ndow, to conceal my agitation from him.

"And so," said I, at length regaining my composure in some measure, "Sir
George also spoke of my name in connection with the senhora?"

"To be sure he did. All Lisbon does. What can you mean? But I see, my dear
boy; you know you are not of the strongest, and we've been talking far too
long. Come now, Charley, I'll say good-night. I'll be with you at breakfast
to-morrow, and tell you all the gossip; meanwhile promise me to get quietly
to bed, and so good-night."

Such was the conflicting state of feeling I suffered from that I made no
effort to detain Power. I longed to be once more alone, to think, calmly if
I could, over the position I stood in, and to resolve upon my plans for the
future.

My love for Lucy Dashwood had been long rather a devotion than a hope. My
earliest dawn of manly ambition was associated with the first hour I met
her. She it was who first touched my boyish heart, and suggested a sense
of chivalrous ardor within me; and even though lost to me forever, I could
still regard her as the mainspring of my actions, and dwell upon my passion
as the thing that hallowed every enterprise of my life.

In a word, my love, however little it might reach her heart, was everything
to mine. It was the worship of the devotee to his protecting saint. It was
the faith that made me rise above misfortune and mishap, and led me onward;
and in this way I could have borne anything, everything, rather than the
imputation of fickleness.

Lucy might not--nay, I felt she did not--love me. It was possible that some
other was preferred before me; but to doubt my own affection, to suspect my
own truth, was to destroy all the charm of my existence, and to extinguish
within me forever the enthusiasm that made me a hero to my own heart.

It may seem but poor philosophy; but alas, how many of our happiest, how
many of our brightest thoughts here are but delusions like this! The
dayspring of youth gilds the tops of the distant mountains before us, and
many a weary day through life, when clouds and storms are thickening around
us, we live upon the mere memory of the past. Some fast-flitting prospect
of a bright future, some passing glimpse of a sunlit valley, tinges all our
after-years.

It is true that he will suffer fewer disappointments, he will incur fewer
of the mishaps of the world, who indulges in no fancies such as these; but
equally true is it that he will taste none of that exube