mourned the loss of a benefactor; the rich moistened the turf with the tears of regret; the poor bedewed it with the soft effusions of gratitude. But bitter were the sighs, bitter were the regrets of Ermissende. Theodore traced not their real source; it was to sensibility, to interest, to affection, he attributed the lamentations of her grief, and that conclusion linked with double force the strong claims of tenderness. He dreamt not that disappointed ambition, that the protracted visions of greatness alone dimmed the lustre of her radiant eyes; for alas, what is so easily blinded as self-love? what spell is half so delusive as the spell of passion?

Time softened the first burst of sorrow-time lightened the poignancy of woe; the period of mourning wore

awa

away; and Theodore, count D'Argenton, revived the theme of his former hopes. Ermissende smiled, and the pang of past affliction was forgotten. The nuptial

morn was again named; and Fate, more lenient, called up no second storm to blight its promise. The chateau's calm. retirement quick became exchanged for the gay scenes and splendid feats of Pa ris; and Ermissende, the worshipped bride of D'Argenton, became the star of fashion, and the spur of envy. A thousand charms, a thousand fancied joys alJured her: burst as it were upon a new theatre of action, her youth, her vanity, alike assailed, alike assailing, possessing attractions to tempt a stoic's gaze, and no stronger shield than gratitude to guard her feelings, she yielded unresisting to the siren-voice of pleasure; and while

F 4

while the count, high in royal favour, attended the cabinet of state, plunged in the giddy vortex of joyless dissipation.

CHAP. VI.

Who should be trusted, when one's own right hand

But count the world a stranger for thy sake.

The private wound is deepest.

SHAKESPEARE.

THOUGH ungracious be the theme, yet consistency commands us to unveil the secret spring of vice, and from the splendid scenes of Paris, to pursue the flying track of Montauban's desertion. Discovered in the act of violating the sacred sanctuary of religion, of tearing a mem

ber from the church, of luring a nun to

profane

profane the solemn vow of inauguration, he fled the paternal roof, leaving the hapless victim of his passion to stem alone the gathering storm of monachal severity. She was arraigned, she was condemned, she was entombed in the den of penance; and though compassion shed the silent tears, mercy no more unclosed the bars. But. Montauban ?-true, we pass over the rigid fiat which stamped the lapse of virtue, and pierce with him the courted haunts of vice. Dead to a parent's woes, unmindful but of self-preservation, lost to all sense both moral and divine, banishing past disappointments in new intrigues, he fled to Marseilles, and there resumed the mad career of falsely-denominated pleasure.

It was at the bastide of a nobleman, whither gaiety and dissipation had assem

bled a numerous company, that a similarity of disposition, and a native coincidence of taste, forged between Montauban and the count de Montbelliard, the first link of intimacy. The count was born of an illustrious family; but his finances were confined, his expectations limited; for fortune, in an elder brother, had given an heir to his father, the duke de Vermandois's wealth. A slave to his passions, rioting in all the licentious profligacy of vice, owning no sway but inclination, and ever acting under the influence of his fickle fancy, he courted the society of Montauban, because he found his fortune necessary to his embarrassments; and gradually becoming mutually entrusted, and mutually instrumental to each other's secret vices, they became, as is frequently the case, through

the