cushion of down and her veil of gauze like the sword of Saladin. The old
Marchioness turned her back upon Mrs. Lyndsay. Lady Selina was
crushingly civil. The pretty woman with pretty manners, no better off
for all the misery she had occasioned, went to Rome, caught cold, and
having no one to nurse her as Caroline had done, fell at last into a real
consumption, and faded out of the world elegantly and spitefully, as
fades a rose that still leaves its thorns behind it.

Caroline's nature grew developed and exalted by the responsibilities she
had accepted, and by the purity of her grief. She submitted, as a just
retribution, to the solitude and humiliation of her wedded lot; she
earnestly, virtuously strove to banish from her heart every sentiment
that could recall to her more of Darrell than the remorse of having
darkened a life that had been to her childhood so benignant, and to her
youth so confiding. As we have seen her, at the mention of Darrell's
name--at the allusion to his griefs--fly to the side of her ungenial
lord, though he was to her but as the owner of the name she bore,--so it
was the saving impulse of a delicate, watchful conscience that kept her
as honest in thought as she was irreproachable in conduct. But vainly,
in summoning her intellect to the relief of her heart--vainly had she
sought to find in the world friendships, companionships, that might
eclipse the memory of the mind so lofty in its antique mould--so tender
in its depths of unsuspected sweetness--which had been withdrawn from her
existence before she could fully comprehend its rarity, or appreciate its
worth.

At last she became free once more; and then she had dared thoroughly to
examine into her own heart, and into the nature of that hold which the
image of Darrell still retained on its remembrances. And precisely
because she was convinced that she had succeeded in preserving her old