ure high hopes and longings, and making of life itself an ideal of
delight and happiness. And, as I dreamed, there stole over my senses
a faint, thrilling memory of that young joy my heart had known, and a
feeling like that of health and ardent buoyancy, which for years long I
had not experienced. _Her_ voice, tremulous with feeling, vibrating
in all the passionate expression of an Italian song, was in my ears--I
could hear the words--my very heart throbbed to their soft syllables as
she sung the lines of Metastasio,--

"E tu, qui sa si te
Ti sovrerai di me."

I started--there she was before me, bending over the harp, whose cords
still trembled with the dying sounds; the same Blanche I had known and
loved, but slightly changed indeed: more beautiful perhaps in womanhood
than as a girl. Her long and silky hair fell over her white wrist and
taper hand in loose and careless tresses, for she had taken off her
bonnet, which lay on the floor beside her; her attitude was that of
weariness--nay, there was a sigh! Good Heavens! is she weeping? My book
fell to the ground; she started up, and, in a voice not louder than a
whisper, exclaimed, "Mr. Templeton!"

"Blanche!--Lady Blanche!" cried I, as my head swam round in a strange
confusion, and a dim and misty vapour danced before my eyes.

"Is this a visit, Mr. Templeton?" said she, with that soft smile I had
loved so well; "am I to take this surprise for a visit?"

"I really--I cannot understand--I thought--I was certain that I was in
my own apartment. I believed I was in Paris, in the Hotel des Princes."

"Yes, and most correct were all your imaginings; only that at this
moment you are _chez moi_--this is our apartment, No. 12."

"Oh, forgive me, I beg, Lady Blanche!--the similarity of the rooms, the
inattentive habit of an invalid, has led to this mistake."

"I heard you had been ill," said she, in an accent full of melting
tenderness; while taking a seat on a sofa, by a look rather than an
actual gesture she motioned me to sit beside her: "you are much paler
than you used to be."

"I have been ill," said I, struggling to repress emotion and a fit of
coughing together.

"It is that dreadful life of England, depend upon it," said she eagerly;
"that fearful career of high excitement and dissipation combined--the
fatigues of parliament--the cares and anxieties of party--the tremendous
exertions for success--the torturing dread of failure. Why didn't you
rema