es at her vanity and his own. There was a certain
charm about this girl of which neither Colonel Esmond nor his fond
mistress could forgo the fascination; in spite of her faults and her pride
and wilfulness, they were forced to love her; and, indeed, might be set
down as the two chief flatterers of the brilliant creature's court.

Who, in the course of his life, hath not been so bewitched, and worshipped
some idol or another? Years after this passion hath been dead and buried,
along with a thousand other worldly cares and ambitions, he who felt it
can recall it out of its grave, and admire, almost as fondly as he did in
his youth, that lovely queenly creature. I invoke that beautiful spirit
from the shades and love her still; or rather I should say such a past is
always present to a man; such a passion once felt forms a part of his
whole being, and cannot be separated from it; it becomes a portion of the
man of to-day, just as any great faith or conviction, the discovery of
poetry, the awakening of religion, ever afterward influence him; just as
the wound I had at Blenheim, and of which I wear the scar, hath become
part of my frame and influenced my whole body, nay spirit, subsequently,
though 'twas got and healed forty years ago. Parting and forgetting! What
faithful heart can do these? Our great thoughts, our great affections, the
Truths of our life, never leave us. Surely, they cannot separate from our
consciousness; shall follow it whithersoever that shall go; and are of
their nature divine and immortal.

With the horrible news of this catastrophe, which was confirmed by the
weeping domestics at the duke's own door, Esmond rode homewards as quick
as his lazy coach would carry him, devising all the time how he should
break the intelligence to the person most concerned in it; and if a satire
upon human vanity could be needed, that poor soul afforded it in the
altered company and occupations in which Esmond found her. For days
before, her chariot had been rolling the street from mercer to
toyshop--from goldsmith to laceman: her taste was perfect, or at least the
fond bridegroom had thought so, and had given entire authority over all
tradesmen, and for all the plate, furniture, and equipages, with which his
grace the ambassador wished to adorn his splendid mission. She must have
her picture by Kneller, a duchess not being complete without a portrait,
and a noble one he made, and actually sketched in, on a cushion, a coro