His about him as a garment, or rather it seemed as much his natural attribute as the strut, the hop, or the twitter of certain birds belongs to them. The very sound of his voice was conceited. calmness was irritating, the way he crossed his legs and caressed his foot exasperating, and the clearness of his articulation despairing. He united in his own person the active and the passive moods of vanity. Soon after the revolution of February, M. de Lamartine declared that a Frenchman's proper occupation is the contemplation of his own magnanimity, and at the same time an English journalist described England as sitting in unapproachable greatness. Now, Sir William Marlow seemed to unite in himself both the characteristics of these two very different nations. From the height of his unapproachable self-satisfaction, he seemed eternally to contemplate his own perfections. That he had good qualities, that he was clever, and that he had a considerable command of language could not be denied. Lady Clara liked him, and perhaps she was right. It certainly is not right to dislike conceit as much as people in general do. It is better to be conceited than to be vicious or cruel, but the strut of a peacock and the impudence of a sparrow are often more irritating than the fierceness of a vulture or a hawk; it is not easy to be just when we are affronted, and such people as Sir William are a walking affront that our own conceit, however kept in order, can with difficulty endure. Mr. Egerton was evidently struck with Gertrude's beauty. Sir William was never struck with anything. For a few moments Lady Clara kept up an animated conversation with the new comers, in which Lady Roslyn and Gertrude occasionally joined; and then, looking tired with that kind of fatigue peculiar to those who make society the business of their lives, she said she must lie down for an hour before dinner and proposed to go home. Mark Apley drew Gertrude in the garden-chair across the parterre. Mr. Egerton talked to her as they went along. Sir William gave his arm to Lady Clara, and made clever answers to her brilliant remarks; and the sun went down behind the hills, and the dew was thick upon the grass, the flowers gave out their sweetest odours, the air blew freshly on Gertrude's cheek, and an animated sense of enjoyment excited her spirits. Life appeared to her under a very different aspect than it had ever presented before; she thought it pleasant to be young and pretty, admired and amused. She felt as if her tastes and inclinations were in harmony with the refined beauty of the objects that surrounded her, while a romantic sentiment of admiration for one well calculated to inspire it imparted a meditative character to her enjoyment, which increased and exalted it. When she reached her room, she sat down in a luxurious arm-chair, before a small wood fire that burned brightly in the grate, and opened a volume which she had carried off from the drawing-room table. It was the Life of Christina of Sweden, which Maurice had once mentioned to her. Adrien's name was on the title-page. "I understand him," she said to herself, "but will he ever understand me? I dare not give him the key to my inmost thoughts, which he so fearlessly holds out to me of his own;" and taking a pencil she sketched in the faintest manner a key on the blank page of the book before her, and wrote under it these lines: "Da me posso nullo Con Dio posso tutto, A Dio l'onore A me il disprezzo." CHAPTER IV. "Di gelosia mi moro Piú barbaro dolor." METASTASIO. MAURICE REDMOND had been for some time past engaged to spend a few weeks at Audley Park. He had given lessons the year before to Lady Clara, or rather played with her and to her; and she had soon perceived that his education and his manners fitted him for any society, and that he was an addition to hers. She had accordingly invited him to spend part of the autumn with them; and as he travelled from London to Stonehouseleigh, on his way to Audley Park, he |