In the brief sketch which Lord Adelm had made of the social economy of the castle of Dunore, he had scarcely exaggerated the epidemic influence of the reigning folly of the day. The dramatic mania which had seized the marchioness, indirectly or directly, favoured the views, interests, or vanity, of every member of her / circle. It broke through the spell of that all pervading demon, ennui, and provided that something to do or to discuss, so essential to those who are habitually dependent upon external circumstances for occupation and interest, and who, from their elevated position in society, are unpractised in the exercise of their own resources. It removed likewise the prying eye of concentrated observation from those who wished to elude its glances; and by opening the door to strangers, it enlarged a circle whose members had long become weary of each other. Even Conway Crawley and his aunt, the only persons of that family then at the castle, found their account in an event, which afforded to the poetical vanity of one an opportunity of writing an opening address, while it left him a more undisputed management of the Glannacrime election, in which Lord / Adelm took no interest; m and to the other it held out means of operating the conversion of Lady Dunore, which overcame her conscientious aversion to theatricals, private or public, and reconciled her to the sin as the instrument of contingent good. It is a dogma of the sect to which Miss Crawley belonged, that the deeper the sinner, the greater the saint; – that there is a necessary probation of iniquity to qualify for the expected grace, and to render the dispensing power of mercy the more manifest upon earth.