ion equally addressed to his conscience. "If not yet free to court
her hand, am I free to expose myself to the temptation of seeking to win
her affection?" But when his cousin was gone, his heart began to assert
its own rights, to argue its own case, and suggest modes of reconciling
its dictates to the obligations which seemed to oppose them. In this
hesitating state of mind he received the following note:--

VILLA ------, LAC D'ENGHIEN.

MY DEAR MR. VANE,--We have retreated from Paris to the banks of this
beautiful little lake. Come and help to save Frank and myself from
quarrelling with each other, which, until the Rights of Women are firmly
established, married folks always will do when left to themselves,
especially if they are still lovers, as Frank and I are. Love is a
terribly quarrelsome thing. Make us a present of a few days out of your
wealth of time. We will visit Montmorency and the haunts of Rousseau,
sail on the lake at moonlight, dine at gypsy restaurants under trees
not yet embrowned by summer heats, discuss literature and politics,
"Shakspeare and the musical glasses,"--and be as sociable and pleasant
as Boccaccio's tale-tellers, at Fiesole. We shall be but a small party,
only the Savarins, that unconscious sage and humourist Signora Venosta,
and that dimple-cheeked Isaura, who embodies the song of nightingales
and the smile of summer. Refuse, and Frank shall not have an easy moment
till he sends in his claims for thirty millions against the Alabama.

Yours, as you behave,
LIZZIE MORLEY.

Graham did not refuse. He went to Enghien for four days and a quarter.
He was under the same roof as Isaura. Oh, those happy days! so happy
that they defy description. But though to Graham the happiest days he
had ever known, they were happier still to Isaura. There were drawbacks
to his happiness, none to hers,--drawbacks partly from reasons the
weight of which the reader will estimate later; partly from reasons the
reader may at once comprehend and assess. In the sunshine of her joy,
all the vivid colourings of Isaura's artistic temperament came forth, so
that what I may call the homely, domestic woman-side of her nature faded
into shadow. If, my dear reader, whether you be man or woman, you have
come into familiar contact with some creature of a genius to which, even
assuming that you yourself have a genius in its own way, you have no
special affinities, have you