fear, to his commands that she should convey Evelyn to Paris; but she
trembled to think of the vague hints and dark menaces that Vargrave had
let fall as to ulterior proceedings, and was distracted at the thought of
being implicated in some villanous or rash design. When, therefore, the
man whose rivalry Vargrave most feared was almost established at her
house, she made but a feeble resistance; she thought that, if Legard
should become a welcome and accepted suitor before Lumley arrived, the
latter would be forced to forego whatever hopes he yet cherished, and
that she should be delivered from a dilemma, the prospect of which
daunted and appalled her. Added to this, Caroline was now, alas!
sensible that a fool is not so easily governed; her resistance to an
intimacy with Legard would have been of little avail: Doltimore, in these
matters, had an obstinate will of his own; and, whatever might once have
been Caroline's influence over her liege, certain it is that such
influence had been greatly impaired of late by the indulgence of a
temper, always irritable, and now daily more soured by regret, remorse,
contempt for her husband,--and the melancholy discovery that fortune,
youth, beauty, and station are no talismans against misery.

It was the gayest season of Paris; and to escape from herself, Caroline
plunged eagerly into the vortex of its dissipations. If Doltimore's
heart was disappointed, his vanity was pleased at the admiration Caroline
excited; and he himself was of an age and temper to share in the pursuits
and amusements of his wife. Into these gayeties, new to their
fascination, dazzled by their splendour, the young Evelyn entered with
her hostess; and ever by her side was the unequalled form of Legard.
Each of them in the bloom of youth, each of them at once formed to
please, and to be pleased by that fair Armida which we call the World,
there was, necessarily, a certain congeniality in their views and
sentiments, their occupations and their objects; nor was there, in all