After a time I said, hesitatingly, "I scarcely presume to condole with
you, Lady Ellinor, yet, believe me, few things ever shocked me like the
death you allude to. I trust Miss Trevanion's health has not much
suffered. Shall I not see her before I leave England?"

Lady Ellinor fixed her keen bright eyes searchingly on my countenance,
and perhaps the gaze satisfied her; for she held out her hand to me with
a frankness almost tender, and said "Had I had a son, the dearest wish
of my heart had been to see you wedded to my daughter."

I started up; the blood rushed to my cheeks, and then left me pale as
death. I looked reproachfully at Lady Ellinor, and the word "cruel!"
faltered on my lips.

"Yes," continued Lady Ellinor, mournfully, "that was my real thought, my
impulse of regret, when I first saw you. But as it is, do not think me
too hard and worldly if I quote the lofty old French proverb, Noblesse
oblige. Listen to me, my young friend: we may never meet again, and I
would not have your father's son think unkindly of me, with all my
faults. From my first childhood I was ambitious,--not, as women usually
are, of mere wealth and rank, but ambitious as noble men are, of power
and fame. A woman can only indulge such ambition by investing it in
another. It was not wealth, it was not rank, that attracted me to
Albert Trevanion: it was the nature that dispenses with the wealth and
commands the rank. Nay," continued Lady Ellinor, in a voice that
slightly trembled, "I may have seen in my youth, before I knew
Trevanion, one [she paused a moment, and went on hurriedly]--one who
wanted but ambition to have realized my ideal. Perhaps even when I
married--and it was said for love--I loved less with my whole heart than
with my whole mind. I may say this now, for now every beat of this