An acquaintance, occasioned by a sentiment of generous and
condescending sympathy, was established and strengthened into
intimacy, by the personal qualities of those thus delicately honoured.
The King and Queen were equally delighted with the wife and daughter
of the terrible rebel; and although, of course, not an allusion was
made to his existence, Lady Annabel felt not the less acutely the
cause to which she was indebted for a notice so gratifying, but
which she afterwards ensured by her own merits. How strange are the
accidents of life! Venetia Herbert, who had been bred up in unbroken
solitude, and whose converse had been confined to two or three beings,
suddenly found herself the guest of a king, and the visitor to a
court! She stepped at once from solitude into the most august circle
of society; yet, though she had enjoyed none of that initiatory
experience which is usually held so indispensable to the votaries
of fashion, her happy nature qualified her to play her part without
effort and with success. Serene and graceful, she mingled in the
strange and novel scene, as if it had been for ever her lot to dazzle
and to charm. Ere the royal family returned to London, they extracted
from Lady Annabel a compliance with their earnest wishes, that
she should fix her residence, during the ensuing season, in the
metropolis, and that she should herself present Venetia at St.
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