A NOVEL. "Nothing extenuate,nor set down aught in malice." IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. II. LONDON: SAUNDERS AND OTLEY, PUBLIC LIBRARY, CONDUIT STREET. 1826. ALMACK'S. CHAPTER I. A CHANGE OF SCENE. "What mighty contests rise from trivial things !" POPE. LADY Anne returned home from her ride in high spirits, and at dinner she was again fortunate in having Colonel Montague next her. Their conversation turned upon the neighbourhood. Lionel was enquiring about the different families, of whom he recollected little more than their names, and Lady Anne was too happy to tell him all and every thing about them. "Lord Glenmore is an old man, is not he?" "Oh dear, yes!" said Lady Anne; " turned sixty at least. You will, of course, see him tomorrow, for he is a most intrepid fox-hunter, and probably his pretty bride may accompany him. To be sure, that was an extraordinary marriage, one of those improbable things, which, if one read of in a novel, one would be sure to call ridiculously absurd." And then followed an account of it. "How old is Lady Glenmore?" said Lionel, in one of the pauses. "She was sixteen when she married, and Lord Glenmore was sixty. There's a curious disproportion for you!” "And are they happy ?" 3 "Oh! by all accounts, supremely so; and now that there are hopes of an heir, the little beauty can turn the hoary statesman round her finger." Then came innuendoes of the different sets that had been made at the old Marquis by the ladies of the neighbourhood, either for |