 full enjoyment of their malice. Unless we are 
 summoned to the drawing-room, Sophy, re- 
 main here, and conclude our negotiations. I 
 cannot return home in peace till you have 
 assented to mamma's proposal. You must, you 
 really 7misl accompany us to London." 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 Sweet Willie, the flower of Liddesdale, 
 Had taken him o'er the saut sea faem, 
 
 And now he's come fra' foreign land, 
 
 And has woo'd a wife and brought her hame. 
 
 And lovely sweet fair Alice was, 
 
 And bonnie yellow was her hair ; 
 And happy, happy, might she ha' been, 
 
 But his mother wrought her mickle care. 
 
 Old Ballad. 
 
 While their attention was absorbed by the 
 interesting subject of their conference, the 
 visit of the Wemmerslej^s wore to an end ; 
 and even Lady Laura was at length obliged 
 to ring and order her pony-carriage without 
 further tidings of Arthur's arrival. 
 
 Sophia grew anxious and fidgety. The sun 
 was streaming down the western avenue, as 
 Lady Laura took her departure. The river 
 and the woods had already assumed their 
 
216 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 sombre evening hue. The first dinner-bell 
 rang ; the rooks were already at roost ; the 
 " sheep were in the fauld, and the rye at 
 hame," but still no Arthur. 
 
 Sophia began to tremble. Twice had her 
 mother referred to her son's last epistle ; and 
 its hieroglyphics, although in other respects 
 most Etonianly and Parliamentarily illegible, 
 bore a distinct promise, that " On Thursday 
 next, without fail, we shall be at Holywell." 
 The engagement was positive ; but its rupture 
 appeared only too probable. Still, the influ- 
 ence of the picture, and of the compunctious 
 visitinffs to which it had o-iven rise, were all 
 ascendant ; and when the turret clock of the 
 offices chimed half-past seven, and old Sim- 
 mons hobbled in for the fifth time to inquire 
 whether dinner might be served, Mrs. Army- 
 age answered in the affirmative, Avithout any 
 harsher commentary than an order that cer- 
 tain dishes might be kept hot for the travel- 
 lers. 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 217 
 
 Sophia now began to dread that, after all his 
 procrastinations, Arthur would make his ap- 
 pearance in the middle of dinner, a meal of 
 some ceremony at Holywell; — and who does 
 not knoAV the awkwardness of such an inter- 
 ruption? — the dining party swallowing their 
 hasty mouthfuls, lapng aside their napkins, 
 and hurriedly shaking oiF the evidence of 
 their occupation — the arriving-party intro- 
 duced into a room savouring of anchovy sauce, 
 sherry, and divers ragouts, yet protesting, that 
 amid this compound of villainous smells, there 
 is not the slightest effluvium of dinner ! There 
 was no cause, however, for alarm : the turbot 
 boiled into wool — the lamb calcined into dust 
 • — the cutlets browned to the tint of umber — 
 the much-injured teal — the asparagus be- 
 headed of its verdant tops — were successively 
 removed. Dessert was put on table; and a 
 pine-apple of dimensions to win a horticultural 
 prize, and especially destined by the head- 
 gardener to do honour to the visit of Master 
 
 VOL. I. L 
 
218 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 Arthur, instead of adding weight to his own 
 pocket by following its fellows clandestinely to 
 Covent Garden, was remorselessly or unwit- 
 tingly cut by Mrs. Armytage, although she 
 would not, and Sophia could not, taste it ! 
 
 Then came coffee, and after coffee, tea; and 
 after tea, (dinner having been so unusually 
 late,) came Simmons — officious Simmons ! with 
 the bed candles. Yet why officious ? Eleven 
 of the clock had struck, and half-past ten was 
 Mrs. Armytage's usual hour for retiring. 
 
 '' 1 should think — I should frus^," said she 
 to her daughter, as she wished her good night, 
 " that they will not come now. However," 
 she continued, turning to Simmons, and the 
 footman waiting to extinguish the lights, 
 '' place a supper-tray in the dining-room, and 
 let some one sit up. John, go down to the 
 South Lodge, and tell Martindale it is my de- 
 sire he should be on the watch till daylight." 
 
 It was evident that she had not forgotten her 
 son's last outrageous inbreak upon the sober 
 
FEMALE DOIMIISATIOIS. 219 
 
 habits of Holywell ; and Sophy had the mor- 
 tification to perceive, while watching from her 
 dressing-room window, which overlooked those 
 of her mother, that Mrs. Armytage had retired 
 — but not to rest ; till one — till two — till three 
 in the morning, the shutters of one window re- 
 mained unclosed, from which the crimson cur- 
 tain was, from time to time, cautiously drawn 
 aside. It was evident that Arthur s arrival 
 was still anxiously expected. Towards morn- 
 ing, however, even the excited Sophia became 
 over-wearied, and throwing herself on her bed, 
 slept to dream of Arthur and his misdoings. 
 
 It needs to have been spell-bound in the 
 enthralling chain of ceremony existing in cer- 
 tain formal English country-houses of the old 
 school, to be aware of the importance assigned 
 to a visit procrastinated, or a letter unan- 
 swered. In those uneventful Castles of Indo- 
 lence, where all the excitement is from with- 
 out, even while the infmence of public events 
 is scarcely perceptible^ the delaying guest be- 
 
 L 2 
 
220 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 comes a malefactor, and the negligent corre- 
 spondent a suspicious character. Berlin might 
 have been sacked and burnt, or China depo- 
 pulated by the plague, and the event would 
 have produced far less sensation at Holywell 
 than the non- arrival of Master Arthur ! 
 
 On the morrow, too, a transgression on the 
 part of Miss Armytage increased the indig- 
 nation of the steward's room. Almost for the 
 first time in her life, Sophy was not ready for 
 breakfast, and her mother sat down alone ! 
 But the delinquent made her appearance in 
 time to detect the mortified expression of her 
 mother's countenance, when the daily papers 
 were laid on the table, unaccompanied by the 
 expected letter of apology from her son. 
 
 An hour or two afterwards, however, old 
 Hardywood, having exchanged his holiday 
 black satins for quotidian kerseymere, claimed 
 an audience of his lady, to acquaint her that 
 the rider of one of the Thoroton tradesmen 
 had just circulated intelligence in the servants' 
 
FEMALE DOMINATIOX. 221 
 
 hall, that, as he quitted the town. Captain 
 Armytage was entering the High Street in a 
 chaise and four — the no longer expectant 
 populace having been unprepared to draw him 
 to the Town Hall ! 
 
 " They will be here, then, immediately," 
 cried Mrs. Armytage, slightly colouring. 
 
 '' I rather think not. Madam," mumbled her 
 ancient servitor, " for Lawyer Gumption w^as 
 with Master Arthur, and I fancy there will be 
 a deal of work for them to do at the Town 
 Hall, before they can push on to Holywell." 
 
 " What will become of Mrs. Arthur, mean- 
 while?" involuntarily ejaculated Mrs. Army- 
 tage. 
 
 And Sophia, who was at her mother's elbow, 
 as involuntarily replied, '' If I were to take 
 the carriage, and go to Thoroton — and — and 
 bring her here at once ?" 
 
 Sophia was wi'ong. She should have left 
 so conciliatory a measure to be proposed by 
 
222 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 Mrs. Arm^tage, Anything resembling dicta- 
 tion was fatal. 
 
 ^•' I see no occasion for putting ourselves out 
 of the way for those w^ho put themselves so 
 little out of the way for us,'' was her cold reply. 
 '^ No doubt they will find their way here at 
 their own time and pleasure." 
 
 And, in the course of a few minutes, that 
 time and pleasure became fully demonstrated. 
 A French caleche, drawn by jaded posters, 
 looking jaded as only posters can look, and 
 smoking as only posters can smoke, drew up 
 under the portico — having a courier, half 
 French, half German, half Italian, and a sou- 
 hrette, wholly, entirely, and manifestly Parisian, 
 for its outside passengers — v/ithin, a pretty 
 Frenchified little doll of a woman, and an ugly 
 Frenchified little dog of a poodle. Sophy 
 trembled ! She would have trembled still 
 more had she been aware that Arthur's rash 
 charge to his wife throughout their hurried 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 223 
 
 journey from Dover, had been — " Above all 
 things, beware of allowing my mother to per- 
 ceive that you are afraid of her : unless you 
 appear perfectly free and at ease in her pre- 
 sence, she will fancy that we are secretly re- 
 senting the past. For my sake, pray exert 
 yoiu' spirits to the utmost." 
 
 Fortunately enough, the courier, the femme 
 de chambre, and the poodle, escaped for a 
 time the scrutinizing eyes of Mrs. Armytage, 
 who stood awaiting, at the door of the library, 
 her long-expected daughter-in-law and guest." 
 
 " I trust you met with no accident ? We 
 expected you yesterday," said she, bestomng a 
 solemn salutation on the cheek of the stran- 
 ger ; when Marian, true to her recently ac- 
 quired Parisian habits, familiarly offered the 
 other a la Fran raise, for a reciprocation of the 
 honour. 
 
 *' Oh ! no; not the slightest accident: the 
 foreign carriages are so safe — so formed for 
 bad roads." 
 
224 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 " Bad roads !" Mrs. Armytage regarding 
 it as an established fact that the Great North 
 Road was the triumph of Macadamization, was 
 silent with surprise. 
 
 " But I felt a little tired when we reached 
 Wolverfield last night/' continued the stran- 
 ger, throwing herself into the nearest arm- 
 chair which the library afforded ; " when Ar- 
 thur, remembering that the inn at Wolverfield 
 is what is called in England a crack inn, de- 
 cided that w^e shovild stay and sleep, and so 
 we were half suffocated in enormous feather- 
 beds, and condemned to the nightmare by a 
 dinner of eels, veal collops, and wine-sour 
 plums, which, it appears, are esteemed dainties 
 in the county of York." 
 
 Mrs. Armytage stood transfixed 1 
 
 " And after all," continued the inadvei'tent 
 ^larian, *' we experienced the horror of getting 
 up at seven o'clock this morning, entre chien et 
 loiip, in order to gratify the people at Thoro- 
 ton with the notion that we had hastened our 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 225 
 
 journey to do them honour ; in consequence of 
 which we arrived, abimes, hrises de fatigue, and 
 poor x\rthur in anything but a humour to do 
 the agreeable to his constituents. Ah I mon 
 jjauvre Mouton I je te croyais perdul'' — cried 
 Marian to the httle monster, which now frisked 
 into the room, and jumped into her lap ; while 
 Mrs. Armytage, half resentfully, half despair- 
 ingly, led forward Sophia to the new-comer, with 
 the simple presentation of — "My daughter." 
 
