talk,' must necessarily be ill-natured. A discourse that turns entirely on persons, not things, will only admit praise as a novelty or a discovery. General praise is an insipidity; and faults, foibles, and ridicules, are brought forward, if it were only for the sake of variety."

'Nay, now, I am sure Mde. de Cayleure is very good-natured."

Lively when she is amused, and obliging when not put out of her way; but good-natured I utterly deny. Good-nature is one of our calumniated phrases calumniated because misapplied."

"You know I never contradict one of your definitions. I am too well aware that I have no chance in an argument, Mandeville, with you.' This was a satisfactory termination to the dialogue.

Cecil Spenser left the room for his morning ride, his reflections divided between Lord Mandeville's words and Miss Arundel's looks. The first person he met was Mr. Trevor- a young man who, having a great stock of idleness on hand, was always most happy to bestow some of it on his friends.

"Ah, Spenser," said he, "I have been the whole day looking for you; you have left all

the trouble of our excursion on my hands. However, I have prepared every thing;-so, to-morrow we start for Naples.'

To own the truth, Cecil had utterly forgotten all about his engagement; and never was memory more disagreeably refreshed. His first thought was the pleasantness of breaking his promise his second was the necessity of fulfilling it. The pleasant and the necessary are two distinct things. He knew that to Mr. Trevor a companion was an absolute want; and he also knew that companion he had offered to be. As to excuse for now refusing, he had not even the shadow of one; so, with not a little discontent, he went that evening to the Mandevilles, where it somewhat reconciled him to hear that they also intended visiting Naples almost immediately.

Emily looked very pretty, and bade him good bye in a sweet low voice; and Cecil devoted part of that night to wondering what effect his absence would have on her. But I very much doubt whether the knowledge of her perfect indifference would have been any consolation; and entirely indifferent she was. Her memory reverted-her imagination referred, only to Edward Lorraine.

A woman's love is essentially lonely and spiritual in its nature-feeding on fancy, rather than hope or like that fairy flower of the East, which floats in, and lives upon, the air. Her attachment is the heathenism of the heart: she has herself created the glory and beauty with which the idol of her altar stands invested. Had Emily known Cecil Spenser before she knew Edward Lorraine, in all probability she would have fallen in love with him. However, our affections are the last things we can give away; for this best reason—they are gone before we are aware. First impressions are very

ineffaceable things.

CHAPTER XX.

"Sa femme ne manquera pas d'adresse pour le faire revenir de sa première résolution, et l'obliger à faire sa volonté avant qu'il s'en doute. Un tel triomphe est le chefd'œuvre d'une femme."

Les Sympathies; ou, l'Art de juger par

les Traits du Visage des Convenances en Amour et en Amitié.

THE room was panelled with Italian landscape -the vineyard hung its trellised wreath as it does in pictures and plays — a river,

-

Like a fairy thing,

Which the eye watches in its wandering,

wound through one department; a temple, whose graceful arch, and one or two columns yet entire, told how beautiful the shrine must have been ere its pillars were broken and its divinity departed, occupied a second; while a fair city, its spires sunny in the distance, gave variety to another; a scroll of oak leaves, in gold, marked the divisions-and another oaken

wreath fastened back the blue satin folds of the windows, which opened upon a conservatory filled with the rarest exotics — and a small marble fountain in the midst showered its musical and diamond rain over the rich cactuses around those gems of the world of flowers, as if their native soil had dyed their leaves with the glorious colours which wait impatiently for daylight in its mines: one, more than all, seemed the very flower of a fairy tale - a huge green snake, with a head of flame-a serpent king, with its crown of rubies-its red hues coloured like fire the water below.

Around the room was scattered all that makes luxury forgotten in taste: the little French clock, where a golden Cupid sat swinging, and the lapse of time is only told by music — the beautiful Annuals, those Assyrians of literature,

gleaming in purple and gold," and opened at some lovely scene or lovelier face- the cutcrystal glass, with one rose bending over the side the alabaster vases carved as in snow glittering toys, and china coloured with the rainbow, and diminutive enough to be Oberon's offering to his fairy queen - a fan, whose soft pink feathers cast their own delicate shade on the face reflected in the miniature mirror set