interest floated through their being; nor was it till Lady Emily found herself in her room, that the sun shining brightly on a dead wall, and the noise of the early cries in the street, brought down her thoughts to that matter-of-fact state, which reverted to all the painful and incomprehensible events of the evening, from which, fatigued and worn out, she was glad to take refuge in sleep.

CHAPTER III.

Man's love is of man's life a thing apart;
'Tis woman's whole existence; man may range

The court, camp, church, the vessel, and the mart,
Sword, gown, gain, glory, offer in exchange,

Pride, fame, ambition to fill up his heart;

And few there are whom these can not estrange :
Men have all these resources, we but one;

To love again, and be again undone.

BYRON.

FROM the time that Lord Mowbray first made Mr. Altamont acquainted with his intimacy with the Rosalinda, the latter had taken that communication seriously to heart. As a really good and high principled man, he felt alarmed for the dignity of his friend, and was touched by the conduct and character, however faulty and erroneous, of the unhappy Italian. To the wisest head Mr. Altamont united the tenderest heart; and he was altogether

more completely engrossed by this story than he cared to allow. There was a person, indeed, who was so entirely identified with himself in every feeling of his being, so worthy of his confidence, that, for her, he could not have a secret. This person was his wife. On the present occasion, as on all others, they mutually consulted and commented upon what was best to be done for their young friend's honour and happiness; at the same time, no harsh or prejudiced sentiments were uttered against the interesting but imprudent individual, who, in forgetting what was due to herself as a woman and a responsible being endowed with reason, had by a misplaced devotion, which, thus erroneously indulged, is but a wretched idolatry, lost her happiness and endangered that of the person to whom she sacrificed her own.

Mr. and Mrs. Altamont, while they sought to find out what could best extricate Lord Mowbray from an entanglement in which his affections did not appear sufficiently involved to afford an excuse for making Rosalinda his wife, forgot not the compassion due to a woman who loved him with that entire self-abandonment of which women are alone capable.

At first, Mr. Altamont had thought (perhaps he had wished) to find that she was an interested, designing person; but the greater pains he took to sift her motives, and the more he observed her narrowly, the less he believed this; and he had himself too much truth of character, too much nobility of soul, to avail himself of such commonplace unjust abuse, in order to detach Lord Mowbray entirely from her. But Mrs. Altamont, with that fine tact which belongs only to her sex, and with that quick and keen perception which supplies the place of more extensive knowledge of the world, which the opportunities of men afford to their stronger minds, had seen at a glance that the danger of Lord Mowbray's marrying Rosalinda no longer existed.

"Trust me," she said, "if ever I knew what love meant, and that I do know it, you at least will not deny,-Lord Mowbray's heart is for ever engaged. Lady Emily Lorimer will be his bride, or bride will he never take. I conceive, therefore, that it is not of him we need think; but, however romantic or foolish you may accuse me of being, my heart, I confess it, bleeds for that unhappy mistaken woman, who has made wreck of her own

felicity by giving the reins to an unrequited passion. If there is a sorrow upon earth which I commiserate, it is a woman's unrequited love. Think what conflicts must have been hers, ere she yielded to the slavery; what tortures of shame, of pride, and remorse! Whatever exaltation of imagination may, at times, make her glory in her debasement, there are others when she must be bowed and crushed beneath the weight of a self-contemning spirit. Delicacy and pride, the inherent principles of a woman's nature, are never violated with impunity. Poor, poor, Rosalinda! what will become of her?"

“Well, well, I feel for her too," replied the kind Mr. Altamont, with a tear trembling in his eye: "but charity begins at home; and our friend Lord Mowbray's honour and dignity must first be thought of; and if indeed he is, as you suppose, attached seriously to Lady Emily Lorimer, the very best thing he can do is to marry her as soon as possible."

"Ah! you men," sighed Mrs. Altamont, "how little do you think on the crushed and humbled heart, when the voice of situation and circumstances demands your attention!"