 *' Cela va sans dire ; I knew Miss Armytage 
 at once, so strong a resemblance to yourself," 
 rephed Marian, too much frightened to observe 
 that Sophia was as fair as her mother was dark; 
 but still labouring to disguise her own timidity 
 under a mask of assurance. And, while Sophy's 
 advance towards a sisterly salute was suffici- 
 ently apparent, she threw herself back again 
 in the chair, and applied herself to hevflacon. 
 
 " I conclude it will be late before Ave see my 
 son ? " inquired Mrs. Armytage, resolved not 
 to be disgusted. 
 
 L 3 
 
226 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 "Yes, indeed. Arthur gave me to under- 
 stand tlicit I should see no more of him till 
 dinner-time." 
 
 " And he gave no message ? " observed Mrs. 
 Armytage, half interrogatively. 
 
 " Nothing but his kind love to all at home." 
 
 "No appointment about sending the carriage 
 for him ? " 
 
 " None at all. I heard him settling it with 
 Gumption and a lawyer's-clerk, (the clerk, I 
 believe, of Nebwell, your solicitor,) that they 
 would come on together.*" 
 
 " Come on ? I do not exactly understand," 
 said Mrs. Armytage. 
 
 " To dinner. I heard Arthur invite them all 
 to come and dine with him." 
 
 "There must be some mistake," faltered 
 Sophia. 
 
 " No, no mistake. I heard Arthur say, ' You 
 must come and eat your mutton with me,' or 
 some such words. Couche-la : couclie done, 
 mon j^etit Moutonl'' continued Mrs. Artlmr, 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 227 
 
 addressing tlie poodle, who was munching off 
 the tassel of a sofa cushion. '' If there is a 
 plague on earth, it is a lap- dog." 
 
 "If there is a plague on earth, it is the 
 vulgar wife of one's only son ! " might, perhaps, 
 be the secret response of Mrs. Armytage. 
 
 " By the way," resumed Marian, as if struck 
 by a bright idea, (her courage, like that of 
 Macheath, being nearly 'run out ;') perhaps 
 I had better go and see after Celestine and 
 the things. It is quite shocking how foreign 
 servants get imposed upon. You have no 
 notion how horribly they were cheated on the 
 roadl" 
 
 " As you are now among my own people," 
 observed Mrs. Armytage; mth dignity, ''I 
 trust further precaution is needless." 
 
 " Oh ! one never knows I Only last night, 
 at Wolver field, they stole Ladislaw's case of 
 cigars. And such a bill as they brought 
 in, the moment they found it was for Mr. 
 Armytage, of Holywell Park, the new mem- 
 
228 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 ber for Thoroton ! One would have thought 
 poor Arthur was come to take possession of 
 his family estate, instead of a seat in parlia- 
 ment ! I used to think uncle Robsey's bills 
 at the Plough, at Cheltenham, beat anything ; 
 but this was ten times worse, really a faire 
 fremir ! Three and sixpence for Mouton's 
 supper ! " 
 
 "I think you said you would like to see 
 your room ? '' interrupted Sophy, judging it 
 prudent to anticipate the explosion of her 
 mother's wrath. 
 
 '* Oh ! no ceremony, thank 3'ou, I dare say I 
 shall find my way. I have so often talked with 
 Arthur over the plan of the house at Holy- 
 well ; and settled it where we should be, when 
 we came to stay with you," replied Mrs. 
 Arthur ; pausing at the door, to whistle to her 
 dog, ere she disappeared from the wondering 
 eyes of Mrs. Armytage. 
 
 Having conducted her strange, her very 
 strange sister-in-law to the chintz bed-room. 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 229 
 
 Sophia disappeared also. But, had she returned 
 half an hour afterwards, she would have been 
 struck with a strong vapour of ether and eau 
 de Cologne, and the agitated demeanour of 
 Mademoiselle Celestine ; for Marian, pale as 
 death, was lying on the bed, half fainting 
 and wholly exhausted by her ill-advised exer- 
 tions ! Her only consolation, poor soul ! lay in 
 the persuasion that she had played to admira- 
 tion the part of excellent dissembling, of self- 
 possession and dauntlessncss, imposed upon 
 her by the misjudging Arthur. She trusted 
 she had at once done her duty to her husband, 
 and imposed upon her imposing mother-in- 
 law. 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 What correspondence can I hold with yon. 
 Who are so near, and yet so distant too ? 
 
 From Martiat.j by Steet.e. 
 
 Mrs. Arthur (for the future we must be 
 permitted to adopt this convenient abbre^da- 
 tion) had mistaken the intentions of the one 
 as completely as she had mistaken the cha- 
 racter of the other. In due time amved a 
 note of apology and explanation from Arthur, 
 informing Mrs. Armytage that " being under 
 the necessity of dining with his constituents at 
 the Blue Boar, he should not have the pleasure 
 of seeing her till night ; and begging, in case 
 he should be detained by the convivialities of 
 the evening, that she would not break through 
 her usual regular habits on his account." 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 231 
 
 '' I was sure tliere was some misunderstand- 
 ing," cried Sophia, after perusing the note. 
 '' I was satisfied, my dear mother, that Arthur 
 could never have dreamed of introducing such 
 a person as Mr. Gumption at 3'our dinner- 
 table." 
 
 Mrs. Armytage w^as about to reply, but sud- 
 denly checked herself. The rejoinder, thus 
 repressed, evidently regarded her daughter- 
 in-law ; for Sophy had already noticed her 
 mother's determination to give no expression 
 to her feelings on that head. She had not 
 made a single remark on Mrs. Arthur; and 
 Sophy rejoiced that she was spared the pain 
 of defending so unpromising a cause. 
 
 Dinner-time came, and with it the French 
 maid, with a request that her lady might be 
 excused from the ceremony. ^*^ Madame was 
 fatigued, and lying down."" Mrs. Arm^^tage^s 
 clouded countenance darkened to a still 
 deeper shade. Fine-ladpsm in every shape 
 was her aversion ; but in the shape of preten - 
 
232 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 sion and vulgarity, and in her own daughter- 
 in-law, insupportable. 
 
 Dinner-time passed, almost in silence ; and 
 after dinner, Sophy went up to the dressing- 
 room of the invalid, in the hope of persuading 
 her to join the family party. And such was 
 evidently Marian's intention; but no sooner 
 had Sophia cast her eyes on the figure emerg- 
 ing from the hands of Mademoiselle Celestine, 
 than she almost repented her mission. 
 
 " Will you not put on a shawl ?" said she, 
 contemplating with a blush the Parisian cos- 
 tume of Mrs. Arthur, and recollecting with 
 pain the disgust entertained by her mother 
 towards all the varied vagaries of modern 
 fashion. But Mademoiselle Celestine instantly 
 negatived the shawl ; a shawl would ' ecraser 
 les jolls noeiids de Madame' • And down went 
 Marian, leaning on the arm of the simply- 
 attired and graceful Sophia ; tricked out in 
 all the fopperies which, during the last six 
 months, custom had rendered natural to 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 233 
 
 her ; but entertaining no suspicion that the 
 trifles she had seen in daily use, till they ap- 
 peared indispensable, could seem monstrous 
 and unprecedented in the eyes of the York- 
 shire Volumnia. Mrs. Armytage gazed upon 
 her for a moment, as she would have done 
 upon an overdressed doll ; then turned away 
 her head as if resolved never to look at her 
 again. 
 
 " You spent a pleasant winter at Paris ?" 
 inquired Sophia in a low voice, dreading the 
 continuance of the dead silence which ensued. 
 
 " Ah ! delightful, — charming ! — never was 
 anything so gay. As I was saying to Arthur 
 this morning, the country will appear horribly 
 dull after all our dissipation." 
 
 '' I trust not ; we have a great deal to show 
 you in the neighbourhood. Besides, you must 
 need a little rest after so much gaiety." 
 
 " No, indeed ; I am never tired of plea- 
 sure. With my aunt Eobsey, I was so accus- 
 tomed to rattling about ! Lady Arabella 
 
234 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 Quill used often to say at Paris, that she saw 
 I was a rake at heart." 
 
 " Lady Arabella ?" involuntarily demanded 
 Mrs. Armytage. 
 
 " Lady Arabella Quin. Do you know her ?" 
 " I have not that honour," replied Mrs. Ar- 
 mytage, with significant emphasis. 
 
 " Ah ! then, some day or other I must intro- 
 duce you to her. I am sure you will hke her, 
 such a charming creature ! Such a fine flow of 
 Irish spirits ! — We lived in the same hotel, 
 and I went everywhere with her." 
 '' You were peculiarly fortunate !" 
 " Most fortunate ! — Lady Arabella is one 
 of those people who know everybody. Her 
 house is the resort of all the corps diploma- 
 tique, and foreign travellers. Not a thing 
 occurs in the most remote corner of Europe 
 but you may hear of at Lady Arabella's. — 
 And then all the ministers are at her feet. Old 
 Talleyrand comes and plays dummy whist with 
 her; and Pozzo di Borgo has an audience 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 235 
 
 every morning. I often used to tell Lady 
 Arabella there would be scandal about her 
 and Pozzo." 
 
 " liady Arabella must have become har- 
 dened, as the heroine of scandalous adven- 
 tures/' observed Mrs. Armytage. " Five-and- 
 twenty years' experience is a somewhat long 
 noviciate." 
 
 " Oh ! you mean about that Sicilian Prince, 
 with whom people said she eloped from 
 Naples. — Never was anything so shameful! 
 I do assure you old Quin was traveUing v\'ith 
 them all the time. Only, to be sure, he went 
 in the rumble, and Cagliabecchi inside. But 
 it was not Lady Arabella's fault if her hus- 
 band preferred the company of her maid." 
 
 " I am not surprised at his preferring any 
 society to that of the most dissolute woman 
 in Europe." 
 
 " Most dissolute woman in Europe ! — Surely 
 you do not mean what you say ?" cried Marian. 
 '' But I know people who have lived all their 
 
236 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 lives in England are apt to be so very preju- 
 diced ! Theres papa, for instance, who used 
 to tell us when we were children, that all the 
 French people lived upon frogs ; and I declare 
 when I was in Paris we could get them for 
 dinner but once; and that was in a vol-au-ienf 
 at the Rocher de Cancale, which cost us a 
 Napoleon : and so much for English preju- 
 dices !" 
 
 '^ I understand from my brother that you 
 are very musical ?" said Sophia, hoping to 
 change the conversation. 
 
 " Oh ! yes, — I doat upon music ! I think 
 Arthur told me that you play yourself?" 
 
 *• I smg a little; — I am no great performer," 
 replied Sophy. 
 
 " I suppose you can have had no advantage 
 of masters down here ; and I understand you 
 never go to town ?" 
 
 '' Very rarely." 
 
