sons who had passed a month together any where; but particularly in an old castle in the country. That you point at my cousin is clear; that you are wrong is equally so; witness my having urged both you and Lord Cleveland to come down to us; you, who might be, and he, whom I know to be, a most powerful rival-nay, a rival with whom, even if I could, I would not allow myself to enter into competition."

"You were always honourable," said Eustace, pressing his hand, "and I did but jest; but upon my word, Cleveland is a riddle. I know his very soul is in politics and court intrigue; he has the ear of the king; the time is such, that he may play at cups and balls with the ministry, and yet he has run away after a mere beauty."

"Mere beauty!" exclaimed De Vere.

"Oh! I cry you mercy, Signor," returned his friend, 66 one must have a care of such perfect freedom as yours. Well, I will allow the Lady Constance to be all even you and Cleveland can think her; nay I am sure I admire her as much as either of you would wish me. But I say again, who would throw away the certainty of power for the uncertainty of a woman's smile?"

"Not you, it seems," said De Vere, laughing; " but suppose it the certainty!" and his laugh ceased.

"I am not sure it would make any difference," returned the young aspirant. "In short, ambition, shadowy as you may think it, is, I allow, my mistress; and until I succeed with her, I leave all those of flesh and blood to you and Cleveland.

66

"Tis a fair compromise," said De Vere, with satisfaction, and I will take care to inform my Lord Cleveland that you are not in his way."

"He would be affronted at the very supposition," observed Eustace, "and might put me to death for my presumption. But we have at least given him fair play, and I must really force him to read his packet, and answer Lord Oldcastle to-night, or I shall never be deemed fit for any thing but a dangling appendage of a placeman, for which no qualification is required—but what I had in my cradle-a title."

The friends then made towards the castle; and as they

J

climbed up the steep footpath which left the carriage way winding around them, they beheld Lord Cleveland, who had said he would not open his packet till night, wrinkling his front over it, in the window of his dressing-room. Cleveland, immediately on perceiving Eustace, beckoned him to come to him; a sign which that eager young man with alacrity obeyed.

The conference lasted long; nor did the castle party meet again till all were assembled at dinner, with the addition of Constance's most loved friend, the Marchioness, who had come to do honour to the birth-day fête, which was to be held the next day.

CHAPTER XXIV.

A CHANGE.

Her heavenly form

Angelic, but more soft and feminine.
Her graceful innocence, her every aid
Of gesture, or least action, overaw'd
His malice, and with rapine sweet bereav'd
His fierceness.

MILTON.

THE presence of Lady Clanellan was a real comfort to the apprehensions of Constance, who, from the manner both of Lord Cleveland and her father, added to De Vere's late insinuations, and even her aunt's high principled representations, had begun to conceive ominous portents from the visit of the Earl.

It is most certain that during the hour which had passed in showing him the castle, the gardens, and, (as Lord Mowbray insisted upon it) the dairy house, with its beautiful precinct, he had laid himself out to act the character of the most sincere, as well as respectful admirer that ever youthful lady entertained in hall or bower.

Every one of the few sentences she uttered, seemed

only spoken to be echoed by his own sentiments; and he even moralized very prettily in the bee-garden, upon the uselessness of immoderate wealth, and its inefficacy to secure happiness; which, he admitted, was after all the only true object of ambition, and of course the only pursuit of a wise man. In short, to believe the Earl, he could have rested perfectly content, nay, would perhaps prefer a lot which confined him to the moderation of this little scene, to the indulgences of riches, and the pomp of power. Ambition itself sank to nothing in the comparison.

But neither Lady Eleanor nor Constance were deceived; though Lord Mowbray, who had learned from Eustace the nature of his errand to Lord Cleveland," smiled inwardly, and not without complacency, to think how love could change a man's innate disposition. He was by no means displeased therefore to believe that this little aberration from the Earl's great passion (so near upon the point of being gratified,) was occasioned by a desire to connect himself where most Lord Mowbray wished him to be connected.

