consequence. The famous Lauzun of Lewis XIV., you know, having laid down his charge of captain of the king's guard, could not bear to go to a review for forty years afterwards."

"Ridiculous!" cried De Vere.

"Well, then, take a more splendid, but scarcely more rational example:-the great Duke of Epernon, on being dismissed from his employments, used, in order to show his superiority, to traverse Paris with a train of eight hundred gentlemen. Nevertheless,' says an historian, au milieu de cet éclat extérieur, le chagrin de se voir éloigné des affaires le rongeoit cruellement au dedans.' Neither of these grandees were much better than Lord Mowbray; and, however we may laugh at such little vanities, we know what they are in little minds. It is only for truly great, and self-supporting dignity, to feel alike superior to success or reverse. A character like this may really be said to be independent of the world."

"This is true philosophy," observed De Vere, "and worth all that all are struggling for.'

He then fell into silence, and was much lost in meditating his own situation, past, present, and to come. In this, the share of thought he gave to the interesting personages he was about to see, may be imagined, and it seemed even to his firm nerves, as if something mysterious was hanging over him, which had a dark and indeterminate reference to his cousin, such as he could not pursue with pleasure but could not quit.

"It seems then," said he, (at last breaking silence,) "that she is the same unspoiled creature as ever; and though she has been assailed, she has not been hurt by the world!"

"And of whom may you be speaking?" asked Wilmot, with a good humoured but significant smile. De Vere, rather embarrassed, answered with all simplicity,

"Why, of Lady Constance, of whom we were talk

ing.

"We talked of her," said Wilmot, "above an hour ago, as we passed the towers of Kenilworth. The last

person mentioned was, I think, the Duke of Epernon, and the last subject, the insufficiency of little minds to support themselves under the reverses of ambition.'

So saying, the sagacious, though friendly Doctor again fixed his eye significantly on his fellow-traveller. De Vere felt as a boy when caught in a fault. He coloured, stammered, and looked out at the window. Recovering, he observed, "it could not be surprising that he should feel the greatest interest for his cousin under such a trial as awaited her."

"It will be a great one," replied Wilmot, "for she loves her father; yet do I not fear her; for never did I see such strong affections so tempered, or controlled by so much propriety and fortitude."

By this time they had arrived within sight of the towers of Castle Mowbray; and De Vere could not help recalling, with pensiveness, the last visit he paid to them, and his sudden flight from what he thought their ominous reception of him. The cold gleams of the figures in the armoury were still before him; nor was he relieved by a transition from these to the last and too formal reception giver him by Constance herself. The thought of it made him uneasy, and he became agitated with unpleasant prognostications as to his present visit. All this could not escape the penetration of his observing companion, who, however, thought it serious enough to abstain from raillery. For this De Vere thanked him in his heart, and it increased his attachment to this excellent person, to a degree which never afterwards was forgotten. So powerful is often a very little circumstance; and so cogent a very small, but delicate kindness, shown at the proper moment, in fixing the opinion, and exciting regard for life.

VOL. III.

It is too late; the life of all his blood

Is touch'd corruptibly: and his pure brain,

Which some suppose the soul's fair dwelling house,
Doth, by the idle comments that it makes,
Foretell the ending of mortality.

-SHAKSPEARE.

As De Vere's coming had not been announced, it was settled that he should ascend the hill of Castle Mowbray on foot, and leave it to Dr. Wilmot to prepare his mother and uncle for his arrival.

The carriage rolled on, but it was dark when De Vere approached the castle; and the many lights moving to and fro, as well as a sort of bustle among the domestics, made him think that a crisis impended which gave a shock to his heart. For though he had not loved Lord Mowbray, because his nature permitted no one to love him-though he had been even wronged and affronted by him he felt that the approach of death was a great curer of wounded feelings; and the fear that this cure might be impending, banished every thing but sympathy. But when he thought of his mother, and the certain shock this misfortune would give to his cousin, he surrendered his heart to that impres sion alone; and, unable to proceed, he sat down upon a bench in the court-yard, waiting farther intelligence.

A thousand visions of the future were then conjured up to his raised imagination. He saw his cousin pressed down with grief for her loss; he saw that loss enhanced by the reflection (bitter to her mind) that it was occasioned by a sensibility to misfortune little enobled by its character; he saw her afterwards sole mistress of the ample domain around him and in so far, ele vated to a greater distance than ever from the secret, yet still preserved wish of his heart.

While in this reverie, the great gate opened, and a servant went forth with a torch, as he thought in quest of him, for he held it up as if to search all parts of the court-yard. De Vere therefore presented himself, and advancing to the guard-room was soon in his mother's arms, who withdrew him instantly to one of the side chambers.

She received him with all her usual affection, but was evidently under exertion to curb some strong emotion. At length, summoning all her self-possession, she said to him

"You are come but in time to see your uncle die. The hand of death is upon him, and in one little hour the last Lord Mowbray will perhaps be no more."

"My poor Constance!" cried De Vere, surprised into an exclamation, which, before his mother, he had never yet indulged.

"Hope the best for her," said Lady Eleanor, "for her mind is prepared, and her resignation perfect. But my unfortunate brother! Had he her fortitude, he might possibly yet survive."

Lady Eleanor was here almost overcome by contending emotions; for though, as affecting her happiness, the personal loss of Lord Mowbray could not be great; yet, as a sister, a Mowbray herself, and a high-minded woman, the reflection of the weakness of this last of her line, who had succumbed to so trifling a reverse, was almost as cruel a wound as the loss itself.

"Is the event then nearly over?" said De Vere, much moved.

"I know not," answered Lady Eleanor, "but Dr. Wilmot has dismissed us, to watch in expectation of it, and says that a lethargy of four days can have but one termination. God's will be done!"

She then proceeded to inform her son of as many things as she could, in the short interval during which she permitted herself to be absent from Constance, who, she said, took his visit most kindly, and would see him when she could. She then folded him in her arms, and, what with the sight of him, unexpectedly restored to her, and the trial which still awaited her in

the sick chamber above, it was happy for her heart that it was made so firm.

On her quitting him, De Vere resolved to remain where he was, only sending word to Dr. Wilmot, that he waited his summons.

But the hand of death was now upon its victim, and that so heavily that nothing could extricate him from its grasp. Wilmot saw this, nor pretended to that skill which could minister to a mind diseased, "wherein the patient must minister to himself." Lord Mowbray's malady was in the heart; and all his bodily complaints, consuming as they were, were only symptomatic. The symptoms might be removed for awhile, but (the disorder uncured) they would infallibly return. This Wilmot had expected; for, from the few conversations which the earl had been previously able to hold with him, he found that his memory was still among the scenes and persons where it always had been, though his tone about them was altered. Soon, however, this sank, if not into lethargy, into a brooding silence, which was worse. He sat whole days, seemingly lost to his daughter, his sister, and himself, with a fixed look, from which nothing could, for a long time, rouse him.

Constance, though wrung with grief, never succumbed; and her active attentions, and the medicines of Wilmot, so far succeeded, that he revived from this first attack, and for some days became comparatively active. He even said he would read, and tried to divert his thoughts with history. But history brought him back to politics and courts, and he threw it from him with disgust. He then called for works of imagination; but having no imagination of his own, he could little enter into that of others, and peevishly pronounced them to be fit only for children. Constance then proposed some of the lighter, and afterwards the graver moralists. But these he said were mere theorists who had never known the world they taught us to dislike. Lady Eleanor at last, with some distrust, but also with some hope, placed the Bible before him, and to the delight of Constance, and herself, he seemed disposed, for some days, to embrace it as a study.