 " Poor thing ! — What a pity ! — Mamma 
 could have recommended you a capital sing- 
 
FEMALK DOMINATION. 237 
 
 ing master who attends my sisters ; — quite 
 equal to Scappa; and only half-a-crown a 
 lesson." 
 
 " I took a few lessons of Pasta, when I was 
 last in London/' said Miss Armytage. 
 
 " Oh! Pasta's style is quite gone by, now. 
 No one thinks any thing of Pasta at Paris. 
 Grisi is twice as popular. We used to have 
 the most capital little music parties every 
 Sunday evening at Lady Arabella s ; — Ros- 
 sini, Bellini, Mariani, Rubini, Santini, — just 
 everybody you can think of; even Maupam, 
 the new man who writes the ' Dance of Death' 
 symphonies, with accompaniments of pick-axes 
 and spades. Never was any thing so amus- 
 ing ! — At first, Arthur hardly liked me to go, 
 because of its being Sunday. But then, you 
 know, as there was no Opera on that night, it 
 was so particularly convenient to Lady Ara- 
 bella and the professors. — Is that a good 
 piano ?" 
 
 " It is thought to be one of Broadwood's 
 
238 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 best," replied Sophia. '' It was a present to 
 me from Arthur on my birth- day ; I hope 
 you will try it to-morrow and give me your 
 opinion." 
 
 '' Oh ! don't expect me to like it. I can't 
 bear any instrument but Herz's or Petzold's ! 
 — Petzold's last, with the organ stop and fla- 
 geolet, and drums for military symphonies, 
 are the most perfect in the world. Lady 
 Arabella wanted Arthur to buy me one ; but, 
 as he said, where had we got to put it? — 
 So, all things considered, I determined to 
 wait." 
 
 " You have probably brought over a store 
 of new music, which will be cpiite a treasure in 
 this part of the world ? " 
 
 " Yes ; lots of new music ! — A set of Ma- 
 zurkas, written on purpose for me by Musard. 
 You will see on the title-page, ' Respectfully 
 dedicated to Mrs. Arthur Armytage, of Holy- 
 well Park.' I had Holywell put, because there 
 are so many Mrs. Armytages. Lady Trom- 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 239 
 
 bone has got a Mrs. Army tage for her nursery- 
 governess; and Lord Wyndham Spalding 
 swears that the housekeeper at his father's 
 place in Ireland, is a Mistress Armytage. But 
 I know he only used to say so to plague Ar- 
 thur. By-the-by," — she continued, after a mo- 
 ment's pause, — '' I suppose you know Lord 
 Wyndham Spalding? 'Winsome Wyn,' as 
 they used to call him at Lady Arabella's. Is'nt 
 he a charming creature ?" 
 
 " Lord Wyndham Spalding is less in York- 
 shire than the rest of his family," replied 
 Sophia. '•' We are very little acquainted with 
 him." 
 
 '' Oh ! but he will be here often enough 
 now v:e arc come ; for he is a great ally of 
 ours, — of mine I should say, for Arthur thinks 
 him a pnppy." 
 
 " It is well that my son judges him so leni- 
 ently," said Mrs. Armytage, sternly. " By the 
 rest of the world he is considered a mauvais 
 sujet."' 
 
240 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 " Oh ! but that is all over now. Wyn 
 means to become a reformed rake. His father 
 has promised to book up for him, and for the 
 one-and-twentieth time, is going to pay his 
 debts. It was a lucky thing for iis ; for he 
 had persuaded Arthur to put his name to bills 
 for him, and all sorts of things." 
 
 " I should have scarcely thought Lord 
 Wyndham Spalding a person likely to suit 
 my brother," said Sophia, mortified by all she 
 was hearing. 
 
 '' I don't know about suiting ; but they 
 lived with the same set of people, and were 
 always hurdle-racing together in the Bois de 
 Boulogne, or losing^their money together at 
 the Club, or playing the fool together at the 
 bal de I'Opera'^ 
 
 Mrs. Armytage groaned aloud. 
 
 " But as I said before, all that is over now. 
 Arthur has got into Parliament, and Winsome 
 Wyn has got out of his scrapes ; and they are 
 going to settle down soberly into Yorkshire 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 241 
 
 Squires. Lord Wyndham has promised to 
 introduce us to the neighbourhood, and to get 
 me into his mother''s exclusive set." 
 
 " Sophia, my dear, you will do me the favour 
 of entertaining Mrs. Arthur Armytage,'"' said 
 the over-excited Lady of Holywell, to whom 
 the very name of the Duchess of Spalding was 
 poison, suddenly rising to retire for the night. 
 " I have some letters of importance which 
 require my attention." And, with an assump- 
 tion of dignity worthy of the immortal Siddons, 
 she quitted the room. 
 
 But was her attention likely to be engrossed 
 by letters of importance, even had their con- 
 sequence been vital to the peace of the nation ? 
 Was her rest likely to be more placid than 
 that of the preceding night ? Alas ! long 
 before her disordered feelings had become 
 subdued to even temperate heat, there was the 
 tumult of a fresh arrival, and of a disagreeable 
 scuffle on the stairs. Ladislaw, in French, 
 German, and Itahan, and John the footman, 
 
 VOL. I. M 
 
242 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 in still more exquisite Yorkshire, were per- 
 suading the new member for Thoroton, that 
 the best thing he could do under existing cir- 
 cumstances was to allow them to put him to 
 bed. 
 
 But poor Arthur's brain, long accustomed 
 to the thin potations of France, was completely 
 volcanized by the floods of Blue Boar port, 
 sherry, and punch, by which he had been de- 
 luged in the popular cause. And the last 
 sounds heard by Mrs. Armytage as she closed 
 the double doors of her dressing-room and 
 bolted herself in, were — " Shall I tamely sub- 
 mit. Gen — gentlemen, free and independent 
 elect — to — tors of Thoroton : I say, shall I 
 t — tamely submit to the innovation, the — the 
 aggressions of the hon — honourable gentle- 
 man opposite in the fustian jac — jacket, with 
 the red face and Stentorian lungs ? — ' Partu- 
 riunt monies' — Gen — gentlemen electors, as 
 we say in the House — -' Parturiunt monies, 
 nascitur rid — rid — ridiculus mus / ' " 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 243 
 
 " Better go up quoitly to bed, Siirr : Missus 
 '11 be quoite froighted," interrupted John, 
 coaxingly. 
 
 " Missus ! who the deuce is Missus ?" stam- 
 mered Arthur, staggering against the wall. 
 " I rise to explain that I have no Missus — that 
 I admit no Missus ! Mr. Speaker ! I say, I 
 accept no Missus — ' Timeo Danaos dono feren- 
 tes ' as we say in the House — ' do — do — dona 
 ferentes /' Upon my soul and body ! — do — do 
 — na ferentes r^ 
 
 Fortunately, nothing further was audible in 
 the gallery. On entering the corridor leading 
 to the chintz-bed room, canny Yorkshire dis- 
 creetly closed the folding doors behind the 
 young Squire and his misdemeanours. 
 
 m2 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 It is our duty not only to scatter benefits, but even to strew 
 flowers for the sake of our fellow-travellers in the pathways of 
 this wretched world. 
 
 Chesterfield. 
 
 Without waiting for " sermons and soda- 
 water the day after" his escapade, Arthur had 
 just strength to rise and make his way at an 
 early hour to Sophia's dressing-room ; and, in 
 the happiness of meeting his dearly -loved sis- 
 ter, all his vexations, headaches, and qualms 
 of conscience were forgotten. 
 
 " And now, dearest,'' cried he, after ha™g 
 expressed a thousandth part of his joy at the 
 re-union, and slightly alluded to the intem- 
 perance to which he had been most reluctantly 
 compelled by his stanch adherents, the faction 
 of the Gumptionites— " tell me candidly, how 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 245 
 
 did my poor little wife get on with my ma. 
 ther?" 
 
 " Not, perhaps, quite so well as if you had 
 been present to bring them together," replied 
 Miss Armytage ; "in a few days, no doubt, 
 they will understand each other better." 
 
 " Ah ! I see how it is — I knew how it would 
 be 1 " replied Arthur, in a mortified tone ; 
 " poor Marian's excessive timidity has made 
 an unfavourable impression. My mother has 
 found out how^ dreadfully the poor girl stands 
 in awe of her." 
 
 " Indeed, I think not," was Sophia's invo- 
 luntary reply. 
 
 " The truth is, that poor Marian's shyness 
 amounts to an actual infirmity ; and the more 
 she mixes in the world, the more it seems to 
 grow upon her. To hear the sound of her 
 own voice is quite a martyrdom to her !" 
 
 Sophia had heard of the proverbial blind- 
 ness of husbands, especially towards a young 
 and pretty wife ; but she was not prepared to 
 
246 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 find lier quick- sighted brother so soon and so 
 completely a dupe. 
 
 '' She did not strike me as particularly shy," 
 was all that candour would allow her to reply. 
 
 '' Poor little soul ! I assure you I had the 
 greatest difficulty in forcing her into society in 
 Paris ; and when there, it was e\'ident that she 
 was on thorns. Here, however, I did hope 
 she would feel more at ease ; as I have never 
 ceased to impress upon her mind, my dear 
 Sophy, how much she has to expect from your 
 protection and kindness." 
 
 '-' And sisterly affection," added Miss Army- 
 tage warmly. " But to say the truth, I fear 
 she mil have difficulties to encounter with my 
 mother." 
 
 " I know it, my dear child — I know it — and 
 so does she ; and that is the very reason why 
 you see her so overawed in ni}^ mother's pre- 
 sence." 
 
 " And then that unlucky visit of her fa- 
 ther s!" 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 247 
 
 " Jack Baltimore ? Heavens and earth ! Has 
 he been here ? What unlucky wind blew him 
 to Holywell?" 
 
 " Unlucky, indeed ; for he has irrecoverably 
 offended my mother. However, it was only 
 natural that, believing his daughter to be here, 
 he should be anxious to see her after so long a 
 separation." 
 
 " Then most assuredly we shall see him 
 here again, for he is now aware of our arrival ; 
 and, under all the circumstances,' I was obliged 
 to refuse Marian the pleasure of a visit to her 
 family as we passed through town. We had 
 only time to change horses." 
 
 "I hope you will be able to prevent his 
 coming/' observed Sophy, earnestly. *• Indeed 
 I cannot help thinking that his interview with 
 my mother will secure us from his return. 
 Nothing could be less encouraging." 
 
 " I hope she was not rude to Baltimore ?" 
 inquired Arthur, gravely. "He is a rough 
 
248 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 diamond, it is true, but a sterling one. Balti- 
 more has excellent qualities." 
 
 ''You will admit that he has very disagree- 
 able manners ? " 
 
 " He is not a fine gentleman, I grant you ; 
 but in former days, fine gentlemen were not 
 the fashion at Holyw^ell." 
 
