re in 'My Novel,'" she asked,
"where Violante tempts Harley Lestrange from his idle musing over
Horace, to toil through blue-books; and, when she is stealing softly
from the room, he detains her and bids her copy an extract for him? 'Do
you think I would go through this labour,' he says, 'if you were not to
halve this success? Halve the labour as well.' I have always envied
Violante that moment in her life."

"And who would not envy Harley such a wife as Violante," returned Lord
Mallow, "if she was like--the woman I picture her?"

Three hours later Lord Mallow and Lady Mabel met by accident in the
garden. It was an afternoon of breathless heat and golden sunlight, the
blue ether without a cloud--a day on which the most restless spirit
might be content to yield to the drowsiness of the atmosphere, and lie
at ease upon the sunburnt grass and bask in the glory of summer. Lord
Mallow had never felt so idle, in the whole course of his vigorous
young life.

"I don't know what has come to me," he said to himself; "I can't settle
to any kind of work; and I don't care a straw for sight-seeing with a
pack of nonentities."

A party had gone off in a drag, soon after breakfast, to see some
distant ruins; and Lord Mallow had refused to be of that party, though
it included some of the prettiest girls at Ashbourne. He had stayed at
home, on pretence of writing important letters, but had not, so far,
penned a line. "It must be the weather," said Lord Mallow.

An hour or so after luncheon he strolled out into the gardens, having
given up all idea of writing those letters, There was a wide lawn, that
sloped from the terrace in front of the drawing-room windows, a lawn
encircled by a belt of carefully-chosen timber. It was not very old
timber, but it was sufficiently umbrageous. There were tulip-trees, and
copper-beeches, and Douglas pines, and deodoras. There were shrubs of
every kind, and winding paths under the trees, and rustic benches here
and there to repose the wearied traveller.

On one of these benches, placed in a delicious spot, shaded by a group
of pines, commanding the wide view of valley and distant hill far away
towards Ringwood, Lord Mallow found Lady Mabel seated reading. She was
looking delightfully cool amidst the sultry heat of the scene,
perfectly dressed in soft white muslin, with much adornment of delicate
lace and pale-hued ribbon: but she was not looking happy. She was
gazing at the open volume on her knee,