without some sign and symbol of affection, some playful
word of love, a winning smile, a passing embrace, that seemed to
acknowledge that the pang of even momentary separation could only be
alleviated by this graceful homage to the heart. What had she done?
Venetia was about to follow Lady Annabel, but she checked herself.
Agony at having offended her mother, and, for the first time, was
blended with a strange curiosity as to the cause, and some hesitating
indignation at her treatment. Venetia remained anxiously awaiting
the return of Lady Annabel; but her ladyship did not reappear. Every
instant, the astonishment and the grief of Venetia increased. It was
the first domestic difference that had occurred between them. It
shocked her much. She thought of Plantagenet and Mrs. Cadurcis. There
was a mortifying resemblance, however slight, between the respective
situations of the two families. Venetia, too, had quarrelled with her
mother; that mother who, for fourteen years, had only looked upon her
with fondness and joy; who had been ever kind, without being ever
weak, and had rendered her child happy by making her good; that mother
whose beneficent wisdom had transformed duty into delight; that
superior, yet gentle being, so indulgent yet so just, so gifted yet so
condescending, who dedicated all her knowledge, and time, and care,
and intellect to her daughter.

Venetia threw herself upon a couch and wept. They were the first tears
of unmixed pain that she had ever shed. It was said by the household
of Venetia when a child, that she had never cried; not a single tear
had ever sullied that sunny face. Surrounded by scenes of innocence,
and images of happiness and content, Venetia smiled on a world that
smiled on her, the radiant heroine of a golden age. She had, indeed,
wept over the sorrows and the departure of Cadurcis; but those were
soft showers of sympathy and affection sent from a warm heart, like
drops from a summer sky. But now this grief was agony: her brow
throbbed, her hand was clenched, her heart beat with tumultuous
palpitation; the streaming torrent came scalding down her cheek like
fire rather than tears, and instead of assuaging her emotion, seemed,
on the contrary, to increase its fierce and fervid power.

The sun had set, the red autumnal twilight had died away, the shadows
of night were brooding over the halls of Cherbury. The moan of the
rising wind might be distinctly heard, and ever and anon the branc