low, I 'm angry when he falls back
upon his lethargy for his character, instead of trusting, as he could
and as he ought, to his good qualities."

Nelly blushed, but it was with pleasure. This praise of one she
liked--liked even better than she herself knew--was intense enjoyment to
her.

Let us now turn to L'Estrange, who strolled along towards Cattaro--now
stopping to gather the wild anemones which, in every splendid variety
of color, decked the sward--now loitering to gaze at the blue sea, which
lay still and motionless at his feet. There was that voluptuous sense of
languor in the silence--the loaded perfume of the air--the drowsy hum
of insect life--the faint plash with which the sea, unstirred by wind,
washed the shore--that harmonized to perfection with his own nature; and
could he but have had Nelly at his side to taste the happiness with
him, he would have deemed it exquisite, for, poor fellow, he was in
love after his fashion. It was not an ardent impulsive passion, but it
consumed him slowly and certainly, all the same. He knew well that
his present life of indolence and inactivity could not, ought not, to
continue--that without some prompt effort on his part, his means of
subsistence would be soon exhausted; but as the sleeper begs that he may
be left to slumber on, and catch up, if he may, the dream that has
just been broken, he seemed to entreat of fate a little longer of the
delicious trance in which he now was living. His failures in life had
deepened in him that sense of humility which in coarse natures turns
to misanthropy, but in men of finer mould makes them gentle, and
submissive, and impressionable. His own humble opinion of himself
deprived him of all hope of winning Nelly's affection, but he saw--or
he thought he saw--in her that love of simple pleasures and of a life
removed from all ambitions, that led him to believe she would not regard
his pretensions with disdain. And then he felt that, thrown together
into that closer intimacy their poverty had brought about, he had
maintained towards her a studious deference and respect which had
amounted almost to coldness, for he dreaded that she should think he
would have adventured, in their fallen fortunes, on what he would never
have dared in their high and palmy days.

"Well," said he, aloud, as he looked at the small fragment of an almost
finished cigar, "I suppose it is nigh over now! I shall have to go and
seek my fortune in Queensland, or New