The bright blood rising to her quivering cheek,
And meet the glance she hastened once to greet,
When not a thought had he, save in her sweet
And solacing society; to seek
Her smiles his only life! Ah! happy prime
Of cloudless purity, no stormy fame
His unknown sprite then stirred, a golden time
Worth all the restless splendour of a name;
And one soft accent from those gentle lips
Might all the plaudits of a world eclipse.

XI.

My tale is done; and if some deem it strange
My fancy thus should droop, deign then to learn
My tale is truth: imagination's range
Its bounds exact may touch not: to discern
Far stranger things than poets ever feign,
In life's perplexing annals, is the fate
Of those who act, and musing, penetrate
The mystery of Fortune: to whose reign
The haughtiest brow must bend; 'twas passing strange
The youth of these fond children; strange the flush
Of his high fortunes and his spirit's change;
Strange was the maiden's tear, the maiden's blush;
Strange were his musing thoughts and trembling heart,
'Tis strange they met, and stranger if they part!

CHAPTER XII.

When Lady Monteagle discovered, which she did a very few hours after
the mortifying event, where Lord Cadurcis had dined the day on which
he had promised to be her guest, she was very indignant, but her
vanity was more offended than her self-complacency. She was annoyed
that Cadurcis should have compromised his exalted reputation by so
publicly dangling in the train of the new beauty: still more that he
should have signified in so marked a manner the impression which the
fair stranger had made upon him, by instantly accepting an invitation
to a house so totally unconnected with his circle, and where, had it
not been to meet this Miss Herbert, it would of course never have
entered his head to be a visitor. But, on the whole, Lady Monteagle
was rather irritated than jealous; and far from suspecting that there
was the slightest chance of her losing her influence, such as it might
be, over Lord Cadurcis, all that she felt was, that less lustre must
redound to her from its possession and exercise, if it were obvious
to the world that his attentions could be so easily attracted and
commanded.

When Lord Cadurcis, therefore, having dispatched his poem to Venetia,
paid his usual visit on the next day to Monteagle House, he was
received rather with sneers than reproaches, as Lady Monteagl