Lady Eleanor and Constance, however, remembered the letter which De Vere had read to them but a few days before. Constance thought of the contrast with even disgust, and felt that surely pardonable anger, which a self-respecting young person must always feel when she thinks a man, for his own purposes, presumes he may trifle with her understanding.

Such seemed evidently the conduct of Lord Cleveland in thus so suddenly playing the sentimentalist; nor would Constance, though pressed in his most plausible strain to agree with him in the soft notions which he continued to unfold, condescend even to give an opinion, but busied herself with pretended little cares about her favourite domain.

In truth, his new character sat but awkwardly upon Lord Cleveland; and Constance was glad to hear from her aunt, a sort of reproach which she thought might be unbecoming in herself. Lady Eleanor was struck with the contradiction between Lord Cleveland's letter and his present opinions, and presuming upon her age, did not refrain from telling him so. At another

time in her life, she might have rallied him upon it with keenness, and even with wit; but the buoyancy of her spirit had long been broken, and she could only be roused to this sort of exertion, by a sense of his impropriety of conduct, and the necessity of repressing it.

With some gravity, therefore, if not dignity of tone, she said, "Your lordship must really imagine us weak women, to be the poor, believing creatures the men sometimes represent us, when you practise upon us thus. Unfortunately we have been favoured with your real sentiments in your letter to my son. We there saw what the great Lord Cleveland thought of grandeur or moderation, excitement or placidity, town or country."

The earl looked uneasy, if not disconcerted, at this reproach, in a presence where he most wished to be free from it. Eyeing Constance, therefore, with a humble and even tender air, he said, it seemed not a little hard that he should be concluded in a matter in which he felt so sincere, merely from a piece of badinage, in which no one could suppose him serious.

In this, he was joined by Lord Mowbray, who saw the coldness of his daughter's looks with regret, and was by no means pleased with this check given by Lady Eleanor to a discourse, which, beginning in sentiment might have ended in something still more tender.

As it was, Lord Cleveland observed, that he was the more unfortunate, because (whether he might be believed or not, he presumed not to say,) it was never of more consequence to him to be thought sincere.

"And yet, for the life of me," added he, "I cannot understand why I am supposed to laugh at romance, except for my foolish letter."

"You laugh at every thing, my lord," observed Constance, gravely.

"No! on my honour," replied he, "spirits may run away with any one, but never did any thing truly respectable receive an affront from me."

"And yet," returned Constance, "how did you once lavish your ridicule upon I know not what unfortu

nate couple just married, on their retiring to the country?"

"Perhaps," replied the earl, gaily, "I thought of the Duke of Buckingham, who said to a dog that had bit him, 'I wish you were married and settled in the country.' But seriously, I believe it was to get rid of my envy of their happiness; for such I felt it to be, while I myself seemed alone in the world, stranded on its shores as if from a wreck. No, Lady Constance, as well might I be accused,”—and here he placed his hand on his breast with an air by no means ungraceful—“ of laughing at what I most respect, the persons who stand before me."

Though the word persons was in the plural number, the bow and pointed look with which it was accompanied, all showed the individual for whom this speech was most intended; and to say the truth, it called up a little colour into the cheek of Constance, who afterwards owned to her aunt, that if Lord Cleveland had not been too much spoiled to be reclaimed, there seemed to have been that in him originally which would have become his high station.

"And do you think this?" said Lady Eleanor.

"As much as I can, thinking so little of him at all,” replied Constance. "He certainly seemed more in earnest, or I should rather say less offensively and affectedly sarcastic to-day, than I ever remember him."

Lady Eleanor was not without reasons for scrutinizing the feeling with which this was said, and she did scrutinize it; but though, while she did so, her mind could not help wandering to her son, her observation upon it was that of the clearest disinterestedness.

"I quite agree with you," said she: "from the first, I have been struck with a sort of natural elevation, something commanding in this spoiled child of the world, as you properly call him, which surely cannot be wholly extinguished, and which, with proper help, might yet be prosperously developed. Shall I tell you, too, what I think is the help required?”

With some vivacity, Constance asked" What ?" "A pure and real passion," returned Lady Eleanor, "for a pure and virtuous woman, who might re-kindle