He laughed himself into love. Natural enough that sighs have had their day, as the man in the play says, and it is time we brought something else into vogue. Well, I had brought him to the very point, and, deuce take the perversity of my nature, I lost him! Patience and you shall know it all. "I actually had received the offer; and with all the due decorum of pretty modesty, and affected humility, had postponed giving a final answer until the following morning. Well, as the devil would have it, who should come to dine but Horatio Somerset, Captain of the Ariadne, my ancient acquaintance, and quondam lover! "And what had the fellow to do with my Nabob? My Nabob, that ought to have been? Why, in faith, good coz, nothing-but the perversity of woman: it is my misfortune, that with all my politics, and my talents, I have been all my life, that silly, silly animal, a very woman! The perversity of my woman-hood, then, overthrew, in one hour, all those excellent plans it had taken Lady Jane Lorn so many months to bring to bear! "Somerset, I cannot write the wretch's name legibly--Somerset was accompanied by an old, and has been,' sort of woman, whom they called Mrs. Belgrave, widow of Colonel Belgrave, or some such kind of man. I could have forgiven this Madame, the mal-apropos, hors-du-tems, of her presence, if she had not thought proper to bring with her an affected, frightful-looking sort of beauty, whom she called Miss Grace Belgrave. "I looked at my Nabob, and found, to my great satisfaction, he was occupied with his soup, and apparently forgetful of the existence of this Miss Grace. Well, by the contrivance of some imp who has a particular spite against me, Horatio was placed between this child and myself. He looked at her with those meaning glances, which you and I so well understand; called her, in an under tone, his dear Grace,' and-and you know a woman hates to see a slave, who once bowed to her empire, courting the laws of another; and so ---out it must come---I set my tactics in array against her's, and the poor thing shrank in dismay from the competition. "I rallied, flattered, laughed at, soothed, sighed at, and conversed with Horatio, keeping the enemy at bay in the finest style imaginable. What expense of wit was I at! and I followed up the game, regardless of the 'looks askaunce,' with which my Nabob and the ugly Margaret regarded us. Well, in the evening, I saw Horatio walking in one of the plantations; I bounded after him with all the agility, for which I was so remarkable in the day of the dear lamented teens. We talked of auld lang syne;' until, in the distance appeared the light form of that villanous sylph, whom I have introduced to you by the name of Grace. ( "Horatio saw her; he became cold, dull, and listless; I sighed, looked pathetic---he frowned-how a second love revives the remembrance of the injuries one received in a first!--he began to enumerate all the misery I had entailed upon him, the deceptions which I had imposed on him, until, upon my soul, I could verily have blushed. "But luckily I did not; I rebutted his accusations. I had recourse to the most skilful sophistry, which I imagined might confuse his reason, and obscure the plainest truth. What talents did I not display? What eloquence, what grace of gesture, what animation of innocence, indignant at false accusation?-I placed the success of the game in the gaining of one single trick; and, Augusta, I lost it. "The wretch heard me with inconceivable coolness; your ladyship has great talents,' he said, sarcastically, but after all your manœuvres, your argument is making lee-way.' He turned on his heel, and two minutes after, I saw him at the side of this Grace. "What need is there of more words? My Nabob was jealous, and discovered the whole. I departed,-am at as you see by the post-mark, and in a few days, you may expect me in London. "I shall certainly sue Clervaux ;-there is now no earthly consideration to prevent me ;if great damages are awarded, they will form no ignoble dower. I have not yet lost all hope; whilst men can still be flattered, and caressed, and rallied into love, ought Jane Lorn to despair? "Let Montague look to it ;--I have an eye on him and his Miss Argyle. Disappointed, baffled, how amply should I be repaid by vengeance! M "I shall consult my old admirer, counsellor on the case; he has enough law knowledge to ensure the success of my suit; and enough simplicity of character to become a second time my dupe. Expect me in a very few days. I am not quite in despair. I do not forget, that I am still the all-conquering JANE LORN." CHAP. XIX. Cease ye from man whose breath is in his nostrils for wherein is ke to be accounted of? The voice said cry. And he said, What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof, as the flower of the field. ISAIAH Can I forget the dismal night, that gave And sleep in peace, next thy loved Montague ! HEBE LORD Montague one evening returned from an exquisite musical entertainment given by the Dutchess of In the course of it, he Had felt by turns his glowing mind, and he sought his own apartment with a gayety and lightness of heart he did not often expe rience. Insensibly he fell into a profound reverie, and his prospect of the future appeared tinged with the same pleasurable hue. He saw in his mind's eye the vivid picture of those scenes and countries he hoped to traverse, and the sensation, at intervals, was that of rapture. The pleasure he had derived from such a life in his earlier years, rushed again upon his fancy; it was a delicious pageant, and for a time occupied his mind, to the exclusion of every other idea. His separation from the land of his birth, Isadora, all were forgotten. It was a fairy vision, and imparted a luminous brilliancy to his eye, which spoke his heart drunk with its intoxicating influence, as he exclaimed to himself Me into distant realms my fate conveys, The past, the present, and the future, were embodied in one delightful vision. His immortal spirit manifested itself in all its splendour, and Saw blooming in her menta! May, A thousand years as yesterday. In the midst of these exhilarating images of |