"With all this, I was happy," said Constance. "And not now?"

“Alas! no; and what is worse, I cannot tell why. I seem to have a fever on my spirits."

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Yet, if flattery could sooth

"Alas! it makes me sick. I am insulted with compliments all day long. I am deified in prose and verse, by persons who know nothing of me, and whose praise would be of no value if they did. I am dragged, or drag myself, from one show to another, where the eye is excited by dazzling brilliancy, but without one satisfying thought to accompany it. In short, there is no mind any where in those about me: all is masquerade: and I hate the name of masquerade, since that unfortunate one at Bellamont House."

Lady Clanellan, who knew and respected the deep impression which the adventure there had made upon Constance, and had done all she could to heal a spirit hurt to the quick by the liberties which had been taken with her, now desisted from her rallying tone, and in the gentlest manner asked her if she had any thing on her mind.

"Not positively," said Constance; "but I am too little pleased with my life to be at ease. As to what I do in public, I feel myself a mere puppet of fashion, and, what is worse, sought after as a mere instrument of party politics. Yet I feel only humbled by being thought a party woman-no very amiable character in itself; and one who, before she can shine, must learn to be at least an actress, if not to forget her sex.

"That will my Constance never do," said Lady Clanellan kindly; "but you have your own private moments, your own private thoughts and resources, and surely never was any young person so entirely her Own mistress.

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Nothing so seemingly true, so really false," replied Constance. "The silly flattery I meet with would make me think myself a queen-the constraints of my life show me I am a slave. How different from this was even that old chateau of Esparbez, which you pretend to ridicule, but which yet you liked."

"Strange," said Lady Clanellan, laughing," that

so gay an heiress should even remember such a piece of monotony !"

"I have told you I am not gay," replied Constance, gravely; "and very sure I am, to be an heiress, is not in itself to be happy. Then, as to monotony, I begin to doubt, however you may laugh at me, whether it is not capable of yielding more real contentment, than the most splendid variety."

"You, who have so much experience," said the Marchioness, still smiling at her, "must be right.

دو

"And have I not experience?" returned Constance. "Was I not happy at Esparbez, and am I happy here? As to the monotony of Esparbez, while it was giving you health, what did I require? But it also gave me, what is so good for every one, but particularly a wild young girl, such as I then was, the habit which you, dear Marchioness, so kindly fostered, of making home happy, by turning the most trivial things into lessons of instruction. While this prevailed, how did the hours fly!"

"Dear Constance," said the Marchioness, changing to seriousness, "I remember full well how my Lord and I admired you, for taking so rationally to that solitude, and dispelling all its gloom by the sunshine of your own mind. Yet you were then as unknown to the world, and as ignorant of it, as your own doves of which you were so fond. How does it happen that things are so changed ?"

"It was this very ignorance, I believe," replied Constance, "that made me happy. The doves you mention, had not a wish beyond their cage, nor I beyond mine. The little studies, in which you and Lord Clanellan engaged me, improved me, or, what is the same thing, made me hope I was improving. This was every thing: for though there was no variety but what we made for ourselves, every little diversion which we did make, became an episode of pleasure. Such was the mere raising of a primrose, or even a salad in my own garden; but particularly a ride in the evening in that sweet climate, while Lord Clanellan drove you in his calash: and then to return to a home where every thing was void of care, and the birds sung me to sleep"

VOL. II.-13

"Fi donc," interrupted the Marchioness; "what would be said of you at the court ball to-night, if this were overheard ?”

"Fi donc, or not," replied Constance, "I can safely say, that in spite of all I am envied for, I have neither been so happy, nor, I am afraid, so innocent, since the days we have been calling to mind."

Strange to say, the eyes of Constance, and a deep sigh which she breathed, showed how much she was moved by these unfashionable recollections.

"Nay, now!" exclaimed Lady Clanellan; “I shall begin to scold, or send for Lord Cleveland to quiz your pretty simplicity. For Heaven's sake! dear Constance, wherein have you departed from the innocence I have always loved in you, as your brightest jewel ?"

