er, and her sword. She had
awakened to new life, not to sink back upon a breast of love, though
thoughts of the lover were as blows upon strung musical chords of her
bosom. Her union with Dartrey was for the having an ally and the being
an ally, in resolute vision of strife ahead, through the veiled dreams
that bear the blush. This was behind a maidenly demureness. Are not
young women hypocrites? Who shall fathom their guile! A girl with a
pretty smile, a gentle manner, a liking for wild flowers up on the
rocks; and graceful with resemblances to the swelling proportions of
garden-fruits approved in young women by the connoisseur eye of man;
distinctly designed to embrace the state of marriage, that she might (a
girl of singularly lucid and receptive eyes) the better give battle to
men touching matters which they howl at an eccentric matron for naming.
So it was. And the yielding of her hand to Dartrey, would have appeared
at that period of her revival, as among the baser compliances of the
fleshly, if she had not seen in him, whom she owned for leader, her
fellow soldier, warrior friend, hero, of her own heart's mould, but a
greater.

She was on Como, at the villa of the Signora Giulia Sanfredini, when
Dudley's letter reached her, with the supplicating offer of the share of
his earldom. An English home meanwhile was proposed to her at the house
of his mother the Countess. He knew that he did not write to a brilliant
heiress. The generosity she had always felt that he possessed, he thus
proved in figures. They are convincing and not melting. But she was
moved to tears by his goodness in visiting her father, as well as by the
hopeful news he sent. He wrote delicately, withholding the title of her
father's place of abode. There were expectations of her father's perfect
recovery; the signs were auspicious; he appeared to be restored to
the 'likeness to himself' in the instances Dudley furnished:--his
appointment with him for the flute-duet next day; and particularly his
enthusiastic satisfaction with the largeness and easy excellent service
of the residence 'in which he so happily found himself established.' He
held it to be, 'on the whole, superior to Lakelands.' The smile and the
tear rolled together in Nesta reading these words. And her father spoke
repeatedly of longing to embrace his Fredi, of the joy her last letter
had given him, of his intention to send an immediate answer: and he
showed Dudley a pile of manuscript