CHAPTER IX.

" E. For satirical people I have an insuperable aversion. "C. Really! I cannot but admire such a total want of self-love."

66

"MY DEAR LADY DELAINEY,

" I HAVE very little to tell you, unless it be indeed how much we all regret your absence :I more especially; je ne me connois plus sans vous. As to Lord Darmaya, he talks incessantly of the provoking tour, and hopes it soon will terminate.

"So you have really been to Darmaya Castle! How many sentimental ideas clash on my brain at the bare remembrance of those antique turrets! what strange events in happiness and misery have bound me there in fond recollection of what once was, yet never can be now! But your impression of its gloom, and of what it might be made by the hand of

refinement and taste, is just my own opinion. It is a sad wilderness; and one ought to be trebly satisfied within and without, to venture a domicile in the decaying tapestries and falling-down carvings of that echoing gallery. The vesper hymn of the celestial choir could hardly inspire one with an harmonious idea, or adduce a desire to be the goddess of that disenchanted mansion, though I could name the period when I fancied it a paradise :l'énigme reste inexpliquée, for now I cannot conceive, under similar circumstances, that I could survive a month; yet I like to look back and smile at my former sentiment. I planted a cypress tree near the chapel, and I left a rosebud at the grove.

"But enough of all this; I must give you some account of the Duke and Duchess of Dorevaine; they are in England, even in London. He is grown more sedate; a certain tone of cold chilling gravity and formal decision does not improve him. He preaches on morality, and seems to imagine that he is to persuade one into dullness. He looks a perfect boy, for all this nonsense; and as to la Cara Sposa, she is not at all what I anticipated, sa figure est commune, mais elle a le ton obligeant. But though from the Continent, where one might fly on the wings of taste for costume, there is not the smallest evidence of that in her; you will not ask for a pattern, I can assnre you. If Lorevaine was determined to clip his liberty, why not select a girl at home, instead of travelling to Rome for mediocrity? But thus it is with our nation; what is foreign, becomes valuable. However, I am glad they are near us, for papa will open his casa, and show them how to live; though Lorevaine seems to make a favour of joining the fashionable society, pleading the duchess's delicate health, which is a mere excuse. He is inexorably rigid against delinquents in the political world also; and broaches his romantic virtues, as well as his acquired science. This is not the way to make his peace with Lord Darmaya; and he ought to bear in mind, that we were both most hospitable and kind to him, when he was a destitute orphan boy, but a few years ago.

" Steenheime is at Naples; their friendship is, if possible, increased, and Lorevaine quotes his opinions mal gré bon gré.

"And are you indeed intending to quit your native land in the spring? But do not stay above six months. Life is transitory; who can afford to shorten it by absence? Let us enjoy it while we can. Belnovine is on a visit to some country sporting friends, where they fire in the morning, and shuffle in the evening; but the mysteries of his success, or non-success, is a point not be drawn from him; silencieux is his motto; but frankness and friendship mine.

"With my love to Villetta,

" Believe me, dear lady,

" à toute épreuve,

MARIA."

Lady Delainey read the preceding epistle, and wrote again to Lady Belnovine in a similar strain of frankness, requesting letters of introduction for Naples from Lorevaine, blaming his hasty alliance, and wondering he had not married from Lord Darmaya's better judgment, but hoping they would all kiss and be friends. That as gravity was said to be the ballast of the soul, and as contentment might be conjectured to arise from taking away fuel, and not from adding it to a fire, so she anticipated his clipped wings would leave him in the repose of peace. Then delivering some affectionate messages from Lady Villetta to her cousin Belnovine and her friend Lord Darmaya, who was always so indulgent to her, Lady Delainey referred to two village girls they had seen near the castle - the gardener's children, she believed; but described them as models for a painter, though wild as the savage heath. She implored Lady Belnovine to scribble all the on dit, as she doated on news. The letter was franked and sealed, read, and then formed into allumettes.