 " Mr. Baltimore appears so common, so un- 
 educated ? '* 
 
 " He is no pedant, like my mother's darling, 
 Beginald Maudslcy ; but he is quick, and has 
 considerable knowledge of the world." 
 
 Sophia saw that it was useless to argue with 
 a man so prejudiced as her brother ; she, 
 therefore, proposed that they should avoid the 
 danger of keeping Mrs. Armytage waiting for 
 breakfast. 
 
 " She won't expect Marian to breakfast with 
 us, 1 hope ? " 
 
 " Indeed I think she will.''' 
 . •* Quite out of the question! Marian is just 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 249 
 
 now SO very delicate, that the Paris physicians 
 have expressly interdicted early rising." 
 
 ''Let us hope that the Yorkshire air will do 
 more for her than the Paris physicians/' was 
 Sophia's rejoinder, as she accompanied her 
 brother to the brealvfast-room. 
 
 The brow of Mrs. Armytag-e was knit when 
 they entered; but the cloud dispersed as soon 
 as she found herself folded in the arms of her 
 son : nature prevailed ! And then, Arthur's 
 apologies were uttered so frankly, and so cor- 
 dially ; his inquiries after herself were so warm 
 from the heart ; the expression of his hopes 
 that nothing would ever more occur to disturb 
 the happy understanding of the family were 
 so genuine, that his mother's more generous 
 nature was touched. She pressed his hand 
 affectionately, and begged that the past might 
 be forgotten. 
 
 During his absence, of nearly a 3^ear's dura- 
 tion, Arthur had gained much in personal 
 advantages; a more decided manner;, a more 
 
 M 3 
 
250 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 independent frame of mind. He was the image 
 of his father ; but eminently liis father's supe- 
 rior in manners and address. Mrs. Armytage 
 gazed upon him with proud admiration, as he 
 took his accustomed place opposite her at the 
 breakfast table ; and was quite ready to for- 
 give Mrs. Arthur the delicacy of constitution, 
 real or imaginary, which made it indispensable 
 for her to drink her chocolate in her own room, 
 so she might for a time dispense with her com- 
 pany. In her love for Arthur, Mrs. Armytage 
 felt indulgent e^en towards Marian. 
 
 But in the course of the day, a new cause of 
 offence arose. The fatigue of her journey, and 
 the agitation produced by her first introduction 
 with her husband's family, were said to have 
 operated so severely on her health, that Arthur, 
 after a prolonged visit to Mariana's apartment, 
 requested the family apothecaiy might be 
 summoned. Now the "family apothecary" 
 at Holywell implied a very worthy practitioner 
 living at Thoroton, who never did attend the 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 251 
 
 '' family." The steward's-room, with its lame, 
 deaf, blind, and intemperate, had occasional 
 recourse to his services ; more especially after 
 the broaching of a new twenty-years-old butt 
 of October, or a visit from the Rotherhams 
 and their people. But to the moderate, active, 
 \dgorous Mrs. iflrraytage, the very notion of 
 his attendance, and the arrival of a daily 
 basketful of pink pill-boxes, and salmon-co- 
 loured draughts, was a preventive remedy. 
 
 Involuntarily she shut herself into the library 
 when she knew that jMr. Senna was picking 
 his stealthy sick-room-like steps towards her 
 daughter-in-law's apartment ; and when Arthur 
 announced, after his departure, that his wife 
 w^as seriously indisposed, would require the 
 greatest care, and daily attendance, Mrs. Ar- 
 mytage became confirmed in her previous 
 opinion of both physician and patient. She 
 proposed, indeed, a \isit of inquiry and con- 
 dolence to the invalid; but Mr. Senna's last 
 injunctions had been that she should be suf- 
 
252 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 fered to see nobody ; she was to be kept per- 
 fectly quiet. 
 
 The remamder of the day, and part of the 
 following, were of necessity devoted by Arthur 
 to the completion of his electioneering busi- 
 ness ; and on his return, Marian appeared so 
 much worse, and was pronounced to be so 
 much worse by her medical attendant, that 
 nothing less than sending off an express to 
 Doncaster for further advice would satisfy the 
 anxious husband. 
 
 But when the eminent practitioner who at- 
 tended the summons, an authority wliich not 
 even Mrs. Armytage could venture to impugn, 
 pronounced that the sufferer was not only 
 seriously ill, but the life of her expected 
 child imminently endangered, the lady of 
 Holywell could scarcely forgive herself her 
 former unbelief, or Arthur his remissness, in 
 not acquainting her with the real state of the 
 case. Marian now acquired a wholly new 
 position in her sight. The future heir,— the 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 25S 
 
 new Arthur, — the Armytage to come, — formed 
 a Imk connecting her uidissolubly with the 
 family. The question henceforth was not to 
 resent her faults or failings, but to amend, or 
 at least, conceal them, from the world. But of 
 what avail to concert future measures ? Ma- 
 rian's life was said to be actually in peril. 
 There was not a more solicitous inquirer after 
 every change of symptoms than Mrs. Armytage. 
 Youth, however, will do much; and judi- 
 cious attendance and perfect tranquillity soon 
 restored the invalid to more favourable pro- 
 spects ; it was pronounced that, with great care, 
 and perfect repose, she might go on well. And 
 notv came the worst trial : for a second journey- 
 in her present weak state was impossible ; and 
 Arthur was under the immediate necessity of 
 attending his duties in Parliament. Thoroton 
 could not forego its claims upon its new mem- 
 ber — it was plain, therefore, that Marian must. 
 The first circumstance that impressed Sophia 
 
254 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 Armytage with a really good opinion of her 
 sister-in-law was the gentleness with which 
 she submitted to this thwarting of her wishes. 
 Eagerly as she desired to visit her family; 
 averse as she was from being left alone with 
 that of her husband ; deeply, feelingly, as she 
 was grieved by the prospect of parting at such 
 a moment from Arthur, nothing could evince 
 a more amiably unselfish disposition than the 
 mildness with which she acquiesced in the 
 plans imposed upon her. From that time, 
 Sophy gave herself up without reserve to study 
 the comfort and happiness of her new sister. 
 Even with Mrs. Armytage, Marian now began 
 to feel herself in some measure at home. 
 Lying quietly and silently on her sofa, she 
 could give no further offence ; and her youth 
 and prettiness, under such circumstances, failed 
 not to plead in her favour. The obligingness 
 of her disposition gradually became manifest 
 to her new relatives ; and by the time Arthur 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 255 
 
 had been gone a week, in spite of the poodle 
 and the French maid, she was ahnost a fa- 
 vourite. 
 
 It had, in fact, been said in a few fluent 
 words, and with so careless a smile to Marian, 
 that, as the session was likely to be short, 
 — scarcely of six w^eeks' longer continuance, — 
 she had very little to regret in the medical 
 sentence, which compelled her to remain in 
 Yorkshire, while her husband was sojourning at 
 Grillon's Hotel, — that she felt it would be in- 
 decorous to express a contrary opinion. Nay, 
 when Arthur himself joined in the assurance 
 that " Six weeks would pass as a day," she 
 actually tried to beUeve him. It was not till 
 he was gone, and she could contrive to be quite 
 alone, that she allowed a free course to her 
 solitary tears, and to her feeling that she was 
 very miserable; not perhaps the Zess miserable 
 that her husband seemed to make so light of 
 their separation. 
 
 The truth was, — but a truth of too ungra- 
 
256 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 cious a nature to disclose to Marian — that the 
 regret he experienced in parting from his 
 kind-hearted and loving little wife^ was almost 
 counterbalanced by his satisfaction at any 
 pretext for prolonging her separation from 
 the Robsey tribe^, and the Jackishness of her 
 father's establishment. He fanciecb too, that 
 thus left alone with his family, they would 
 insensibly amalgamate; that Marian would 
 learn to respect his mother and love his sister, 
 as he himself loved and respected them ; while 
 Marian's better qualities could not fail to 
 secure their affections in return. Perhaps, 
 too, the occupation afforded by his new duties 
 and a something of attraction in the prospect 
 of one more bachelor spring at a London hotel 
 tended to facilitate the sacrifice of Marian's 
 society. 
 
 He did not consider, and even Marian her- 
 self was at first scarcely aware, how wearily 
 and slowly pass the days, every hour of which 
 is devoted to an especial and distant object. 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 257 
 
 That third week in June on which it was 
 humbly hoped by the denizens of his gracious 
 Majesty's Lower House, that their patriotic 
 labours would be ended by the merciful inter- 
 position of the King, engrossed every thought 
 of her mind. Till then, all must be a blank. 
 She still trembled when in the presence of Mrs. 
 Armytage ; still entertained a reverential feel- 
 ing for Sophia, as towards the lioness's whelp ; 
 and with the heart-sickness of discontent, be- 
 gan to find even Mademoiselle Celestine and 
 Mouton importunate and insupportable. 
 
 The neighbourhood, too, — the hospitable 
 neighbourhood — was just then completely 
 broken up : no one remaining but the Maran- 
 hams, who were rare visitors, and the Wem- 
 mersleys, who were unwelcome ones, at Holy- 
 well, while Marian's feebleness prevented her 
 from enjoying any active country diversion. 
 A slow drive vriih Mrs. Armytage in her 
 pony-chair, round the park, or a dull saunter 
 
258 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 with Sophia round the still leafless shrub- 
 beries, was her utmost stretch of exercise. 
 
 It was a backward spring ; the scene was 
 cheerless ; and Marian could not conceal her 
 regrets for the cheerfulness and movement of 
 Paris. 
 
 " It was so very provoking to be obliged to 
 come away, just as the Tuileries were coming 
 into beauty !" — she exclaimed one day to 
 Sophia, having returned from a country airing 
 along the high road, where nothing but mile- 
 stones and market-carts were visible; and 
 unaware that Mrs. Armytage was still in 
 the room. " The climate of Paris is certainly 
 a fortnight earlier than that of London, three 
 weeks than that of chilly Yorkshire. I as- 
 sure you. Lady Arabella and I had begun to 
 sit out of doors before I left Paris ; and I 
 was longing to see the orange-trees brought 
 out, and the lilacs and chestnuts in bloom." 
 
 " But you will see lilacs and chestnuts in 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 259 
 
 bloom at Holywell ; and when an orangery is 
 placed in the cedar-garden, I assure you it 
 makes a very respectable appearance." 
 
 " Yes, for Yorkshire, and in the month of 
 July, when one has grown tired of looking at 
 green trees ; but, at best, so very inferior to 
 those fine old Bourbon trees, four hundred 
 years old, with the gay groups sitting chatting 
 and flirting round them, and all the world 
 full of life and animation !" 
 
 " The scene possessed the charm of novelty 
 to you," replied the sober Sophia. '-' Rely 
 upon it you would have soon been tired of 
 Paris, had you remained there longer." 
 
