ew
not always why.

Lord ---- would scarce have been human had he not
loved such a woman, and she his wife. He did love
her--and doubtless loves her at this hour with all
the tenderness of which he could ever be capable.
If they had lived only on their estates in England,
where seclusion would have put up no wall of
concealment to his feelings, she might have drawn
from the open well of his heart, the water for
which her ardent being was athirst. But with the
usage of fashionable life, he followed his own
amusements during the day, leaving the countess to
hers; and in scenes of gayety they were, of course,
still separated by custom; and all she enjoyed of
nature in her rides, or of excitement in society,
was, of course, with others than her husband.
Naples is in the midst of palace-gardens, and of
wonders of scenery--in seeing which love is
engendered in the bosom and brain with tropical
fruitfulness--and Lady ---- could no more have
lived that year in Italy without passionate loving,
than she could have stayed from breathing the
fragrance of the orange blossoms, when galloping
between the terraced gardens of Sorrento.

* * * * *

When abroad, a little more than a year ago, I made
a visit to a friend, whose estate is in the same
county with that of the father of Lady ----, and
between whose park-gates and his extends the
distance of a morning's drive through one of the
loveliest hedged winding-roads of lovely England. A
very natural inquiry was of the whereabout and
happiness of the Countess of ----, whom I had left
at Naples ten years before, and had not been in the
way of hearing of since; and I named her in the gay
tone with which one speaks of the brilliant and
happy. We were sitting at the dinner-table, and I
observed that I had mis-struck a chord of feeling
in the company present, and with well-bred tact,
the master of the house informed me that
misfortunes had befallen the family since the
period I spoke of, and turned the conversation to
another topic. After dinner, I heard from him the
following outlin