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of fashion, and a large and foul delegation from the class to which the bride belongs.
The hour arrives, but no bridal party appears.
After some delay, Romney enters alone, and announces that his intended bride has fled.
The mob swear that she has been abducted by Romney's friends, to prevent the marriage, and a riot ensues, which is quelled by the police.
Some time after Marian's flight, a report is circulated and generally believed by his friends that Romney has formed an engagement of marriage with Lady Waldemar,--a lady of wealth, rank, and beauty, but whose character is utterly devoid of moral principle.
In the full belief of this report, Aurora Leigh, having published a poem which contains the full ~expression of her genius, starts for Italy.
Stopping at Paris on the way, she meets upon the street Marian Erle.
Accompanying her home she hears her story.
Lady Waldemar (who had long cherished a secret love for Romney Leigh) had persuaded Marian that her affianced husband entertained no real affection for her, but was, in marrying her, sacrificing his own happiness on the altar of his social theories; and that it was her duty to prevent him from performing this rash act by flight.
Accordingly she fled the country, under the care of a servant of Lady Waldemar, who conveyed her to a vile den in some French seaport, where she was drugged and outraged.
Escaping them, she made her way to Paris, where a child is born to her.
Aurora, after writing this story in a letter to a common friend of Romney and herself in England, taking Marian and her child with her, continues her journey to Italy.
The party make their home in Florence.
After some months had passe, Romney unexpectedly appears at their house.
He tells Aurora what had happened in her absence.
He had turned his country-seat into a phalanstery.
It had been set on fire and burned to the ground.
In rescuing one of his patients,
S. M. Betts and Company. Hartford, Conn. 1871.
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