CHAPTER II.

"Elle étoit belle, et de plus la seule héritière!

"Ce fut sur cela que je formai le projet de mon établisse

ment."

Histoire de Fleur d'Epine.

LIKE the cards which form a child's plaything palace, our pleasures are nicely balanced one upon the other. The pleasure of change is opposed by that of habit; and if we love best that to which we are accustomed, we like best that which is new. Enjoyment is measured by the character of the individual. Lord Mandeville was sorry to leave Rome, because he had grown used to it. Lady Mandeville was delighted to leave it, because she had grown tired of it. Emily, actuated by that restlessness of hope which peculiarly belongs to hope that is solely imaginative, was rather relieved by, than pleased with, change. The map of her world was coloured by her affections, and it had but two divisions, absence and presence. She

knew that Edward Lorraine was on the Continent, and she allowed her mind to dwell on the vague, vain fancy of meeting him.

It was winter, with a promise of spring, when they arrived at Naples. A few days saw them settled in a villa on the sea-coast, at some distance from the city. Emily, who loved flowers with all the passion of the poetry that haunted them, gathered with delight the clustering roses which formed a miniature wood near the house, and wore the beauty of June in the days of February. Lord Mandeville reproached her with being run away with by novelty, and said contrast gave them a double charm in England. "The blossom is a thousand times fairer when we have seen the leaf fall and the bough bare."

Still, the situation of their villa was most lovely; it was quite secluded, in a little vale filled with orange-trees, now putting forth the soft green of their leaves, and the delicate white tracery of their coming buds. The grove was varied by a plantation of rose-trees, a few pinasters, and a multitude of winding paths. It was evident that nature had been left for years to her own vagrant luxuriance. A colonnade ran completely round the villa, which on one side only was open to the sea, whose sounds

were never silent, and whose waves were never still. A space, lightly shadowed by a few scattered orange-trees, sloped towards a terrace, which looked directly down upon the shore. The eye might wander over the blue expanse, broken by the skimming sails, which distance and sunshine turn to snow, like the white wings of the sea-birds, till sky and sea seem to meet, false alike in their seeming fairness and seeming union ;—the sails, in reality, being but coarse and discoloured canvass, and the distance between sea and sky still immeasurable. On the left, the waters stretched far away-on the right, a slight bend in the coast was the boundary of the view. Thickly covered with pine and dwarf oaks to the very summit, the shore arose to a great height, and shut out the city of Naples. On the top shone the white walls of the convent of St. Valerie; and on a fair evening, when the wind set towards the villa, the vesper hymns came in faint music over the sea.

The time which passes pleasantly passes lightly; days are remembered by their cares more than by their content; and the few succeeding weeks wrote their events as men, says the Arabic proverb, do benefits-on water.

Lord Mandeville was daily more desirous of returning to England, and resolved to be there by March at the latest. Lady Mandeville began to calculate on the effect her protégée, Miss Arundel, was to produce—and the result in her mind was a very brilliant one. To do her talents justice, Emily had improved very much since her residence under her care. Though too timid and too sensitive in her temper ever to obtain entire self-command, she had acquired more self-possession-a portion of which is indispensably necessary to gracefulness of manner. Encouraged and called forth, her natural powers began to be more evident in conversation; and her accomplishments, her exquisite dancing, and her touching voice, were no longer painful both to herself and her friends, from the excess of fear which attended their exercise. A little praise is good for a very shy temper-it teaches it to rely on the kindness of others. And last, not least, she was grown very much handsomer; the classic perfection of her profile, the symmetry of her figure, were more beautiful in their perfect development.

Some preparations for their return to England engaged Lord Mandeville for two or three days at Naples; and the day after his de

parture the rest took an excursion to one of the ruins in the neighbourhood. This excursion had been long talked of; it was made in the name of the children an excuse common on such occasions. Childish gaiety is very contagious, and sunshine and open air very exhilarating; and the whole party arrived at their destination in that humour to be pleased, which is the best half of pleasure. Naturally lively, Lady Mandeville's vivacity was the most charming thing in the world. The two boys their only cavaliers, they wandered about in search of a picturesque spot for their dining-room. Much of the trouble we give ourselves is quite unnecessary - it matters very little where a good appetite finds its dinner. However, trouble is, like virtue, its own reward. At last, at the instigation of a little peasant, whose keen dark eyes belied him much if he were not a very imp of mischief, they fixed on their banqueting-place. A lovely spot it was; a hanging ground, just on the very edge of a wood, whose dark shadow seemed as if it had never been broken. Below them spread a fair and fertile country- vineyards putting forth their first shoots, and olive plantations whose light gray leaves shone like morning frost-work;