along Chelsea Reach, the bells of the church were ringing merrily.
"Why, that is a wedding peal!" cried the Duke of Wharton; "and it puts me in mind that Miss Pelham and Sir John Shelley are just going to enter into the holy and blessed state."
"Yes," replied Lady Mary, "and I never knew a marriage with a greater prospect of happiness—she will be a widow in six weeks!"
"Well," said Lady Marchmont, "you carry your connubial theory even further than in your last ballad:—
'My power is pass'd by like a dream,
And I have discover'd too late,
That whatever a lover may seem,
A husband is what we must hate.'"
Lady Mary smiled very graciously; she almost forgave Henrietta for looking so well: to have one's own verses learned by heart, and gracefully quoted, is more than poetical nature can resist.
"For my part," continued the Duke of Wharton, "I hold that the connubial system of this country is a complete mistake. The
