indows were darkened with painted glass, of such
a deep and rich colour, as made the midday beams, which found their
way into the apartment, imitate the rich colours of sunset; and, in
the celebrated expression of the poet, "taught light to counterfeit a
gloom."

Buckingham's feelings and taste had been too much, and too often, and
too readily gratified, to permit him, in the general case, to be easily
accessible, even to those pleasures which it had been the business of
his life to pursue. The hackneyed voluptuary is like the jaded epicure,
the mere listlessness of whose appetite becomes at length a sufficient
penalty for having made it the principal object of his enjoyment and
cultivation. Yet novelty has always some charms, and uncertainty has
more.

The doubt how he was to be received--the change of mood which his
prisoner was said to have evinced--the curiosity to know how such a
creature as Alice Bridgenorth had been described, was likely to bear
herself under the circumstances in which she was so unexpectedly placed,
had upon Buckingham the effect of exciting unusual interest. On his own
part, he had none of those feelings of anxiety with which a man, even of
the most vulgar mind, comes to the presence of the female whom he
wishes to please, far less the more refined sentiments of love, respect,
desire, and awe, with which the more refined lover approaches the
beloved object. He had been, to use an expressive French phrase, too
completely _blase_ even from his earliest youth, to permit him now
to experience the animal eagerness of the one, far less the more
sentimental pleasure of the other. It is no small aggravation of this
jaded and uncomfortable state of mind, that the voluptuary cannot
renounce the pursuits with which he is satiated, but must continue, for
his character's sake, or from the mere force of habit, to take all the
toil, fatigue, and danger of the chase, while he has so little real
interest in the termination.

Buckingham, therefore, felt it due to his reputation as a successful
hero of intrigue, to pay his addresses to Alice Bridgenorth with
dissembled eagerness; and, as he opened the door of the inner apartment,
he paused to consider, whether the tone of gallantry, or that of
passion, was fittest to use on the occasion. This delay enabled him to
hear a few notes of a lute touched with exquisite skill, and accompanied
by the still sweeter strains of a female voice, which, without executing
an