fair-faced young poet beside her.

As he walked slowly back, he muttered to himself, "But am I yet in the
position to hold myself wholly free? Am I, am I? Were the sole choice
before me that between her and ambition and wealth, how soon it would be
made! Ambition has no prize equal to the heart of such a woman; wealth
no sources of joy equal to the treasures of her love."




CHAPTER III.

FROM ISAURA CICOGNA TO MADAME DE GRANTMESNIL.

The day after I posted my last, Mr. Vane called on us. I was in our
little garden at the time. Our conversation was brief, and soon
interrupted by visitors,--the Savarins and M. Rameau. I long for your
answer. I wonder how he impressed you, if you have met him; how he would
impress, if you met him now. To me he is so different from all others;
and I scarcely know why his words ring in my ears, and his image rests in
my thoughts. It is strange altogether; for though he is young, he speaks
to me as if he were so much older than I,--so kindly, so tenderly, yet as
if I were a child, and much as the dear Maestro might do, if he thought I
needed caution or counsel. Do not fancy, Eulalie, that there is any
danger of my deceiving myself as to the nature of such interest as he may
take in me. Oh, no! There is a gulf between us there which he does not
lose sight of, and which we could not pass. How, indeed, I could
interest him at all, I cannot guess. A rich, high-born Englishman,
intent on political life; practical, prosaic--no, not prosaic; but still