 misapprehension and perverseness of humility, believes
herself to be as great a sinner as need be.
    This young person does not happen to be in London at the present period of
our story, and it is by no means for the like of her that Mr. Henry Foker's mind
is agitated. But what matters a few failings? Need we be angels, male or female,
in order to be worshipped as such? Let us admire the diversity of the tastes of
mankind; and the oldest, the ugliest, the stupidest and most pompous, the
silliest and most vapid, the greatest criminal, tyrant, booby, Bluebeard,
Catherine Hayes, George Barnwell, amongst us, we need never despair. I have read
of the passion of a transported pickpocket for a female convict (each of them
being advanced in age, repulsive in person, ignorant, quarrelsome, and given to
drink), that was as magnificent as the loves of Cleopatra and Antony, or
Lancelot and Guinevere. The passion which Count Borulawski, the Polish dwarf,
inspired in the bosom of the most beautiful Baroness at the Court of Dresden, is
a matter with which we are all of us acquainted; the flame which burned in the
heart of young Cornet Tozer but the other day, and caused him to run off and
espouse Mrs. Battersby, who was old enough to be his mamma - all these instances
are told in the page of history or the newspaper column. Are we to be ashamed or
pleased to think that our hearts are formed so that the biggest and
highest-placed Ajax among us may some day find himself prostrate before the
pattens of his kitchenmaid; as that there is no poverty or shame or crime, which
will not be supported, hugged even with delight, and cherished more closely than
virtue would be, by the perverse fidelity and admirable constant folly of a
woman?
    So then Henry Foker, Esquire, longed after his love, and cursed the fate
which separated him from her. When Lord Gravesend's family retired to the
country (his Lordship leaving his proxy with the venerable Lord Bagwig), Harry
still remained lingering on in London, certainly not much to the sorrow of Lady
Ann, to whom he was affianced, and who did not in the least miss him. Wherever
Miss Amory went, this infatuated young fellow continued to follow her; and being
aware that his engagement to his cousin was known in the world, he was forced to
make a mystery of his passion and confine it to his own breast, so that it was
so pent in there and pressed down that it is
