mental attainments; but an honorable man seeks other qualities in the companion of his life."--"And he would find them!" he said, warmly: he might have made his meaning clear at once, but that Lucy entered, and said a few words apart to her mother, who replied aloud: "No, my dear, you cannot go to your cousin's to-day. Lord Nevil dines here." Lucy blushed, seated herself beside her mother, and took up her embroidery, from which she never raised her eyes, nor did she utter a syllable. Nevil was almost angry: it was most probable that Lucy knew there had been some idea of their union: he remembered all Corinne had said on the probable effects of the severe education Lady Edgarmond would give her daughter. In England, young girls are usually more at liberty than married women: reason and morality alike favor their privileges; but Lady Edgarmond would have had all females thus rigorously secluded. Oswald could not, before Lucy, explain his intentions relative to Corinne; and Lady Edgarmond kept up a discourse on other subjects, with a firm and simple good sense, that extorted his deference. He would have combated her strict opinions, but he felt that if he used one word in a different acceptation from her own, she would form an opinion which nothing could efface; and he hesitated at this first step, so irreparable with a person who will make no individual exceptions, but judges everything by fixed and general rules. Dinner was announced; and Lucy offered her arm to Lady Edgarmond. Oswald then first discovered that his hostess walked with great difficulty. "I am suffering," she said, "from a painful, perhaps a fatal ailment." Lucy turned pale; and her mother resumed, with a more gentle cheerfulness: "My daughter's attention has once saved my life, and may preserve it long." Lucy bent her head, and when she raised it, her lashes were still wet with tears; yet she dared not even take her mother's hand: all had passed at the bottom of her heart; and she was only conscious of a stranger's presence, from the necessity of concealing her agitation. Oswald deeply felt this restraint of hers, and his mind, so lately thrilled by passionate eloquence, refreshed itself by contemplating so chastely simple a picture. Lucy seemed enveloped in some immaculate veil, that sweetly baffled his speculations. During dinner she spared her mother from all fatigue--serving everything herself; and Nevil only heard her voice when she offered to help him; but these common-place courtesies were performed with such enchanting grace, that he asked himself how it was possible for such slight actions to betray so much soul. "One must have," he said to himself, "either the genius of Corinne, that surpasses all one could imagine, or this pure unconscious mystery, which leaves every man free to suppose whatever virtues he prefers."