tion, whose resources every hour was lessening— the conviction that she had not a creature on whom she could rely—for, besides Pedro's natural stupidity, he was ignorant of the Italian language; and to trust him with the pass-word taught by her father, might risk the safety of many,-all tended to increase the distress which surrounded her. Her deliberations ended in resolving to be herself the bearer. She might leave her mother to Marcela's care-a pilgrimage would account for her absence in the village —and a masculine disguise seemed, indeed, her only protection against the worst difficulties of her route. Pedro's illness prevented the execution of this project; and Lorraine's appearance suggested another. An Englishman would run no risk. Could he take, or transmit the packet for her?

CHAPTER V.

"Is love foolish, then?' said Lord Bolingbroke.

"Can you doubt it ?' answered Hamilton. 'It makes a man think more of another than himself. I know not a greater proof of folly.""

Devereux.

BELIEVING, as I do, that falling in love goes by destiny, and that, of all affairs, those of the heart are those for which there is the least accounting, I have always thought, that to give reasons for its happening, is throwing the said reasons away—a waste much to be deprecated in an age where reasons are in such great request. It is not beauty that inspires love-still less is it mind. It is not situation-people who were indifferent in a moonlight walk, have taken a fit of sentiment in Piccadilly. It is not early association indeed, the chances are rather against the Paul and Virginia style. It is not dress conquests have been made in curl

papers. In short-to be mythological in my conclusion-the quiver of Cupid hangs at the girdle of Fate, together with her spindle and scissors.

Beatrice had, even in her short and active life, perhaps dreamed of a lover. What Spanish girl, whose lute was familiar with all the romantic legends of her own romantic land, but must have had some such dream haunt her twilight? And for the matter of that, what girl, Spanish or English, has not? But Beatrice was too unworldly to dream of conquest-too proud to fear for her heart-and too much accustomed to idealise a lover amid the Paladins of olden time, to associate the young Englishman with other ideas than a claim to hospitality, and a vague hope of assistance. She was now to

turn over a new leaf in the book of life-to learn woman's most important lesson-that of love.

Not one person in a thousand is capable of a real passion that' intense and overwhelming feeling, before which all others sink into nothingness. It asks for head and heart-now many are deficient in both. Idleness and vanity cause, in nine cases out of ten, that state of excitement which is called being in love. I

have heard some even talk of their disappointments, as if such a word could be used in the plural. To be crossed in love, forsooth-why, such a heart could bear as many crosses as a raspberry tart.

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But Beatrice loved with all the vividness of unwasted and unworn feeling, and with all the confidence of youth. Proud, earnest, and enthusiastic, passion was touched with all the poetry of her own nature. Her lover was the idol, invested by her ardent imagination with all humanity's highest attributes." Undegraded by the ideas of flirtation, vanity, interest, or establishment, her love was as simple as it was beautiful. Her life had passed in solitude, but it had been the solitude of both refinement and exertion. She was unworldly, but not untaught. She had read extensively and variously. Much of her reading had been of a kind unusual to either her sex or age; but she had loved to talk with her father on the subjects which engaged him; and the investigations which were to analyse the state of mankind, and the theories which were to ameliorate it, became to her matters of attraction, because they were also those of affection.

Natural scenery has no influence on the cha

racter till associated with human feelings: the poet repays his inspiration by the interest he flings round the objects which inspired it. Beatrice had early learnt this association of nature with humanity. She was as well acquainted with the English literature and language as with her own; and the melancholy and reflective character of its poetry suited well a young spirit early broken by sorrow, and left, moreover, to entire loneliness. The danger of a youth so spent was, that the mind would become too ideal—that mornings, passed with some favourite volume by the dropping fountain, or beneath the shadowy ilex, would induce habits of romantic dreaming, utterly at variance with the stern necessities of life.

But Beatrice had been forced into a wholesome course of active exertion. Obliged to think and to act for herself to have others dependent on her efforts to know that each day brought its employment, her mind strengthened with its discipline. The duties that excited also invigorated. The keen feeling, the delicate taste, were accustomed to subjection, and romance refined, without weakening.

Love is the Columbus of our moral world, and opens, at some period or other, a new