dy
Montfort. It was a month since he had written to her. He was so nervous
that he absolutely for a moment could not break the seal, and the
palpitation of his heart was almost overpowering.

Lady Montfort thanked him for his kind letter, which she ought to
have acknowledged before, but she had been very busy--indeed, quite
overwhelmed with affairs. She wished to see him, but was sorry she could
not ask him to come down to Princedown, as she was living in complete
retirement, only her aunt with her, Lady Gertrude, whom, she believed,
he knew. He was aware, probably, how good Lord Montfort had been to her.
Sincerely she could say, nothing could have been more unexpected. If she
could have seen her husband before the fatal moment, it would have been
a consolation to her. He had always been kind to Endymion; she really
believed sometimes that Lord Montfort was even a little attached to
him. She should like Endymion to have some souvenir of her late husband.
Would he choose something, or would he leave it to her?

One would rather agree, from the tone of this letter, that Mr. Cassilis
knew what he was talking about. It fell rather odd on Endymion's heart,
and he passed a night of some disquietude; not one of those nights,
exactly, when we feel that the end of the world has at length arrived,
and that we are the first victim, but a night when you slumber rather
than sleep, and wake with the consciousness of some indefinable chagrin.

This was a dull Christmas for Endymion Ferrars. He passed it, as he had
passed others, at Gaydene, but what a contrast to the old assemblies
there! Every source of excitement that could make existence absolutely
fascinating seemed then to unite in his happy fate. Entrancing love and
the very romance of domestic affection, and friendships of honour
and happiness, and all the charms of an accomplished society, and
the feeling of a noble future, and the present and urgent interest in
national affairs--all gone, except some ambition which might tend to
consequences not more successful than those that had ultimately visited
his house with irreparable calamity.

The meeting of parliament was a great relief to Endymion. Besides his
office, he had now the House of Commons to occupy him. He was never
absent from his place; no little runnings up to Montfort House or Hill
Street just to tell them the authentic news, or snatch a hasty repast
with furtive delight, with persons still more delightful, and f