r life has hitherto been one unbroken course of
affectionate obedience.'

'And ever shall be,' said Venetia. 'But you were speaking, mother, you
were speaking of, of my, my father!'

'Of him!' said Lady Annabel, thoughtfully. 'You have seen his
picture?'

Venetia kissed her mother's hand.

'Was he less beautiful than Cadurcis? Was he less gifted?' exclaimed
Lady Annabel, with animation. 'He could whisper in tones as sweet, and
pour out his vows as fervently. Yet what am I? O my child!' continued
Lady Annabel, 'beware of such beings! They bear within them a spirit
on which all the devotion of our sex is lavished in vain. A year, no!
not a year, not one short year! and all my hopes were blighted! O
Venetia! if your future should be like my bitter past! and it might
have been, and I might have contributed to the fulfilment! can you
wonder that I should look upon Cadurcis with aversion?'

'But, mother, dearest mother, we have known Plantagenet from his
childhood. You ever loved him; you ever gave him credit for a heart,
most tender and affectionate.'

'He has no heart.'

'Mother!'

'He cannot have a heart. Spirits like him are heartless. It is another
impulse that sways their existence. It is imagination; it is vanity;
it is self, disguised with glittering qualities that dazzle our weak
senses, but selfishness, the most entire, the most concentrated. We
knew him as a child: ah! what can women know? We are born to love, and
to be deceived. We saw him young, helpless, abandoned; he moved our
pity. We knew not his nature; then he was ignorant of it himself. But
the young tiger, though cradled at our hearths and fed on milk, will
in good time retire to its jungle and prey on blood. You cannot change
its nature; and the very hand that fostered it will be its first
victim.'

'How often have we parted!' said Venetia, in a deprecating tone; 'how
long have we been separated! and yet we find him ever the same; he
ever loves us. Yes! dear mother, he loves you now, the same as in old
days. If you had seen him, as I have seen him, weep when he recalled
your promise to be a parent to him, and then contrasted with such
sweet hopes your present reserve, oh! you would believe he had a
heart, you would, indeed!'

'Weep!' exclaimed Lady Annabel, bitterly, 'ay! they can weep.
Sensibility is a luxury which they love to indulge. Their very
susceptibility is our bane. They can weep; they can play upon our
feelings; and our emotion,