ed limb, her
youth destroyed in fullest bloom, her beauty robbed of its every
charm, her life blighted, her hopes withered, and as she did so a tear
dropped from her eye to her cheek. She had told him of these things
and asked for his sympathy.

What could a good-natured, genial, Anglo-Saxon Squire Thorne do but
promise to sympathize with her? Mr. Thorne did promise to sympathize;
promised also to come and see the last of the Neros, to hear more of
those fearful Roman days, of those light and innocent but dangerous
hours which flitted by so fast on the shores of Como, and to make
himself the confidant of the signora's sorrows.

We need hardly say that he dropped all idea of warning his sister
against the dangerous lady. He had been mistaken--never so much
mistaken in his life. He had always regarded that Honourable George
as a coarse, brutal-minded young man; now he was more convinced than
ever that he was so. It was by such men as the Honourable George that
the reputations of such women as Madeline Neroni were imperilled and
damaged. He would go and see the lady in her own house; he was fully
sure in his own mind of the soundness of his own judgement; if he
found her, as he believed he should do, an injured, well-disposed,
warm-hearted woman, he would get his sister Monica to invite her out
to Ullathorne.

"No," said she, as at her instance he got up to leave her and declared
that he himself would attend upon her wants; "no, no, my friend; I
positively put a veto upon your doing so. What, in your own house,
with an assemblage round you such as there is here! Do you wish to
make every woman hate me and every man stare at me? I lay a positive
order on you not to come near me again to-day. Come and see me at
home. It is only at home that I can talk, it is only at home that I
really can live and enjoy myself. My days of going out, days such as
these, are rare indeed. Come and see me at home, Mr. Thorne, and then
I will not bid you to leave me."

It is, we believe, common with young men of five-and-twenty to look
on their seniors--on men of, say, double their own age--as so many
stocks and stones--stocks and stones, that is, in regard to feminine
beauty. There never was a greater mistake. Women, indeed, generally
know better, but on this subject men of one age are thoroughly
ignorant of what is the very nature of mankind of other ages. No
experience of what goes on in the world, no reading of history, no
observation o