The lightness of the new peer’s tone revolted Maltravers, and he turned impatiently away. But Lord Vargrave, resolving not to suffer the conversation to glide back to sorrowful subjects, which he always hated, turned round to Ernest, and said, “Well, my dear Ernest, I see by the papers that you are to have N------‘s late appointment--it is a very rising office. I congratulate you.” “I have refused,” said Maltravers, drily. “Bless me!--indeed!--why?” Ernest bit his lip, and frowned; but his glance wandering unconsciously at Florence, Lumley thought he detected the true reply to his question, and became mute. The conversation was afterwards embarrassed and broken up; Lumley went away as soon as he could, and Lady Florence that night had a severe fit, and could not leave her bed the next day. That confinement she had struggled against to the last; and now, day by day, it grew more frequent and inevitable. The steps of Death became accelerated. And Lord Saxingham, wakened at last to the mournful truth, took his place by his daughter’s side, and forgot that he was a cabinet minister. CHAPTER VII. “Away, my friends, why take such pains to know What some brave marble soon in church shall show?” CRABBE. IT may seem strange, but Maltravers had never loved Lady Florence as he did now. Was it the perversity of human nature that makes the things of mortality dearer to us in proportion as they fade from our hopes, like birds whose hues are only unfolded when they take wing and vanish amidst the skies; or was it that he had ever doted more on loveliness of mind than that of form, and the first bloomed out the more, the more the last decayed? A thing to protect, to soothe, to shelter--oh, how dear it is to the pride of man! The haughty woman who can stand alone and requires no leaning-place in our heart, loses the spell of her sex.