There are those who are so intent upon living that they have little time
to think. Lady Bolsover was of these. The hour that did not hold some
excitement in it wearied her and made her petulant. Her husband, dead
these ten years, had been amongst the enthusiastic welcomers of Charles
at his Restoration, and his wife had from first to last been a
well-known figure in the Court of the Merry Monarch. That she was no
beauty, rather than because she possessed any great strength of
character, probably accounted for the fact that she enjoyed no peculiar
fame in that dissolute company. As she could not be the heroine of an
intrigue, it pleased her to consider herself too great a dame for such
affairs, and she was fully persuaded that she might count her lovers by
the score, even now, had she so desired. As she had no very definite
character, so she had no real convictions. Charles was dead, and James
was King. Many changes were imminent, and Lady Bolsover was waiting to
see in which direction the wind blew. Her nature, perhaps, was to hate
Puritans and all their ways, but, if necessary to her own well-being,
she would easily be able to love them and curse all Catholics.
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