Her other daughters had married according to their fancy--and what had come of it ?--but Maude was different.

Maude had great beauty; and Maude, truth to say, was almost as selfishly alive to her own interest as her mother.

_She_ should marry well, and so be in a position to shelter the poor, homeless, wandering dowager.

Had she chosen from the whole batch of peers, not one could have been found more eligible than he whom fortune seemed to have turned up for her purpose--Lord Hartledon; and before the countess-dowager had been one week his guest in London she began her scheming.
Lady Maude was nothing loth.

Young, beautiful, vain, selfish, she yet possessed a woman's susceptible heart; though surrounded with luxury, dress, pomp, show, which are said to deaden the feelings, and in some measure do deaden them, Lady Maude insensibly managed to fall in love, as deeply as ever did an obscure damsel of romance.