BAROUS SPOT more tolerable,
and whether the Count believed it possible for her to exist here,
without some amusement?

Soon after breakfast the party dispersed; the Count, ordering his
steward to attend him in the library, went to survey the condition of
his premises, and to visit some of his tenants; Henri hastened with
alacrity to the shore to examine a boat, that was to bear them on a
little voyage in the evening and to superintend the adjustment of a silk
awning; while the Countess, attended by Mademoiselle Bearn, retired to
an apartment on the modern side of the chateau, which was fitted up with
airy elegance; and, as the windows opened upon balconies, that fronted
the sea, she was there saved from a view of the HORRID Pyrenees. Here,
while she reclined on a sofa, and, casting her languid eyes over the
ocean, which appeared beyond the wood-tops, indulged in the luxuries of
ENNUI, her companion read aloud a sentimental novel, on some fashionable
system of philosophy, for the Countess was herself somewhat of a
PHILOSOPHER, especially as to INFIDELITY, and among a certain circle her
opinions were waited for with impatience, and received as doctrines.

The Lady Blanche, meanwhile, hastened to indulge, amidst the wild
wood-walks around the chateau, her new enthusiasm, where, as she
wandered under the shades, her gay spirits gradually yielded to pensive
complacency. Now, she moved with solemn steps, beneath the gloom of
thickly interwoven branches, where the fresh dew still hung upon every
flower, that peeped from among the grass; and now tripped sportively
along the path, on which the sunbeams darted and the checquered foliage
trembled--where the tender greens of the beech, the acacia and the
mountain-ash, mingling with the solemn tints of the cedar, the pine and
cypress, exhibited as fine a contrast of colouring, as the majestic oak
and oriental plane did of form, to the feathery lightness of the cork
tree and the waving grace of the poplar.

Having reached a rustic seat, within a deep recess of the woods, she
rested awhile, and, as her eyes caught, through a distant opening, a
glimpse of the blue waters of the Mediterranean, with the white sail,
gliding on its bosom, or of the broad mountain, glowing beneath the
mid-day sun, her mind experienced somewhat of that exquisite delight,
which awakens the fancy, and leads to poetry. The hum of bees alone
broke the stillness around her, as, with other insects of various
hu