escribe. Italy itself boasts few
spots more lovely than that same Mola di Gaeta--nor does that halcyon
sea wear, even at Naples or Sorrento, a more bland and enchanting smile.

So, after a hasty and scarcely-tasted breakfast, Maltravers strolled
through the orange groves, and gained the beach; and there, stretched at
idle length by the murmuring waves, he resigned himself to thought,
and endeavoured, for the first time since his parting with Valerie, to
collect and examine the state of his mind and feelings. Maltravers, to
his own surprise, did not find himself so unhappy as he had expected. On
the contrary, a soft and almost delicious sentiment, which he could not
well define, floated over all his memories of the beautiful Frenchwoman.
Perhaps the secret was, that while his pride was not mortified, his
conscience was not galled--perhaps, also, he had not loved Valerie so
deeply as he had imagined. The confession and the separation had happily
come before her presence had grown--_the want of a life_. As it was,
he felt as if, by some holy and mystic sacrifice, he had been made
reconciled to himself and mankind. He woke to a juster and higher
appreciation of human nature, and of woman's nature in especial. He
had found honesty and truth where he might least have expected it--in
a woman of a court--in a woman surrounded by vicious and frivolous
circles--in a woman who had nothing in the opinion of her friends, her
country, her own husband, the social system in which she moved, to keep
her from the concessions of frailty--in a woman of the world--a woman of
Paris!--yes, it was his very disappointment that drove away the fogs and
vapours that, arising from the marshes of the great world, had gradually
settled round his soul. Valerie de Ventadour had taught him not to
despise her sex, not to judge by appearances, not to sicken of a low and
a hypocritical world. He looked in his heart for the love of Valerie,
and he found there the love of virtue. Thus, as he turned his eyes
inward, did he gradually awaken to a sense of the true impressions
engraved there. And he felt the bitterest drop of the fountains was not
sorrow for himself, but for her. What pangs must that high spirit have
endured ere it could have submitted to the avowal it had made! Yet, even
in this affliction he found at last a solace. A mind so strong could
support and heal the weakness of the heart. He felt that Valerie de
Ventadour was not a woman to pine away i