One word alone, within her thrilling ear,
  Breathed with hushed voice the brother of her heart,
  And that for aye is hidden.  With a tear
  Smiling she strove to conquer, see her start,
  The bright blood rising to her quivering cheek,
  And meet the glance she hastened once to greet,
  When not a thought had he, save in her sweet
  And solacing society; to seek
  Her smiles his only life!  Ah! happy prime
  Of cloudless purity, no stormy fame
  His unknown sprite then stirred, a golden time
  Worth all the restless splendour of a name;
  And one soft accent from those gentle lips
  Might all the plaudits of a world eclipse.

  XI.

  My tale is done; and if some deem it strange
  My fancy thus should droop, deign then to learn
  My tale is truth:  imagination’s range
  Its bounds exact may touch not:  to discern
  Far stranger things than poets ever feign,
  In life’s perplexing annals, is the fate
  Of those who act, and musing, penetrate
  The mystery of Fortune:  to whose reign
  The haughtiest brow must bend; ’twas passing strange
  The youth of these fond children; strange the flush
  Of his high fortunes and his spirit’s change;
  Strange was the maiden’s tear, the maiden’s blush;
  Strange were his musing thoughts and trembling heart,
  ’Tis strange they met, and stranger if they part!

CHAPTER XII.

When Lady Monteagle discovered, which she did a very few hours after the mortifying event, where Lord Cadurcis had dined the day on which he had promised to be her guest, she was very indignant, but her vanity was more offended than her self-complacency.  She was annoyed that Cadurcis should have compromised his exalted reputation by so publicly dangling in the train of the new beauty:  still more that he should have signified in so marked a manner the impression which the fair stranger had made upon him, by instantly accepting an invitation to a house so totally unconnected with his circle, and where, had it not been to meet this Miss Herbert, it would of course never have entered his head to be a visitor.  But, on the whole, Lady Monteagle was rather irritated than jealous; and far from suspecting that there was the slightest chance of her losing her influence, such as it might be, over Lord Cadurcis, all that she felt was, that less lustre must redound to her from its possession and exercise, if it were obvious to the world that his attentions could be so easily attracted and commanded.

When Lord Cadurcis, therefore, having dispatched his poem to Venetia, paid his usual visit on the next day to Monteagle House, he was received rather with sneers than reproaches, as Lady Monteagle, with no superficial knowledge of society or his lordship’s character, was clearly of opinion that this new fancy of her admirer was to be treated rather with ridicule than indignation; and, in short, as she had discovered that Cadurcis was far from being insensible to mockery, that it was clearly a fit occasion, to use a phrase then very much in vogue, for quizzing.