 " Oh ! no, indeed ; — it is impossible to grow 
 tired of Paris. Lady Arabella has been there 
 fifteen years, and likes it better every season. 
 She says it is the post-house where all Eu- 
 rope change horses ; and that, in the course of 
 a year or two, you see the whole round of your 
 acquaintance, in the pleasantest way ; for they 
 
260 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 seldom stay long enough for one to become 
 bored by them." 
 
 Miss Armytage, aware of her mother's in- 
 surmountable objection to the word " bored,'* 
 now became aware, by a certain impatient 
 movement at the further end of the room, that 
 the rigid purist was present. She strove to 
 change the turn of conversation ; but Marian 
 would not be checked. 
 
 " And then, in Paris, one has so much more 
 real comfort Avith so much less fuss and cere- 
 mony ! Instead of sitting down to a stately 
 dinner, with half a dozen servants to stare you 
 out of countenance, you dine en cabinet at some 
 cafe — the Roche?- or the Freres Provencaux, 
 twice as well, and at the hour you like : after 
 which, instead of boring yourself with a dull 
 evening at home, 3'ou scramble to one of 
 the ten theatres, ^vith the certainty of being 
 amused." 
 
 " I fancied that the society of Paris did not 
 
FEMALE DOMINATIOX. 261 
 
 frequent the cafes and the petit spectacles f " 
 said Sophia. 
 
 " Oh ! — I don t know. Lady Arabella used 
 to go to them all ; and I conclude she knows 
 what is proper. Besides, the English are pri- 
 vileged, and do all sorts of things. They 
 are always getting caricatured as La famille 
 Anglaise. There was one came out of Lady 
 Arabella eating slices of melon on horseback 
 at Tortoni's door, that would have made you 
 die with laughing. Wyn Spalding sent it to 
 her, pour ses etrennes, on New Year's day." 
 
 Sophia perceived with delight that her 
 mother had now quitted the room. Such was 
 Mrs. Armytage's progress in the art of tolera- 
 tion towards Marian's little failings. Resolved 
 not to be more disgusted with her than she 
 could help, she now closed her eyes or ears, or 
 absented herself, when she found that Mrs. 
 Arthur's want of tact was endangering her for- 
 bearance ; for Marian was a very important 
 object in her eyes. That epoch to which the 
 
262 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 young wife looked forward as destined to re- 
 unite her with Arthur, was a moment of no 
 less auspicious promise to Mrs. Armytage, as 
 likely to afford an heir to the vast estates of 
 Holywell — to exclude Reginald Maudsley at 
 once and for ever! 
 
 She recalled to mind every preparative to 
 which the expected birth of her own Arthur 
 had formerly given rise : — the bonfires on 
 Holywell Hill — the beacon on Holywell Tower 
 — the ox roasted whole in Holywell Close — the 
 labouring families feasted at Holywell Cross ; 
 and secretly promised herself that all this 
 parade should be revived for the arrival of the 
 new heir. The whole neighbourhood should 
 see that she experienced no mortification in 
 the alliance formed by her son. Ale should 
 be brewed, and acres of oaks planted, for the 
 future benefit of her children's children, and 
 the glory of Holywell. Marian was no longer 
 the daughter of a Jack Baltimore — she was 
 the wife of Arthur Maudsley Armytage, of 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 263 
 
 Holywell. She would meet the sneers of the 
 Wemmersleys with a smile ; and defy even the 
 impertinence of her county rivals the insolent 
 Duchess of Spalding, — a proposed intimacy 
 v^ith whom was, after all, one of the worst 
 offences of her daughter-in-law, in the eyes of 
 Mrs. Armytage. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 Were I a man, — a Duke, — 
 I would remove these tedious stumbling-blocks. 
 Being a woman, I will not be slack 
 To play my part in fortune's pageant. 
 
 Shakspeare. 
 
 The offending Duchess belonged to a class of 
 women rare in our own limes and country, 
 though not unfrequent at the more troublous 
 epochs, or in less tranquil lands ; who, born to 
 no earthly business, make the business of the 
 whole world their own. Not that she was en- 
 dowed with the far-sighted spirit of intrigue of 
 a Princesse des Ursins — not that she boasted 
 the coarse but vigorous energies of a Sarah of 
 Marlborough — or even the persevering cun- 
 ning of a Madame de Maintenon; — but she 
 had all their activity — all their art in est a- 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 2G5 
 
 blishiiig a sway over the conduct of others ; 
 and withal a certam fidgetiness of mind, whicli 
 scorned to derive new stimulus from total want 
 of occupation. She was an Avarilla Maran- 
 haiQ, with Avider opportunities. 
 
 In girlhood, unable to resign herself to the 
 uneventful subordination of the nursery and 
 the school-room, she was always plotting the 
 dismissal of an under-governess, or trying to 
 inspire the Viscountess her mother with a 
 spirit of patronage for some pet drawing- 
 master or mantua-maker. Introduced into the 
 great world, her manoeuvres to avoid such and 
 such a partner, or to achieve an invitation to 
 such or such a ball, Avere of almost Machiavel- 
 lian art; and from the moment she discovered 
 that the young Duke of Spalding was suspected 
 to be on the eve of a matrimonial engage- 
 ment with the daughter of one of his York- 
 shire neighbours — marked him for her own ! 
 She had cared little for him as England's 
 premier Duke ; scarcely more as the inheritor 
 
 VOL. I. N 
 
266 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 of sixty thousand per annum ; but when she 
 saw in the wealthy magnate a prize to be won 
 per force of management, a captive to be trans- 
 ferred from other nets to her own, there was 
 no resisting the temptation ; and so skilfully 
 were her projects conceived and executed, that 
 very few months sufficed to render the strate- 
 gist in hanging sleeves — ^her Grace the Duchess 
 of Spalding. 
 
 Perhaps it was the ready fruition of the 
 scheme w^hich soon rendered propensity a 
 habit, and habit second nature; for the 
 Duchess now became a manoeuvrer by voca- 
 tion. Eich, noble, admired, she could not 
 rest, for very restlessness ; but seemed to in- 
 vent objects of desire for the mere labour of 
 the attainment. Without interest in politics, 
 she became a party woman ; without taste for 
 the arts, a patroness ; without one pious or 
 Christianly aspiration, a zealous high church- 
 woman. The poor Duke whom she had finessed 
 out of his first love, she now cheated out of his 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 267 
 
 Hereditary avocations ; trafficked in his behalf 
 with ministry; chaiFered with his interest; 
 paltered with his patronage. He could not 
 promise a living, but her Grace contrived to 
 induct some Tory j-rotege of her own ; he 
 could not renew the lease of a farm, but she 
 managed to introduce a clause. Did he pre- 
 sume to order new furniture for his library, he 
 was sure to find it translated to one of the 
 drawing-rooms ; or if he was rash enough to 
 purchase a picture, or give a commission for a 
 statue, it was certain to be pounced upon for 
 the Duchess's private suite of apartments ; 
 where, of all the house, it was least likely to 
 meet his eye. 
 
 Not that he was an un affection ate husband ; 
 but the overstrained activity of his wife fatigued 
 him to death. The Duke of Spalding's con- 
 stitutional indolence was even more than patri- 
 cian, and he found himself wedded to a whirl- 
 wind ! He was uavturally fond of music ; but 
 within tv\'o years of his marriage, her Grace be- 
 
 N 2 
 
268 FEMALK DOMINATION. 
 
 concerted liiin into abhorrence of ail liarmony. 
 He took to liimting ; but the Duchess contrived 
 to be neck-and-neck with him over every five- 
 barred gate in the count}^ He sought refuge 
 in agriculture ; but her Grace patent-ploughed 
 him out of the field, and ran him to earth in a 
 crop of ruta-baga. To whatever pastime or 
 employment he addressed himself, /^er intention 
 cast its shadow before ; and, scared by the pur- 
 suit, Spalding's '' occupation " was '' gone " in 
 a moment! 
 
 There was but one resource ! He became a 
 club-man, and locked himself up in the dear 
 delights of whist. The blue chambers of 
 White's and Brookes's defy the intrusion of 
 manoeuvring wives ; and, witliin those sacred 
 retreats, the hereditary legislator had for many 
 years past shuffled, cut, and dealt away the 
 session: a period for whose prolongation not 
 even Bellamy himself could supplicate the 
 gods more fervently than the hen-hunted 
 Duke of Spalding. 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 269 
 
 Still there was Spalding Castle in the dis- 
 tance, with its six or seven months of marital 
 martyrdom ; and had not the Duchess one day, 
 
 " Wlien cursed uith many a granted prayer." 
 
 suddenly hit upon a new object for which to 
 persecute the ministry with little notes (marked 
 " private and confidential") of solicitation, the 
 poor Duke might perhaps have ended his woes 
 by suspending himself, for very weariness, to 
 one of his ancestral oaks. But she had luckily 
 become ambitious of fettering down her hus- 
 band by a place at court, (Buckhounds, Mas- 
 tership of the Horse, or new Lord Chamber- 
 lainship, — what matters it to the reader ?) and, 
 havino' assailed a chief clerk bv the loan of her 
 Opera-box to his wife ; a private secretary, by 
 sides of venison and hampers of pine-apples ; 
 and the private secretary's public master, by 
 exaggerated representations of borough in- 
 terest, church preferment, and local influence 
 pertaining to the house of Spalding, her 
 Grace's manoeuvres were eventually crowned 
 
270 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 Avitli success : from July to Januaiy, if not from 
 January to July, the Duke ^Yas now no longer 
 Ills own master ; while she became more than 
 ever her own mistress. 
 
 The joys of new cares, too, were added to 
 her former pleasures : she had children ; and 
 the children had nurses, governesses, tutors, 
 masters, to be out- gener ailed and outwitted. 
 It was a triumph, for a nature such as hers, to 
 manoeuvre a naughty child to the Opera, or a 
 sickly one to a drive on a damp day. She 
 taught the little creatures to plan, to plot, to 
 deceive, to equivocate, to lie ; and the young 
 lords consequently grew up into roues, and the 
 j^oung ladies into women of fashion. But 
 while this auspicious education was in progress, 
 the Duchess did not slumber at her post. She 
 had always some petty intrigue to carry on, 
 some promising young clergyanan, of high cha- 
 racter and a very pretty vein for poetry, to 
 manoeuvre into a prebend; some offending 
 country neighbour of opposite politics, v/liose 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 271 
 
 daughters slie liad vov/ed should never enter 
 the pale of Ahnack's; some nineteenth son 
 of a nineteenth Scotch cousin, whom she was 
 tr3'ing to get made attache at Eio Janeiro ; or 
 some striphng of a political economist, whom 
 she was bent upon having reviewed into noto- 
 riety in the Quarterly. Nay, between the 
 pauses of her grander movements, she would 
 even busy herself with the welfare of such 
 small- deer as pages or nursery-maids, set all 
 her energies to work to expose the peccadilloes 
 of some noble friend's groom of the chambers ; 
 or congratulate herself upon getting one of 
 Farmer Smith's Patagonian progeny promoted 
 to be drum-major in the Blvies. 
 
