his library, did not pay any attention to my lady's intimacy with Sir
Clinton; on the contrary, as he was a cousin and friend of hers, his
lordship seemed always happy to see him, and was the only person in
the neighbourhood who had no suspicion of what was going on."

"Oh, sir, it is a melancholy story, and I can scarcely persuade myself
to tell it. (It is really delicious wine this-six-and-twenty years
old last birthday--to say nothing of its age before I bought it.) Ah!
well, sir, the blow came at last like a thunderclap: my lady, finding
disguise was in vain, went off with Sir Clinton. Letters were
discovered which showed that they had corresponded for years; that he
was her lover before marriage; that she, in a momentary passion with
him, had accepted my lord's offer; that she had always repented her
precipitation; and that she had called her son after his name: all
this, and much more, sir, did my lord learn, as it were, at a single
blow."

"He obtained a divorce, and Sir Clinton and my lady went abroad. But
from that time my lord was never the same man. Always proud and
gloomy, he now became intolerably violent and morose. He shut himself
up, saw no company of any description, rarely left the house, and
never the park; and, from being one of the gayest places in the
country, sir, the mansion became as dreary and deserted as if it had
been haunted. (It is for you to begin the second bottle, sir.)"

"But the most extraordinary change in my lord was in his conduct to
Master Clinton: from doting upon him, to a degree that would have
spoilt any temper less sweet than my poor young master's, he took the
most violent aversion to him. From the circumstance of his name, and
the long intimacy existing between my lady and her lover, his lordship