mine," said she pointing to a niche still vacant. "Oswald! who knows
whether you will not come again to this same enclosure when my bust
shall be placed there? Then--"

Oswald interrupted her quickly and said, "In the shining splendour of
youth and beauty can you talk thus to one whom misfortune and suffering
have already bent towards the grave?" "Ah!" replied Corinne, "the storm
may in a moment snap asunder those flowers that now have their heads
upreared in life and bloom. Oswald, dear Oswald!" added she; "why should
you not be happy? Why--" "Never interrogate me," replied Lord Nelville,
"you have your secrets--I have mine, let us mutually respect each
other's silence. No--you know not what emotion I should feel were I
obliged to relate my misfortunes." Corinne was silent, and her steps in
leaving the temple were slower, and her looks more thoughtful.

She stopped beneath the portico:--"There," said she to Lord Nelville,
"was a most beautiful urn of porphyry, now transferred to St John of
Lateran; it contained the ashes of Agrippa, which were placed at the
foot of the statue that he had raised to himself. The ancients took so
much care to soften the idea of dissolution that they knew how to strip
it of every thing that was doleful and repulsive. There was, besides, so
much magnificence in their tombs that the contrast was less felt between
the blank of death and the splendours of life. It is true that the hope
of another world being less vivid among the Pagans than amongst
Christians, they endeavoured to dispute with death the future
remembrance which we place, without fear, in the bosom of the Eternal."

Oswald sighed and was silent. Melancholy ideas have many charms when we
have not been ourselves deeply wretched, but when grief in all its
asperity has seized upon the soul, we no longer hear without shuddering
certain words which formerly only excited in us reveries more or less
pleasing.

Chapter iii.

On the way to St Peter's the bridge of St Angelo is passed, and Corinne
and Lord Nelville crossed it on foot. "It was on this bridge," said
Oswald, "that, in returning from the Capitol, I for the first time
thought deeply of you." "I did not flatter myself," replied Corinne,
"that the coronation at the Capitol would have procured me a friend, but
however, in the pursuit of fame it was always my endeavour to make
myself beloved.--What would fame be to woman without such a hope?" "Let
us stop here a few mi