 Between such a woman — such a Duchess — 
 and Mrs. Armytage, there existed a moral 
 antipathy. It was not that the Lady of Holy- 
 well was less active, less domineering than the 
 Lady of Spalding Court ; but Mrs. Armytage 
 busied herself only with her own concerns and 
 those of her family, while the Duchess could 
 
272 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 scarcely bear that a lamp should be extin- 
 guished in one of the tin mines of Cornwall 
 without her interference. Mrs. Armytage de- 
 spised the Duchess as an ambitious intrigante ; 
 the Duchess despised Mrs. Armytage as hornee, 
 even in her despotism. Yorkshire, wide as it 
 iS;, was scarcely large enough to contain their 
 vast animosity ! And then the Armytage was 
 a Whig, and the Spalding a Tory — the Army- 
 tage a great lady of the country, the Spalding 
 a great lady of the town. The Duchess could 
 by no means mortify the 'Squircss ; for the 
 'Squiress was a firm and consistent contemner 
 of rank-by-itsclf rank — never ventured a step 
 beyond her station, and afforded no opportu- 
 nity to the enemy of humiliating her by re- 
 pulse. 
 
 The Wemmcrsleys, indeed, had for a mo- 
 ment rejoiced the busy Duchess with the hope 
 of inflicting an humiliation on Holywell. The 
 moment she discovered them to sail in the 
 north of Mrs. iVrmytage's opinion, she courted 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 273 
 
 them into the summer radiance of her smiles ; 
 patronized them here — caressed them here, 
 and exhibited them as the chief objects of her 
 favour. But here ao-ain she was mistaken. 
 Whatever took the Wemmersleys to the other 
 side of the county, Mrs. Armytage considered 
 as a happy riddance to the neighbourhood of 
 Holywell ; and she was under a real obligation 
 to the Duchess for rendering Mill Hill so often 
 tenantless. At length it occurred to the great 
 lady, whose temper was not softened, nor her 
 disposition ennobled by the practices of a long 
 life of art and artifice, to allure Arthur Army- 
 tage into her brilliant London circle, and 
 attach him to the feet of one of her beautiful 
 daughters, who might dismiss him with scorn 
 when a nobler suitor should present himself. 
 
 But by one of those unlooked-for entangle- 
 ments which perplex the web of human des- 
 tiny, at the very moment the Duchess of Spald- 
 ing was courting the young Captain to her 
 house^ Ae was courting Jack Baltimore's daugh- 
 
 n3 
 
274 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 ter into his. The Morning Post announced 
 Arthur's abrupt marriage, and the Duchess 
 was defeated ; but the Morning Post also an- 
 nounced the dejeuner in Portland Place — and 
 the Duchess was avenged. What a marriage ! 
 What a match ! What a blow for Mrs. Ar- 
 mytage ! 
 
 Nor had the Wemmersleys failed to feed 
 the vast bonfire of her rejoicings with all the 
 faggots they could make up of ill-natured 
 rumours touching the Baltimore family. In 
 return, her Grace favoured them \^dth the im- 
 pertinent comments transmitted from Paris by 
 Lord Wyndham Spalding, in his letters to his 
 sisters. She knew that Marian was shy and 
 awkward — easily counselled, easily governed, 
 and with no stronger sliield than upright 
 intentions to secure her from being counselled 
 and governed ill. She knew that the timid 
 Mrs. Arthur had fallen into the control of 
 Lady Arabella Quin, and immediately resolved, 
 should she ever visit Yorkshire, to convert her 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 275 
 
 into an implement of torture to her long-ofFend- 
 ing mother-in-law. 
 
 Her Grace's first measure towards the ac- 
 complishment of her projects, was to obtain 
 favour in the sight of Arthur. Although her 
 sons were intimately acquainted with him, the 
 Duchess knew little more of the young Life- 
 Guardsman previous to his marriage, than is 
 to be learned by a five minutes' colloquy at 
 Almack's, where the interlocutors are a well- 
 diamonded Duchess of fifty, and a shy young 
 Cornet of twenty-one ; or by still briefer inter- 
 views at the door of her Opera-box, where, in 
 the absence of a more eligible escort, his assist- 
 ance was tolerated in calling the carriage or 
 tying on the snow-shoe. At that period, in- 
 deed, she had felt a certain degree of hesita- 
 tion in courting him to her house — his assi- 
 duities might interfere with those of the young 
 Marquis of Clydesdale, or annoy the highly- 
 exclusive Duke of Witherby, whom she had 
 
276 FEMALE DOMIKATION. 
 
 stili hopes of securing for her daughter Ho- 
 noria. 
 
 But all was over now. Though Lady Ho- 
 noria and Lady Amabel were still unmarried, 
 the Duchess could, with perfect propriety, 
 invite her young Yorkshire neighbour (who 
 must of course be leading a comfortless bache- 
 lor life) to dine in St. James's Square, or take 
 a seat in their box, whenever he had no better 
 engagement. Nothing could be more cha- 
 ritable^ nothing more kind than such atten- 
 tions, particularly considering their political 
 differences, and her son Leicester's recent de- 
 feat at Thoroton. 
 
 Even her charge to her daughters of " Pray, 
 be very civil to young Armytage, but take care 
 not to let him be in your way," can scarcely 
 be considered a draAvback on her well-meant 
 hospitality ; while the secret rejoinder of Lady 
 Amabel to her sister, — '• Rely upon it, mamma 
 intends to make him her fireguard, as she did 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 277 
 
 Wemmersley last season, whenever she wanted 
 to interfere with onr flirtations," need only be 
 taken as an evidence of the success of their 
 ladyships' distingaished education in the art 
 and science of modern manners. 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 Here comes the Briton. — Let him be so entertained among 
 you as suits a stranger of his quality. I beseech you all, be 
 better known to this gentleman. 
 
 Shakspeare. 
 
 The Duchess's calculation, that Arthur would 
 only too eagerly accept her general invitation, 
 proved erroneous. For a whole week the new 
 member did not make himself visible in St. 
 James's Square ; and her Grace, satisfied of 
 the all-surpassing attractions of her gay house 
 and brilliant society, fancied that the sort of 
 shy reserve so common to young Englishmen 
 must be the cause of his absence : yet how to 
 attribute shyness or reserve to the frank and 
 well-bred Mr. Armytage, who had ''fait fu- 
 reur^ in Paris, whose demeanour at his election 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 279 
 
 bear-baiting, and whose maiden speech in the 
 House, were already cited as an honour to the 
 county of York ? — Still less was her Grace in- 
 clined to accept as an apology for his remiss- 
 ness, the motive assigned by her son Lord 
 Leicester, that " Armytage was too well 
 amused at his clubs and among his former 
 brother-officers, to trouble himself with the 
 intolerable nuisance of dressing to dine out." 
 
 Intent on the accomplishment of her 
 scheme, the Duchess next decided that Arthur 
 was proud — ^proud with the susceptible pride 
 of a 'squire; that her civilities had been too 
 familiar ; and a vast card w^as accordingly de- 
 spatched, mviting him for a solemn dinner- 
 party at a fortnight's date, — a solemn dinner- 
 party on an ex- senatorial Saturda}^ which left 
 him no plea of evasion. He found one, how- 
 ever, in spite of all her precaution. That one 
 eventful and especial Saturday was the last 
 day of Ascot Races; when profiting by the 
 dies non, Arthur had engaged himself to dine 
 
280 FEMALK DOMINATION. 
 
 and sleep at Lord Rydars, in the neighbour- 
 hood of Windsor. 
 
 The Duchess was excessively provoked ; the 
 more so that the recusant object of her 
 patronage could plead an engagement so 
 much to the purpose. Her own sons, ay ! 
 even her eldest, her Cupid of fifty descents, 
 the irresistible Marquis of Downham, had ex- 
 pressed in her hearing the most anxious desire 
 to form part of the race-party at Lord Rydal's, 
 and his consciousness of the inaccessibility of 
 such a distinction. That Arthur Army t age 
 had managed to penetrate the exclusive portal, 
 she could neither understand nor forgive ! 
 
 '• I have been attacking this man only to 
 get at his wife," — was the result of her se- 
 rious meditations on the subject; — ''and I 
 see that it is only through his wife I can hope 
 to attack Aim." 
 
 And chance favoured the design. On the 
 following day there was vrhat is called a " pri- 
 vate view" of a fashionable exhibition ; — that 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 281 
 
 is, an opportunity for the elect of the gay 
 world to crush each other to death, in a mob 
 of five hundred people ; instead of taking 
 their ease, among the two or three indivi- 
 duals of doubtful quality paying for their 
 admittance on the following day. In the 
 thickest and hottest of this privileged mob 
 was Arthur fated to encounter the Duchess, 
 panting and ghastl}-, salts-bottle and vinai' 
 grette in hand. 
 
 *' Delighted to see you, ]\Tr. Armytage. — 
 What a dreadful crowd! — The heat is per- 
 fectly overpowering. The directors ought to 
 be more reserved in issuing tickets. Two 
 young ladies already carried out faintnig ; and 
 old Lord Fussball, in an attack, which I trust 
 may not prove apoplectic, — appearances were 
 sadly against him." 
 
 " Can I be of any use in assisting you to 
 make your way towards the door ?" inquired 
 Arthur good-naturedly ; compassionating her 
 Grace's half- asphyxiated condition. 
 
282 FExMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 "Thank you, — no! We are making our 
 way regularly through the rooms. — I have 
 scarcely seen the pictures in this room. Ho- 
 noria, my love, there is Lord Edward Brere- 
 ton just squeezing in at the door, and bomng 
 to you." 
 
 Arthur was about to profit by this aside, 
 and turn away. But the Duchess was quick- 
 sighted as a lynx. 
 
 " I hope you have satisfactory news from 
 Holywell, Mr. Armytage ? — It is a very great 
 disappointment to my daughters and myself 
 — (Amabel ! — Lord Clydesdale going away, 
 and you have not spoken to him !) — that Mrs. 
 Arthur Armytage should have been prevented 
 visiting toAvn this season. We have heard so 
 much of her from my son Wyndham, as to 
 A'enture to look upon her as an acquaintance ; 
 and I was in hopes we should have met very 
 frequently in the course of the season!" 
 
 Arthur bowed his acknowledgments. 
 
