About a mile from the village of M – was a seat belonging to Sir Walter Stanley, a rich Baronet, who generally spent two or three months of the year with his family at this his paternal seat, called Stanley Hall. The remaining part of the year was passed in London, at Bath, or some fashionable watering place; Lady Stanley being a very gay woman. She had been very beautiful; but time, and too great an attachment/ to the pleasures of a town life, had greatly impaired her attractions: yet it had not diminished her desire for them; she still pursued amusement with the same avidity as she did when first emancipated from the controul of a rigid father, who had secluded her from the world in an old constellated mansion in Yorkshire.

Sir Walter Stanley, who was young, rich, and gay, by accident saw and loved her: his proposals to marry her were soon made, and readily accepted by the father, as the lover was rich, and his daughter possessed of little beside her handsome person, and the noble blood that flowed in her veins.

The consent of the lady was no difficult to be obtained; the idea of freedom from the restraints that had hitherto been imposed on her, would have induced her to have accepted a less pleasing husband than Sir Walter's appearance/ and address led her to believe she would find in him.

Nor was she deceived: enchanted with the beauty of his young wife, and the admiration she every where excited, Sir Walter entered with pleasure into all the fascinating gaieties of the metropolis: his equipage, his houses and retinue, were in the first stile of elegance and splendor.