Lord Mauleverer had never married.

The Whigs had been very bitter on the subject; they even alluded to it in the House of Commons,--that chaste assembly, where the never-failing subject of reproach against Mr.Pitt was the not being of an amorous temperament; but they had not hitherto prevailed against the stout earl's celibacy.
It is true that if he was devoid of a wife, he had secured to himself plenty of substitutes; his profession was that of a man of gallantry; and though he avoided the daughters, it was only to make love to the mothers.

But his lordship had now attained a certain age, and it was at last circulated among his friends that he intended to look out for a Lady Mauleverer.
"Spare your caresses," said his toady-in-chief to a certain duchess, who had three portionless daughters; "Mauleverer has sworn that he will not choose among your order.

You know his high politics, and you will not wonder at his declaring himself averse in matrimony as in morals to a community of goods." The announcement of the earl's matrimonial design and the circulation of this anecdote set all the clergymen's daughters in England on a blaze of expectation; and when Mauleverer came to shire, upon obtaining the honour of the lieutenancy, to visit his estates and court the friendship of his neighbours, there was not an old-young lady of forty, who worked in broad-stitch and had never been to London above a week at a time, who did not deem herself exactly the sort of person sure to fascinate his lordship.
It was late in the afternoon when the travelling-chariot of this distinguished person, preceded by two outriders, in the earl's undress livery of dark green, stopped at the hall door of Warlock House.

The squire was at home, actually and metaphorically; for he never dreamed of denying himself to any one, gentle or simple.