nelia was possessed of wonderful firmness of purpose. It had carried her on so long unharmed, and now that danger was at hand, it served effectually to defend her. She rose calm and free, above unmerited disaster. She grew proud of the power she found that she possessed of conquering the most tyrannical of passions. Peace entered her soul, and she hailed it as a blessing.

The clause in her husband's will which deprived her of the guardianship of her daughter had been forgotten during this crisis. Before, under the supposition that she should marry, she had deferred taking any step to claim her. The idea of a struggle to be made, unassisted, unadvised, and unshielded, was terrible. She had not courage to encounter all the annoyances that might ensue. To get rid for a time of the necessity of action and reflection, she went abroad. She changed the scene-she travelled from place to place. She gave herself up in the solitude of continental journies to the whole force of contending passions; now overcome by despair, and again repressing regret, asserting to herself the lofty pride of her nature.

By degrees she recovered a healthier tone of mind—a distant and faint, yet genuine sense of duty dawned upon her; and she began to think on what her future existence was to depend, and how she could best secure some portion of happiness. Her heart once again warmed towards the image of her daughter-and she felt that in watching the development of her mind, and leading her to love and depend on her, a new interest and real pleasure might spring up in life. She reproached herself for having so long, by silence and passive submission, given scope to the belief that she was willing to be a party against herself, in the injustice of Lodore; and she returned to England with the intention of instantly enforcing her rights over her child, and taking to her bosom and to her fondest care the little being, whose affection and gratitude was to paint her future life with smiles.

She called to mind Lady Santerre's worldly maxims, and her own experience. She knew that the first step to success is the appearance of prosperity and power. To command the good wishes and aid of her friends she must appear independent of them. She was · earnest therefore to hide the wounds her heart had received, and the real loathing with which she regarded all things. She arrayed herself in smiles, and banished, far below into the invisible recesses

of her bosom, the contempt and disgust with which she viewed the scene around her.

She returned to England. She appeared at the height of the season, in the midst of society, as beautiful, as charming, as happy in look and manner, as in her days of light-hearted enjoyment. She paused yet a moment longer, to reflect on what step she had better take on first enforcing her claim; but her mind was full of its intention, and set upon the fulfilment.

At this time, but a few days after her arrival in London, she went to the Opera. She heard the name of Fitzhenry called in the lobby -she saw and recognized Mrs. Elizabeth-the venerable sister Bessy, so little altered, that time might be said to have touched, but not trenched, her homely kindly face. With her, in attendance on her, she beheld Horatio Saville's favourite cousin-the gay and fashionable Edward Villiers. It was strange; her curiosity was strongly excited. It had not long to languish the next morning Villiers called, and was readily admitted.

CHAPTER XXIII.

And as good lost is seld or never found.

SHAKSPEARE.

LADY LODORE and Villiers met for the first time since Horatio Saville's marriage. Neither were exactly aware of what the other knew or thought. Cornelia was ignorant how far her attachment to his cousin was known to him; whether he shared the general belief in her worldly coquetry, or what part he might have had in occasioning their unhappy separation. She could not indeed see him without emotion. He had been Lodore's second, and received the last dying breath of him who had, in her brightest youth, selected her from the world, to share his fortunes. Those days were long past; yet as she grew older, disappointed, and devoid of pleasurable interest in the present, she often turned her thoughts backward, and wondered at the part she had acted.

Similar feelings were in Edward's mind. He was prejudiced against her in every way. He despised her worldly calculations, as reported to him, and rejoiced in their failure. He believed these reports, and despised her; yet he could not see her without being moved at once with admiration and pity. The moon-lit hill, and tragic scene, in which he had played his part, came vividly before his eyes. He had been struck by the nobleness of Lodore's appearance—the sensibility that sat on his countenance-his gentle, yet dignified manners. Ethel's idolatry of her father had confirmed the favourable prepossession. He could not help compassionating Cornelia for the loss of her husband, forgetting, for the moment, their separation. Then again recurred to him the eloquent appeals of Saville; his eulogiums; his fervent, reverential affection. She had lost him also. Could she hold up her head after such miserable

events? The evidence of the senses, and the ideas of our own minds, are more forcibly present, than any notion we can form of the feelings of others. In spite, therefore, of his belief in her heartlessness, Villiers had pictured Cornelia attired in dismal weeds, the victim of grief. He saw her, beaming in beauty, at the Opera;— he now beheld her, radiant in sweet smiles, in her own home. Nothing touched-nothing harmed her; and the glossy surface, he doubted not, imaged well the insensible, unimpressive soul within.

