"Bless me!--indeed!--why?"

Ernest bit his lip, and frowned; but his glance wandering unconsciously
at Florence, Lumley thought he detected the true reply to his question,
and became mute.

The conversation was afterwards embarrassed and broken up; Lumley went
away as soon as he could, and Lady Florence that night had a severe fit,
and could not leave her bed the next day. That confinement she had
struggled against to the last; and now, day by day, it grew more
frequent and inevitable. The steps of Death became accelerated. And
Lord Saxingham, wakened at last to the mournful truth, took his place by
his daughter's side, and forgot that he was a cabinet minister.



CHAPTER VII.

"Away, my friends, why take such pains to know
What some brave marble soon in church shall show?"
CRABBE.

IT may seem strange, but Maltravers had never loved Lady Florence as he
did now. Was it the perversity of human nature that makes the things of
mortality dearer to us in proportion as they fade from our hopes, like
birds whose hues are only unfolded when they take wing and vanish amidst
the skies; or was it that he had ever doted more on loveliness of mind
than that of form, and the first bloomed out the more, the more the last
decayed? A thing to protect, to soothe, to shelter--oh, how dear it is
to the pride of man! The haughty woman who can stand alone and requires