And indeed her mother was scarcely less miserable.  The sight of Herbert, so changed from the form that she remembered; those tones of heart-rending sincerity, in which he had mournfully appealed to the influence of time and sorrow on his life, still greatly affected her.  She had indulged for a moment in a dream of domestic love, she had cast to the winds the inexorable determination of a life, and had mingled her tears with those of her husband and her child.  And how had she been repaid?  By a degrading catastrophe, from whose revolting associations her mind recoiled with indignation and disgust.  But her lingering feeling for her husband, her own mortification, were as nothing compared with the harrowing anxiety she now entertained for her daughter.  To converse with Venetia on the recent occurrence was impossible.  It was a subject which admitted of no discussion.  They had passed a week at Padua, and the slightest allusion to what had happened had never been made by either Lady Annabel or her child.  It was only by her lavish testimonies of affection that Lady Annabel conveyed to Venetia how deeply she sympathised with her, and how unhappy she was herself.  She had, indeed, never quitted for a moment the side of her daughter, and witnessed each day, with renewed anguish, her deplorable condition; for Venetia continued in a state which, to those unacquainted with her, might have been mistaken for insensibility, but her mother knew too well that it was despair.  She never moved, she never sighed, nor wept; she took no notice of anything that occurred; she sought relief in no resources.  Books, and drawings, and music, were quite forgotten by her; nothing amused, and nothing annoyed her; she was not even fretful; she had, apparently, no physical ailment; she remained pale and silent, plunged in an absorbing paroxysm of overwhelming woe.

The unhappy Lady Annabel, at a loss how to act, at length thought it might be advisable to cross over to Venice.  She felt assured now, that it would be a long time, if ever, before her child could again endure the fatigue of travel; and she thought that for every reason, whether for domestic comfort or medical advice, or those multifarious considerations which interest the invalid, a capital was by far the most desirable residence for them.  There was a time when a visit to the city that had given her a name had been a favourite dream of Venetia; she had often sighed to be within

  The sea-born city’s walls; the graceful towers
  Loved by the bard.

Those lines of her father had long echoed in her ear; but now the proposition called no light to her glazed eye, nor summoned for an instant the colour back to her cheek.  She listened to her mother’s suggestion, and expressed her willingness to do whatever she desired.  Venice to her was now only a name; for, without the presence and the united love of both her parents, no spot on earth could interest, and no combination of circumstances affect her.  To