Lady Lodore would have despised herself for ever had she betrayed the tremor that shook her frame when Villiers entered. Her pride of sex was in arms to enable her to convince him, that no regret, no pining, shadowed her days: The reality was abhorrent, and should never be confessed. Thus then they met-each with a whole epic of woe and death alive in their memory; but both wearing the outward appearance of frivolity and thoughtlessness. He saw her as lovely as ever, and as kind. Her softest and sweetest welcome was extended to him. It was this frequent show of frank cordiality which gained her "golden opinions" from the many. Her haughtiness was all of the mind;—a desire to please, and constant association with others, had smoothed the surface, and painted it in the colours most agreeable to every eye.

They addressed each other as if they had met but the day before. At first, a few questions and answers passed,—as to where she had been on the continent, how she liked Baden, etc.;-and then Lady Lodore said—" Although I have not seen her for several years, I instantly recognized a relative of mine with you yesterday evening. Does Miss Fitzhenry make any stay in town?"

The idea of Ethel was uppermost in Villiers's mind, and struck by the manner in which the woman of fashion spoke of her daughter, he replied, "During the season, I believe; I scarcely know. Miss Fitzhenry came up for her health; that consideration, I suppose, will regulate her movements.”

"She looked very well last night—perhaps she intends to remain till she gets ill, and country air is ordered?" observed Lady Lodore.

"That were nothing new at least," replied Villiers, trying to hide the disgust he felt at her mode of speaking; "the young and blooming too often protract their first season, till the roses are exchanged for lilies."

"If Miss Fitzhenry's roses still bloom," said the lady, "they must

be perennial ones; they have surely grown more fit for a herbal than a vase."

"You are

Villiers now perceived his mistake, and replied, speaking of Mrs. Elizabeth Fitzhenry, as the good lady styles herself -I spoke of her niece—”

"Has Ethel been ill?" Lady Lodore's hurried question, and the use of the christian name, as most familiar to her thoughts, brought home to Villiers's heart the feeling of their near relationship. There was something more than grating; it was deeply painful to speak to a mother of a child who had been torn from her-who did not know-who had even been taught to hate her. He wished himself a hundred miles off, but there was no help, he must reply. "You might have seen last night that she is perfectly recovered.'

Lady Lodore's imagination refused to image her child in the tall, elegant, full-formed girl she had seen, and she said, "Was Ethel with you? I did not see her-probably she went home before the opera was over, and I only perceived your party in the crush-room -you appear already intimate.”

"It is impossible to see Miss Fitzhenry and not to wish to be intimate,” replied Villiers with his usual frankness. "I, at least, cannot help being deeply interested in every thing that relates to her.”

"You are very good to take concern in my little girl. I should have imagined that you were too young yourself to like children.” "Children!" repeated Villiers, much amazed; “Miss Fitzhenry! -she is not a child."

Lady Lodore scarcely heard him; a sudden pang had shot across her heart, to think how strangers-how every one might draw near her daughter, and be interested for her, while she could not, without making herself the tale of the town, the subject, through the medium of newspapers, for every gossip's tea-table in Englandwhere her sentiments would be scanned, and her conduct criticized --and this through the revengeful feelings of her husband, prolonged beyond the grave. Tears had been gathering in her eyes during the last moments; she turned her head to hide them, and a quick shower fell on her silken dress. Quite ashamed of this self-betrayal, she exerted herself to overcome her emotion. Villiers felt awkwardly situated; his first impulse had been to rise to take her hand, to soothe her; but before he could do more than the first of these acts, as Lady Lodore fancied for the purpose of taking his