"In the total loss of my time," replied Constance; "in appearing always as if upon a scene; in letting hour after hour go by without one self-approving action, or even thought. How different from this, when I used to quit your bedside of an evening, at that peaceful Esparbez, happy to think that my little nursing had made you feel easier, and that the return of health would soon be at hand."

"My dearest Constance," said the Marchioness, now in her turn greatly affected, "how can I ever love you sufficiently for all this, or tell you, notwithstanding my raillery, how I join in your recollections of that dear old place, where the recovery of health set off every thing with delight, and all that we said or did, seemed a feast of love."

At these words, these two amiable women embraced, nor did the difference of their ages seem to make any difference in the affection with which they regarded each other, or in the feeling which the remembrance of the old scenes of their happiness together had called forth. Indeed, there was always something in the manner and looks of Lady Clanellan, that shed a charm over every thing she said or did, and banished every notion of age. The fond of her character was a most serious rectitude, which might have been called severe, but that all appearance of severity was softened, if not lost, in the cheerful nature of her good

ness. Hence, she was always surrounded by young people, who gave their hearts to her as to one of their own age, and few were the secrets they could conceal from her. Her great love for Constance, therefore, made her seriously anxious to trace out (which she knew she could easily do,) whether any thing really lay at her heart. But except that that heart had a void in it, which not all her splendid occupations, all her brilliant pleasures, nay, even her friends and admirers, could fill, and that this void created languor, self-blame, and indifference to every thing that surrounded her the Marchioness could discover little real disease of mind.

Yet with so much goodness, so many accomplishments, so much aptitude for natural happiness, and with all the appliances of the world to boot, that the world should fail in satisfying her, both moved, and baffled conjecture. At the same time, the Marchioness observed that by far the most preponderating interest with Constance, was the conduct of her father, in allowing Clayton to unseat her cousin Mortimer.

This was, in fact, the original cause of her distress, from its having drawn down the displeasure of Lord Mowbray, and excited her fears that she had departed from her duty as a daughter, and, perhaps, even from the retinue of a delicate woman. In this, therefore, she required all the assurances of her friend that she had not overstepped decorum or the duty of her situation. She, indeed, could hardly accept the unhesitating approbation which the Marchioness bestowed upon her endeavour to defeat what she called the scandalous conspiracy of Clayton to defraud an honourable man of his right; and she compromised the matter by averring that, as she interfered only from the supposition that Clayton could not be approved by Lord Mowbray, so she must now suppose herself wrong, and abandon her cousin altogether.

Lady Clanellan, however she might lament the circumstance, could not but applaud her rectitude; and with this assurance, little consoling as it was, this softminded girl took leave of the subject, and of her friend, to dress herself in smiles, and preside at a dinner of twenty covers.

Here her fine manners made their usual impression, and she was set down, even by the serious, as a glass in which all young women might dress themselves; by the careless as a high-fortuned mortal, who could not have a care. And thus we might see confirmed the moral thought of a quaint old strain.

"Though with forced mirth we oft may soothe a smart,
What seemeth well may not be well, I ween;

For many an aching mind and burning heart,
Hid under guise of mirth is often seen."

CHAPTER XX.

A DUEL.

The noble Brutus

Hath told you Cæsar was ambitious:
If it were so, it were a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Cæsar answered it.

SHAKSPEARE.

WHILE what we have just related was going on in the little world of thought which constituted the mind of Constance, an awful event happened in the greater world that surrounded her, which fixed the public attention, plunged many into grief, and afforded a fearful lesson to all.

Among the few friends who did not desert Mr. Wentworth on the late changes, was a person of whom, though we have had no occasion hitherto to mention him, the nation had on a variety of accounts conceived the highest hopes. Son of a man, in family and fortune of the first consequence in the state, and thus favoured by birth and wealth, he was equally favoured by nature from his genius and attainments. He had the gift of eloquence superior to all his contemporaries save Wentworth alone; and his high heart, though touched strongly with ambition, was filled with sincerity, and also with a sensibility, which was always ready to overflow.