lofty mirrors multiply beauty and add fresh
lustre to the blazing lights. May Dacre there is wandering like a peri
in Paradise, and Lady Aphrodite is glancing with her dazzling brow, yet
an Asmodeus might detect an occasional gloom over her radiant face.
It is but for an instant, yet it thrills. She looks like some favoured
sultana, who muses for a moment amid her splendour on her early love.

And she, the sparkling mistress of this scene; say, where is she? Not
among the dancers, though a more graceful form you could scarcely look
upon; not even among her guests, though a more accomplished hostess
it would be hard to find. Gaiety pours forth its flood, and all
are thinking of themselves, or of some one sweeter even than
self-consciousness, or else perhaps one absent might be missed.

Leaning on the arm of Sir Lucius Grafton, and shrouded in her cashmere,
Mrs. Dallington Vere paces the terrace in earnest conversation.

'If I fail in this,' said Sir Lucius, 'I shall be desperate. Fortune
seems to have sent him for the very purpose. Think only of the state of
affairs for a moment. After a thousand plots on my part; after having
for the last two years never ceased my exertions to make her commit
herself; when neither a love of pleasure, nor a love of revenge, nor the
thoughtlessness to which women in her situation generally have recourse,
produced the slightest effect; this stripling starts upon the stage, and
in a moment the iceberg melts. Oh! I never shall forget the rapture of
the moment when the faithful Lachen announced the miracle!'

'But why not let the adventure take the usual course? You have your
evidence, or you can get it. Finish the business. The _exposes_, to be
sure, are disagreeable enough; but to be the talk of the town for a week
is no great suffering. Go to Baden, drink the waters, and it will be
forgotten. Surely this is an inconvenience not to be weighed for a
moment against the great result.'

[Illustration: page106]

'Believe me, my dearest friend, Lucy Grafton cares very little about the
babble of the million, provided it do not obstruct him in his objects.
Would to Heaven I could proceed in the summary and effectual mode you
point out; but that I much doubt. There is about Afy, in spite of
all her softness and humility, a strange spirit, a cursed courage or
obstinacy, which sometimes has blazed out, when I have over-galled her,
in a way half-awful. I confess I dread her standing at bay. I am