endeavouring to learn Don Henriquez's fate, and also to prevail on his daughter to unite her fortunes with his own. It needed all Beatrice's exertion and submission not to sink beneath the most agonising apprehensions. Her time and attention, too, were occupied by the rapid and increasing illness of Emily, who, with that pertinacity with which an invalid adheres to some favourite idea, seemed filled but with the hope of dying at home. Don Henriquez was sufficiently tired of action to look rejoicingly forward to the security of England; Beatrice's heart was there already; and Giulio avowed his belief that it was the only place in the world where talent was properly encouraged. CHAPTER XV. "And it's hame, hame, hame, I fain wad be Hame, hame, hame, In my ain countrie." ALLAN CUNNINGHAM. 66 Mais, maman-mais je viens ce matin de me marier." La Petite Madeleine. UNTAKEN by a pirate—undisturbed by an interesting shipwreck just in sight of port-our voyagers arrived at Marseilles. Here Don Henriquez would gladly have made some stay; but, at Emily's earnest entreaty, they embarked in another vessel for England. "You know not," said she to Beatrice, "how I pine to be at home again; every voice grates on my ear with a foreign sound-my eyes look round in vain for some accustomed object-the very air I breathe has an oppression in it. I feel ill; but it is an illness that only asks for its cure familiar faces, and quiet and home." Beatrice tried to smile and soothe; but her eyes filled with tears, and her voice became inaudible, as she watched Emily's feverish colour die away into marble paleness, and felt how heavily that slight and wasted frame leant on her for support. "So young, so beautiful, so gentle-gifted with rank, fortune, and one so made to love and to be loved-and yet dying and dying, too, of that carefully kept grief which seemed a thing in which she could have no part. Alas! Life on what a frail tenure dost thou hold thy dearest and loveliest! Her heart has given its most precious self, and the gift has been either slighted or betrayed. And I," thought Beatrice-" I, who am so happy in the love I deem my own-how could I bear neglect or falsehood from Edward?Happiness, thou art a fearful thing." It may be questioned whether Beatrice found either the support or the enjoyment in her father's society she expected. Keen in her perceptions, accurate in her conclusions, she could not but see the hollowness of arguments whose strength was in their sound; and she could not but perceive the absurdity of the small vanities which wore a giant's armour till they fancied they had a giant's power. However, the Grecian painter's veil is as good for a parent's folly as for a parent's grief, and Beatrice listened to some thousand-and-one plans for the regeneration of mankind; and though she drew in her own mind the conclusion, that as a universal conviction had never yet been obtained, so it never would, she nevertheless wisely kept the conclusion to herself; while Henriquez thought what a very sweet creature she was: but then women were so very weak. "I did expect my daughter to have been superior to her sex." One evening Emily had been prevailed on to try the fresh air of the deck. Like most invalids whose disease is on the mind, she was indisposed to any thing of bodily exertion; but, though she might reject Beatrice's advice, she could not refuse her request—and she took the place which had been so carefully prepared for her. The air was soft and warm, and she soon suffered the cloak in which she was wrapped to fall about her; when suddenly a passenger, whose crimson pelisse had quite illuminated the deck she was pacing, approached with the exclamation-" Well, now, Lord help this wicked world!—the lies people do tell!--and no manner of gain whatsoever. Only for to think, Miss, of meeting you here! Why, they said you had been crossed in love, and had turned into a nun; and instead of that, here we all are, sailing away for Old England. But, bless your pretty face! you look mighty ill-I hope the crossing-in-love part of the story isn't true-I know it's very disagreeable to young people; but, deary me, you'll soon get over it—it's nothing when you're used to it. When I was a girl, I used to sing, 6 I am in love with twenty; I could adore as many more — Lord love you! I never took on about any of "Now don't say so, Mrs. Higgs," said a corpulent gentleman, thrusting in a face which looked equally wide and weak-" you know "you you'd have broke your heart if we two hadn't been made one." "Broke my heart! no sich nonsense there were as good pigs in the market as yours any day. Not that I'm noways grumbling at the bargain I've had of you— weren't my first love neither. though you So you see, Miss, to lose a first chance aint much." Beatrice did not comprehend the dialogue, but she saw Emily look as if ready to sink into the earth, and she beckoned her father to help her |