though not the true ones. The lamps are dead in the banquet-room of
yesterday; but a thousand years hence, and the stars we look on to-night
will burn as brightly. Maltravers was no longer in love with Valerie.
But Valerie--ah, perhaps /hers/ had been true love!

Maltravers was surprised when he came to examine the state of his own
feelings--he was surprised to find that his pulse did not beat quicker
at the touch of one whose very glance had once thrilled him to the
soul--he was surprised, but rejoiced. He was no longer anxious to seek,
but to shun excitement, and he was a better and a higher being than he
had been on the shores of Naples.



CHAPTER IX.

"Whence that low voice, a whisper from the heart,
That told of days long past?"--WORDSWORTH.

ERNEST stayed several days at Lord Doningdale's, and every day he rode
out with Valerie, but it was with a large party; and every evening he
conversed with her, but the whole world might have overheard what they
said. In fact, the sympathy that had once existed between the young
dreamer and the proud, discontented woman had in much passed away.
Awakened to vast and grand objects, Maltravers was a dreamer no more.
Inured to the life of trifles she had once loathed, Valerie had settled
down into the usages and thoughts of the common world--she had no longer
the superiority of earthly wisdom over Maltravers, and his romance was
sobered in its eloquence, and her ear dulled to its tone. Still Ernest
felt a deep interest in her, and still she seemed to feel a sensitive