 '' As it is, I trust our intercourse will com- 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 283 
 
 mence on a still more friendly footing in the 
 country. Mrs. Armytage, I know, is wedded 
 to Holywell, and the thirty miles' distance be- 
 tween us has proved an obstacle to "intimacy 
 between the families. You must persuade 
 your wife to be more indulgent, — to suppose 
 us neighbours ; and leave it to us to induce 
 her to look upon us as friends." 
 
 The warm feelings of Arthur were touched ; 
 they were particularly accessible to any kind- 
 ness shown to Marian. He vvas fluent in his 
 thanks ; — then, turning to Lady Honoria, whose 
 eyes seemed riveted on a fine Claude, uttered 
 some commonplace remarks on the merits of 
 the collection, from her replies to which it was 
 easy to be gathered that she did not know 
 a Hogarth from a Tenicrs, a Rubens from a 
 Reynolds. 
 
 " If you are fond of pictures, Mr. Armj'- 
 tage," said the Duchess, graciously, ''you 
 should accompany me this evening to my bro- 
 
284 
 
 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 ther Lord Wildinghain s ; — his gallery is con- 
 sidered one of the most select in London." 
 
 iVrthiir, again all gratitude, was compelled 
 to admit that, if he could get away from the 
 house, he was engaged to join the Rotherhams 
 at the Opera. 
 
 '' Join the Rotherhams !" And he had never 
 once profited by the Duchess's invitation to 
 her box ! 
 
 '• I did not know the Rotherhams were 
 Opera-going people!" said Lady Honoria, 
 sneeringly. " In fact, one seldom sees them 
 anywhere." 
 
 " Opera-going, but not ballet-staying peo- 
 ple," replied Arthur with a smile. " Lady 
 Rotherham^s health does not admit of her 
 keeping late hours." 
 
 " Yes, I am aware tliat she is a sort of 
 Madame Argan, who has been dying by half 
 inches these one and twenty years," said the 
 Duchess of Spalding. " I used to put her 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 285 
 
 name down for my footman's weekly circular 
 of inquiries after the sick and convalescent ; 
 but as slie was always 'as well as could be 
 expected/ and as I expected nothing at all 
 about the matter, I scratched her out at last as 
 dead — or ought to be dead."' 
 
 Arthur did not laugh, though he savr it was 
 expected of him. 
 
 " I fancy Willis pays an annuity to Lady 
 Rotherham and her daughter for airing his 
 rooms. There they are every Wednesday, I 
 am told, as punctual as the candle-lighters ; — 
 and, as one is going up the stairs two or three 
 hours afterwards, one is sure to be bowed to 
 from some odd corner by two mummies hooded 
 up in their cloaks to wait for their carriage ; 
 and to hear, when yours drives off, that Lady 
 Rotherham's stops the way." 
 
 " Not always quite so early !"" said Arthur 
 Armytage, piqued for his friends. '' I assure 
 you I was dancing with Lady Laura at Lady 
 Rydal's ball, at three o'clock this morning." 
 
286 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 " A very pretty story, upon my honour !" 
 exclaimed a wheezy voice issuing from a fat 
 figure in a bright blue pehsse, wedged in be- 
 tween the Duchess of Spalding and Lady 
 Amabel, and overpoweringly scented with ver- 
 veine. " So this is the way you country gen- 
 tlemen perform your duties in parliament ? 
 Poor dear Dyke declares he never gets a 
 glimpse of you in the House, not even when the 
 Leeds railroad vv^as brought forward last vvcek. 
 Well, well! — if you don't make me some very 
 fine promises and come and take your family- 
 dinner with us on Sunday, trust to me for 
 writing word of all your proceedings to your 
 wife I" And poor Arthur found his hands 
 heartily shaken by the good-humoured Mrs. 
 Dyke Kobse}^ her elbows meanwhile protrud- 
 ing themselves unmercifully into the shrinking 
 sides of the Duchess and her daughter. 
 
 But the Duchess was too discreet even to 
 look her astonishment. 
 
 " And what in the mde world have you been 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 287 
 
 doing with yourself ever since you have been 
 in town?" pursued the blue lady, alive to 
 nothing but the good fortune of a meeting 
 w ith her young relative. " We 've been ex- 
 pecting and expecting you to call again, ever 
 since the day you left your card ; and no end 
 of dinner-parties, and always a knife and fork 
 kept for you. You know you're a first fa- 
 vourite with poor dear Dyke, — only he's rather 
 in dudgeon just now about your name being 
 in the majority against the Liskeard railroad. 
 And between ourselves, my brother Baltimore 
 is getting rather huffy about never being able 
 to get sight of you. He says he calls and 
 calls, and you are always out, or your servant 
 says you are dining at Lord Rotherham's or 
 Botherum's, or some great man's or other. 
 Now you know Jack has a warm heart, and 
 it's natural he should 1 beg your par- 
 don, ma'am," cried Mrs. Robsey, interrupting 
 herself to address the Duchess, ''but your 
 
2S8 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 voyl is sticking to my cliain, and if we don't 
 take care, there'll be a tear, — and tear is 
 sometimes worse than wear, — as my sister 
 Baltimore says to her bantlings." 
 
 The Duchess did not, or would not, hear. 
 A slio'ht movement in the crowd favoured her 
 
 o 
 escape; and the magnificent c/emZ-voi/e of «J3- 
 
 j)lication de Bruxelles soon hung in shreds 
 round her supercilious face, while, with a lan- 
 guid smile of adieu to Arthur, the Ladies 
 Spalding passed on superior. 
 
 " Well, if ever I sa\y such folly !" cried Mrs. 
 Dyke Robse}^ " Forty guineas, if it cost a 
 shilling ; and just because she was too idle to 
 help me disentangle it !" 
 
 " Hush ! — the Duchess of Spalding will 
 overhear you !" whispered Arthur, hoping to 
 moderate her voice, if not her indignation. 
 
 ''The Duchess — who did you say? — the 
 Duchess f cried Mrs. Robsey, still louder than 
 before 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 289 
 
 " The Duchess of Spalding. — She is still 
 close to us — be cautious," said Arthur. 
 
 '* Now why didn't you tell me at once that 
 it was the Duchess of Spalding ! " exclaimed 
 Marian's aunt. '•' It would have been such 
 a famous opportunity for getting acquainted 
 with her, and I've long been wanting to know 
 her. We were all staying together at the 
 York Hotel at Dover last summer. Do see if 
 we can't push after her, and you can introduce 
 me, and I can apologize." 
 
 " The Duchess and her daughters, as you 
 perceive, are in haste to leave the room," said 
 Arthur in a low voice, perceiving, from the 
 smiles evident on several strange faces around 
 them, that their conversation had been over- 
 heard. '' Another time." 
 
 " Ay, ay ! another time !" she replied, easily 
 satisfied, and easily diverted from her object. 
 "' We'll talk about it to-morrow at dinner. 
 Six o'clock and punctual, please, as it's Sunday, 
 on account of the servants. It's poor dear 
 
 VOL. I. o 
 
290 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 Dyke's rule, as you may remember^ for the 
 establishment to enjoy itself of a Sunday." 
 
 " My dear Armytage," whispered Lord 
 Greta, who had accompanied Arthur to the 
 gallery, and hastened to rejoin him as soon as 
 he noticed the departure of the Duchess of 
 Spalding, his " favourite aversion," — " I think 
 I hear you making an engagement for Sunday, 
 as if you were inclined to forget your promise 
 of accompanying us to Petersham to-morrovv^ !" 
 
 '' I had indeed forgotten it," replied Army- 
 tage ; " but pray let me present you to Mrs. 
 Robsey, that you may assist me to plead my 
 excuses." 
 
 And an introduction to a Lord — a young 
 and handsome Lord — certainly had its share 
 in averting the good lady's displeasure ; while 
 Greta, too gentlemanly to fancy himself irre- 
 trievably lost in the eyes of the world, from 
 being seen in conversation with a lady in a 
 flashy pelisse, and too true to his political 
 vocation not to profit by Arthur's whisper of — 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 291 
 
 " wife to the Whig member for Perjureham," 
 explained the previous engagement of his 
 friend with the most courteous deference. 
 
 Escorted to her carriage by the two young 
 men, her vast variety of chains and trinkets 
 jingling at every step, Mrs. Robsey, after 
 uttering very audible adieux to " his Lord- 
 ship " from the door of her britschka, called 
 aloud to bid Arthur " mind and come and take 
 his mutton with them the first idle day, or poor 
 dear Dyke would never forgive him. — It was 
 shameful of him to give all his time to those 
 Bother ums." 
 
 Luckily, Lord Greta was out of hearing. 
 
 o2 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 Was \t kind, 
 To lea\e me like a turtle here alone, 
 To droop and mourn the absence of my mate ? 
 When thou art from me, every place is desert, 
 And I, methinks, am savage and forlorn. 
 
 Otw.vy, 
 
 To the Greta family, Arthur Armytage cer- 
 tainly did devote the whole of his leisure. 
 The house of Jack Baltimore it was impossible 
 for him to enter withovit disgust : — noisy, as it 
 was dirty, disorderly, and necessitous — fit 
 home for a man who, his whole life long, had 
 devoted himself to a horse ; and poignant was 
 his regret that the nearest relatives of his wife 
 should be so degraded in the eyes of society — 
 so unattractive in his own. His father s nearest 
 relative. Lord Armytage, occupied a post in 
 the administration ; and Arthur kept sedu- 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 293 
 
 lously aloof, lest he might be supposed to 
 court his Lordship's patronage. Bat, at Lord 
 Rotherham's, where he was welcomed like the 
 Piccolomini to the hearth of Wallenstein, as 
 the " kind des hauses,'" — where he found his 
 earliest friends and playmates, friendly and 
 lively as ever, and principles and habits con- 
 genial wdth his own, — he was glad to take 
 refuge from the solitary publicity of a London 
 hotel. The Earl bade him remember, as he 
 had been wont to do in his holidays and vaca- 
 tions, that there was always a place for him at 
 his table; and Arthur, who had always reve- 
 renced Lord Rotherham as his father's most 
 intimate friend — the afflicted witness of his 
 untimely end — felt no scruple in accepting 
 the hospitality thus cordially tendered by his 
 Yorkshire neighbour. 
 
