CHAPTER VI.

Yl tell you presently her very picture 3 Stay—yes it is so—Lelia.” The Captain, Act. v., Scene ¥.
_ MALTRAVERS had not shrunk into a system of false philo- phy from wayward and sickly dreams, from resolute self- lusion ; on the contrary, his errors rested on his convictions —the convictions disturbed, the errors were rudely shaken.
_ But when his mind began restlessly to turn once more towards the duties of active life; when he recalled all the former drudgeries and toils of political conflict, or the wearing fatigues of literature, with its small enmities, its false friendships, and its eagre and capricious rewards :—ah! then, indeed, he shrank dismay from the thoughts of the solitude at home! No lips o console in dejection, no heart to sympathise in triumph, no love within to counterbalance the hate without—and the best of man, s household affections, left to wither away, or to waste them- Ives on ideal images, or melancholy remembrance.
It may, indeed, be generally remarked (contrary to a common tion), that the men who are most happy at home are the most tive abroad. The animal spirits are necessary to healthful ion; and dejection and the sense of solitude will turn the
i eee ALICE; OR, TH
stoutest into dreamers. The hermit is the antipodes of the citizen; and no gods animate and inspire us like the Lares. ; One evening, after an absence from Paris of nearly a fortnight, — at De Montaigne’s villa, in the neighbourhood of St. Cloud, — Maltravers, who, though he no longer practised the art, was not — less fond than heretofore of music, was seated in Madame de © Ventadour’s ‘box at the Italian Opera; and Valerie, who was — above all the woman’s jealousy of beauty, was expatiating with — great warmth of eulogium upon the charms of a young English — a lady whom she had met at Lady G ’s the preceding evenines a “She is just my beau idéal of the true English beauty,” said Valerie: “ it isnot only the exquisite fairness of the complexion, — nor the eyes so purely blue, which the dark lashes relieve from — the coldness common to the light eyes of the Scotch and © German,—that are so beautifully national, but the simplicity of — manner, the unconsciousness of admiration, the mingled modesty ’ and sense of the expression. No, I have seen women more beautiful, but I never saw one more lovely: you are silent:—I _ expected some burst of patriotism in return for my compliment to your countrywoman !”* “But I am so absorbed in that wonderful Pasta—” . “You are no such thing; your thoughts are far away. — But can you tell me anything about my fair stranger and her | friends? In the first place, there is a Lord Doltimore, whom ~ I knew before—you need say nothing about him; in the next there is his new married bride, handsome, dark—but you are not well !” a “It was the draught from the door—go on, I beseech you— the young lady—the friend, her name?” - “Her name-I do not remember ; but she was engaged to be married to one of your statesmen, eared Vargrave—the marriage is broken off—I know not if that be the cause of a certai melancholy in her countenance—a melancholy I am sure no : natural to its Hebe-like expression—But who have just entere the opposite box? Ah, Mr. Maltravers, do look, there is th beautiful ea girl! rs
countenance of Evelyn ‘Cameron!