LORD M—— AND HIS BABOON. 223 
By desire of her mother, the young lady visited 
Worcestershire, during the summer of the second 
year after her marriage, whither Lord M——, who 
was detained on some county affairs, was to follow 
her. In the interval, she wrote to him several times, 
but received no answer to her letters, until, at the 
end cf some months, her mother, whose character 
was remarkable for haughtiness, wrote to him her- 
self, requesting, without any explanation, that her 
daughter should thenceforth live separately from him. 
In the mean time, the father of Lord M- was 
glad of an opportunity to obstruct any conciliation, 
and counselled his son,—who was himself reserved, 
and resentful of sdight,—not to make the first overture. 
The youthful bride pined away for some months, 
and then seemed to resume a partial tranquillity ; 
but this appearance was fallacious. Lord M - 
soon after the receipt of the letter from his mother- 
in-law, bade adieu to his native country, and embark- 
ed for Flanders. For several months he had been 
observed to settle down into an air of the most un- 
equivocal melancholy. He shunned every human 
face, contenting himself with its caricature in a 
favourite Baboon, named Mahmoud, a native of 
Prince Edward’s Island, which he had purchased 
from an East India captain. 
His father was so afflicted at his son’s despondency 
as a sequence to this untoward alliance, that he sold 
the estate in Yorkshire, and took up his residence in 
Brighton ; very occasionally visiting a considerable 
