ords, and his rich and ringing voice, which could give majesty to
commonplace subjects, and sway even an apathetic audience as completely
as Sheridan's Begum speech, every one in the House listened attentively,
and each of his words fell with its due weight. I heard him with pride,
often as I had done so before, though I noticed with pain that the lines
in his forehead and his mouth were visibly deepened; that he seemed to
speak with effort, for him, and looked altogether, as somebody had said
to me at White's in the morning, as if he were wearing out, and would go
down in his prime, like Canning and Pitt.

"Lord Earlscourt looks very ill--don't you think so?" said Lelia
Breloques.

As I answered her, I heard a sharp-wrung sigh, and I looked for the
first time at the lady next me. I saw a delicate profile, lips
compressed and colorless, chestnut hair that I had last seen with his
pearls gleaming above it: I saw, en deux mots, Beatrice Boville for the
first time since that night eight months before, when she had stood
before me in her passion and her pride. She never took her eyes off
Earlscourt while he spoke, and I wondered if she regretted having lost
him for a point of honor. Had she grown indifferent to him, that she had
come to his own legislative chamber, or was her love so much stronger
than her pride that she had sought to see him thus rather than not see
him at all? When his speech was closed, and he had resumed his place on
the benches, she leaned back, covering her eyes with her hand for a
moment: and, as I said aloud (more for her benefit than Mrs.
Breloques's) my regret that Earlscourt would wear himself out, I was
afraid, in his devotion to public life, Beatrice started at the sound
of my voice, turned her head hastily, and her face was colorless enough
to tell me she had not gratified her pride without some cost. Of course
I spoke to her; she had been a favorite of mine always, and I had often
wished to come across her again; but beyond learning that she was with
Lady Mechlin in Lowndes Square, and had been spending the winter at Pau
for her aunt's health, I had no time to hear more, for Lelia, having
only come for Earlscourt's speech, bade me take her to her carriage,
while Beatrice and her party remained for the rest of the debate; but
the rencontre struck me as so odd, that I believe it occupied my
thoughts more than Mrs. Breloques liked, who got into her carriage in
not the best of humors, and asked