When the friends of Corinne, particularly Prince Castel-Forte, were informed of her project, they felt considerably chagrined. Prince Castel-Forte was so much pained at it, that he resolved in a short time to go and join her. There was certainly no vanity in thus filling up the train of a favoured lover; but he could not support the dreadful void which he would find in the absence of Corinne. He had no acquaintances but the circle he met at her house; and he never entered any other. The company which assembled around her would disperse when she should be no longer there; and it would be impossible to collect together the fragments. Prince Castel-Forte was little accustomed to domestic life: though possessing a good share of intellect, he did not like the fatigue of study; the whole day therefore would have been an insufferable weight to him, if he had not come, morning and evening, to visit Corinne. She was about to depart--he knew not what to do; however he promised himself in secret to approach her as a friend, who indulged in no pretensions, but who was ever at hand to offer his consolation in the moment of misfortune; such a friend may be sure that his hour will come. Corinne felt oppressed with melancholy in thus breaking all her former connections; she had led for some years in Rome a manner of life that pleased her. She was the centre of attraction to every artist and to every enlightened man. A perfect independence of ideas and habits gave many charms to her existence: what was to become of her now? If destined to the happiness of espousing Oswald, he would take her to England, and what would she be thought of there; how would she be able to confine herself to a mode of existence so different from what she had known for six years past! But these sentiments only passed through her mind, and her passion for Oswald always obliterated every trace of them. She saw, she heard him, and only counted the hours by his absence or his presence. Who can dispute with happiness? Who does not welcome it when it comes? Corinne was not possessed of much foresight--neither fear nor hope existed for her; her faith in the future was vague, and in this respect her imagination did her little good, and much harm.