 It was so easy, too, to walk home from 
 the House arm-in-arm with his friend Greta, 
 straight to St. James's Place ; and Lady 
 Rotherham was so glad to see and welcome a 
 
294 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 guest who knew her ten children name by 
 name, and which of them had been run away 
 with by his pony, and Avhich had so narrowly 
 escaped drowning in the reservoir, and whom 
 one and all called " Arthur," and romped 
 with as a brother. Even Lady Laura, though 
 somewhat haughty and reserved with casual 
 visiters, had her old-standing jokes and friendly 
 words of mutual understanding with him; so 
 that, after a fortnight passed in London, a par- 
 ticular chair came to be apportioned as that of 
 Arthur Armytage at Lord Rotherham's table, 
 and a particular corner of a particular sofa, in 
 Lady Rotherham's drawing-room, to bear his 
 name. His worthy host and hostess consi- 
 dered that they were doing not only what was 
 kind, but what was right, in affording to the 
 son of their old friend, placed in such a posi- 
 tion as Arthur, a resource against the tempta- 
 tions of idleness and dissipation. They left 
 him no excuse for wasting his time and his 
 money in barrack-rooms or clubs. 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 295 
 
 And in such a mode of life, it must be owned 
 that there was something peculiarly agreeable 
 to Arthur. He liked the stir of a large family, 
 combined with the regularity of an orderly 
 one. He liked the bonhommie of the Greta 
 tribe — their cheerfulness — their cordiaUtj^ 
 The whole thing came refreshingly to him 
 after a prolonged residence at Paris; where, 
 if he had found much to amuse, he had seen 
 little to approve. But now, he was once more 
 among people of his own caste and kind, he 
 was very happy — perfectly happy — too happy 
 perhaps, considering that in the first year of 
 his marriage, he was for the first time sepa- 
 rated from his wife. 
 
 Marian's letters, however, arrived as regu- 
 larly as the post, to remind him that if he was 
 enjo3dng liimself, she was sad and a sufferer. 
 >S7ie complained of the dulness of the time 
 which was passing for him so pleasantly, in- 
 treating him, however, and with perfect sin- 
 cerity of heart, not to apply himself too severely 
 
296 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 to the duties of his new vocation ; not to give ^ 
 
 up his thoughts too exclusively to politics — to 
 seek the relaxation so indispensable for his 
 health — to avoid the anxious fears for herself 
 ■which she knew must be pressing on his mind. 
 
 Arthur's heart almost reproached him with 
 duplicity while he was perusing these affec- 
 tionate and candid outpourings of Marian's 
 feelings. Yet he had done no wrong ; had 
 no conjugal backslidings with which to re- 
 proach himself; and to have volunteered to 
 his wife a self- accusation of finding himself too 
 prone to bachelor-enjoyments, and too happy 
 in her absence, would have been at once an 
 injury and an insult. 
 
 He profited, therefore, by her often-repeated 
 exhortations, to amuse himself during the in- 
 tervals of his parliamentary duties : — dining 
 with the Rotherhams, lounging in the Park 
 with Greta, or dancing at Almack's with Lady 
 Laura, whenever they were at the trouble of 
 procuring him a subscription. June, with its 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 297 
 
 thorns and its roses, its strawberries and its 
 villa- deje lines, had already begun ; and 
 though Arthur was not heartless enough to 
 purpose prolonging his sojourn in town one 
 hour beyond the necessities of the case, yet he 
 did sometimes almost regret that the days 
 passed so quickly, and that the hours were of 
 imperceptible duration. 
 
 The fault might in some measure lie with 
 his mother. The atmosphere of Holywell was 
 so apt to be a stormy one ! — too stormy for a 
 man of Arthur's indolent complexion and 
 cheerful temper. He dreaded the fracasseries 
 of the place — the testincss of the old servants 
 — the dependence to which he found himself 
 reduced. Grillon's Hotel wanted (he flattered 
 himself that such was his conviction) only 
 Marian's presence to be a perfect Paradise ; 
 for with all the dupHcity of this wicked world, 
 few of us succeed in deceiving others so com- 
 pletely as we succeed, without effort, in de- 
 ceiving ourselves. 
 
298 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 One person,, meanwhile, was keenly alive to 
 the moral dangers of Arthur's position. The 
 clear-sighted Sophia felt that in Marian's 
 place she should be less satisfied than Marian 
 Avith the tenour of Arthur's correspondence ; 
 and -svas beginning to count the days to -the 
 expected close of the session, almost as eagerly 
 as her sister-in-law. She was better acquainted 
 wdth the versatility of Arthur's disposition ; 
 with his former familiarity in the Greta family, 
 and the expectations to which it had given 
 rise. She even thought her friend Lady Laura 
 wrong, innocently and unconsciously wTong, 
 for continuing to dance with her brother ; 
 more particularly when the fact had been 
 pointed out to her notice in one of Mr. Wem- 
 mersley's morning visits, by an observation of 
 " So I see, by the Morning Post, that our new 
 Member is taking his Wednesday" s privilege 
 of relaxation, and keeping up his loves and 
 friendships of old times ? " 
 
 " I really do not vuiderstand you," said 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 299 
 
 Sophia, dreading that Marian, who was going 
 through a course of fashions with Mrs. Wem- 
 mersley, should overhear the insinuation. 
 
 "Don't you? Have you not observed that 
 his pairing off with X^ady Laura Greta in the 
 Ahnack quadrilles, is regularly announced?" 
 
 "Very likely. The last time I was in tov>'n, 
 I saw my own name coupled among the 
 waltzers, with that of the Duke of Wetherby ; 
 /, who never waltzed in my life, and never had 
 the slightest acquaintance with the Duke." 
 
 " And your brother, of course, has not the 
 slightest acquaintance with Lady Laura ? " 
 persisted Wemmersley, laughing significantly. 
 
 " On the contrary, they have been friends 
 from childhood ; and I fancy it is only on the 
 score of such very old acquaintanceship, that a 
 married man has a right to intrude on a 3'oung 
 lady as a partner." 
 
 " I thank you for the hint ! " he replied ; and 
 Sophia was rejoiced that at any cost she had 
 succeeded in diverting him from his object. 
 
300 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 " I now understand why you received me so 
 very coolly last year, when you accompanied 
 the Rotherhams to the Doncaster Race ball ; 
 and you shall find (at the ball which I con- 
 clude our new Member means to give us athis 
 return on his return,) that I have profited by 
 the lesson. Trust me, I will not again inter- 
 fere with Lord Greta s better pretensions." 
 
 Sophia would have given a great deal to 
 ascertain, after the departure of the Wem- 
 mersleys, how much of this commentary on 
 Arthur's conduct had reached the ears of her 
 sister-in-law. But she could not hazard a 
 direct inquiry ; and Marian's simplicity of 
 mind was exactly calculated to defeat any 
 other mode of attack. The moment she de- 
 tected any one trying to discover her senti- 
 ments, she made twice as ample a declaration 
 as the occasion needed, often avowing much 
 more than the manoeuvrcr was bent on ascer- 
 taining. Miss Armytage was almost afraid of 
 learning, not only that Arthur's wife had over- 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 301. 
 
 heard all, but to what extent that all affected 
 her feelings, and was likely to influence her 
 conduct. 
 
 She noticed, however, that Marian that 
 evening looked paler and sadder than usual ; 
 and, on her retiring to rest, ventured to observe 
 to her mother that Mrs. Arthur*s strength and 
 spirits were manifestly declining. But Mrs. 
 Armytage, whose thoughts were engrossed by 
 the splendid nursery-furniture and nursery- 
 suits she had that morning received from town 
 for the use of the little heir of Holywell, and 
 purposed presenting on the morrow to her 
 dauo^hter-in-law, attributed her lanoaor to the 
 approach of the event so anxiously anticipated 
 by the family. 
 
 The morrow came ; the gifts, courteously 
 offered and accepted, scarcely seemed for a 
 moment to occupy the attention of the listless 
 Marian. Old Mrs. Macklin, who had pre- 
 sided over the birth of Arthur and Sophia, and 
 ever since formed a sort of fixture among the 
 
302 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 green and ever-springing olive branches at 
 Greta Castle, was somewhat scandalized to see 
 the young lady to whom she was now about 
 to devote her services, so insensible to the 
 beauty of the Valenciennes cockades, and the 
 fineness of the cambric robing ; and felt per- 
 suaded that Mrs. Armytage must be indig- 
 nant at the ingratitude of her daughter-in-law. 
 But she was mistaken. Mrs. Armytage liked 
 Marian the better for her indifference to such 
 things. — She began to hope that her mind was 
 less vulgar and trivial than she had imagined. 
 Time wore on. The days, long and Mid- 
 summerish as they were, passed away. All 
 the papers agreed in announcing the proro- 
 gation of Parliament for the 21st ; and on the 
 23rd Arthur would be at Holywell! Still, 
 Marian's depression was not diminished, nor 
 Sophia's anxiety. The Duchess of Spalding 
 vdio, on her annual journey northwards, was in 
 the habit- of dignifying Mill Hill by making 
 it her sleeping inn, took the opportunity of 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 303 
 
 paying a morning visit to Mrs. Armytage, on her 
 progress home the following day ; apparently 
 for the purpose of announcing her regret that 
 Arthur's family engagements with the Rother- 
 hams had prevented her the happiness of 
 catching a glimpse of him in tow n : and when 
 Mrs. Armytage drily replied that it gave her 
 unfeigned pleasure to hear of her son being 
 engrossed by such satisfactory connexions, 
 the Duchess had no readier means of revengfc 
 than by redoubling her attentions to the sad 
 and silent Marian ; and assuring her that Mr. 
 Armytage had in some degree made the 
 amende honourable, by promising that the first 
 visit made by himself and his wife on her 
 recovery, should be to Spalding Court. Ma- 
 rian smiled and bow ed her ready acceptance. 
 It was a solace to her to think that her first 
 visit w as not already pledged to Greta Castle. 
 But the information afforded by the gossip- 
 ing Duchess, and incidentally confirmed in 
 Lady Honoria's chit-chat with Miss Armytage, 
 
304 FEMALE DOMINATION. 
 
 that Arthur was the gayest of the gay, the 
 most bachelor-like of bachelor-husbands, did 
 not prepare the family to receive with patience 
 his announcement that, " very particular en- 
 gagements in town would prevent his being at 
 home till the 25th, when Lord Greta had pro- 
 mised him a place in his carriage." 
 
 " Why not come in his own ?" exclaimed 
 his proud mother. 
 
 "Why not come in the mail?" exclaimed 
 the impatient Marian. 
 
 '' Why not come at once ?" thought even the 
 forbearing Sophia. 
 
 But they had no leisure for much thinking 
 or saying on the subject. In the course of the 
 day, Mrs. Macklin announced Marian to be 
 seriously ill; and Mrs. Armytage again began 
 to tremble at the prognostications which 
 threatened a triumph to Reginald Maudsley. 
 The old nurse, eager to enhance the merits of 
 her services, hinted that children born under 
 such circumstances seldom survived. Even 
 
FEMALE DOMINATION. 305 
 
 the doctors seemed discouraged. An express 
 was hastily despatched for Arthur; and, from 
 the bell-ringers to the park-keepers and their 
 bonfire, all was anxiety and suspense at Holy- 
 well. 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
 VOL. 1. 
 
LONDON; 
 
 Printed by William Clowes and Sons,' 
 
 Stamford Street. 
 
r 
 
 
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