CHAPTER III.


"Let not the Heavens hear these tell-tale women,
Rail on the Lord's anointed."--_RICHARD III._


"The month which followed our marriage we passed in the happy
retirement of Silsea; and there for the first time I became
acquainted with the real character of my Theresa. Her beauty had
indeed been the glory of the court, but it was only amid the privacy
of domestic life that the accomplishments of her cultivated mind, and
the submissive gentleness of her disposition became apparent. Timid
almost to a fault, I sometimes doubted whether to attribute her
implicit obedience to my wishes, to the habit of early dependence
upon the caprice of those around her, or to the resignation of a
broken spirit. Still she did not appear unhappy. The wearisome
publicity and etiquette of the life she had been hitherto compelled
to lead, was most unsuitable to her taste for retirement; and she
enjoyed equally with myself the calm repose of a quiet home. When she
made it her first request to me that I would take the earliest
opportunity to retire from public life, and by settling on my
patrimonial estate release her from the slavery of a court, all my
former apprehensions vanished; and I began to flatter myself that the
love I had so fondly, so frankly, bestowed, had met with an equal
return. Prompt as we are to seize on every point which yields
confirmation to our secret wishes, and eagerly credulous, where the