nds itself
with the sweetness of religion when it is gratitude to a father. And,
therefore, do not grieve too much for me, when I tell you that the hopes
which enchanted me when we parted are not to be fulfilled. Her hand is
pledged to another,--another with claims upon her preference to which
mine cannot be compared; and he is himself, putting aside the accidents
of birth and fortune, immeasurably my superior. In that thought--I mean
the thought that the man she selects deserves her more than I do, and
that in his happiness she will blend her own--I shall find comfort, so
soon as I can fairly reason down the first all-engrossing selfishness
that follows the sense of unexpected and irremediable loss. Meanwhile
you will think it not unnatural that I resort to such aids for change
of heart as are afforded by change of scene. I start for the Continent
to-night, and shall not rest till I reach Venice, which I have not yet
seen. I feel irresistibly attracted towards still canals and gliding
gondolas. I will write to you and to my dear mother the day I arrive.
And I trust to write cheerfully, with full accounts of all I see and
encounter. Do not, dearest father, in your letters to me, revert or
allude to that grief which even the tenderest word from your own tender
self might but chafe into pain more sensitive. After all, a disappointed
love is a very common lot. And we meet every day, men--ay, and women
too--who have known it, and are thoroughly cured. The manliest of our
modern lyrical poets has said very nobly, and, no doubt, very justly,

"To bear is to conquer our fate.

"Ever your loving son,

"K. C."

CHAPTER IX.

NEARLY a year and a half has elapsed since the date of my last chapter.
Two Englishmen were--the one seated, the other reclined at length--on
one of the mounds that furrow the ascent of Posilippo. Before them
spread the noiseless sea, basking in the sunshine, without visible
ripple; to the left there was a distant glimpse through gaps of
brushwood of the public gardens and white water of the Chiaja. They were
friends who had chanced to meet abroad unexpectedly, joined company, and
travelled together for many months, chiefly in the East. They had been
but a few days in Naples. The elder of the two had important affairs in
England which ought to have summoned him back long since. But he did not
let his friend know this; his affairs seemed to him less important than
the duties he owed