The conversation alternately touched upon the nature of love, the use and beauty of the greek language, the pleasures of maternal affection, and the insipidity of all English society. It was rather metaphorical at times:—there was generally in it a want of nature—an attempt at display: but to Calantha it appeared too singular, and too attractive to wish it otherwise. She had been used, however, to a manner rather more refined—more highly polished than any she found out of her own circle and family. A thousand things shocked her at first, which afterwards she not only tolerated, but adopted. There was a want of ease, too, in many societies, to which she could not yet accustom herself; and she knew not exactly what it was which chilled and depressed her when in the presence of many who were, upon a nearer acquaintance, amiable and agreeable. Perhaps too anxious a desire to please, too great a regard for trifles, a sort of selfishness, which never loses sight of its own identity, occasions this coldness among these votaries of fashion. The dread of not having that air, that dress, that refinement which they value so much, prevents their obtaining it; and a degree of vulgarity steals unperceived amidst the higher classes in England, from the very apprehension they feel of falling into it. Even those, who are natural, do not entirely appear so. Calantha’s life was like a feverish dream:—so crowded, so varied, so swift in its transitions, that she had little time to reflect; and when she did, the memory of the past was so agreeable and so brilliant, that it gave her pleasure to think of it again and again. If Lord Avondale was with her, every place appeared even more than usually delightful; but, when absent, her letters, no longer filled with lamentations on her lonely situation, breathed from a vain heart the lightness, and satisfaction it enjoyed. It may be supposed that one so frivolous and so thoughtless, committed every possible fault and folly which opportunity and time allowed. It may also be supposed, that such imprudence met with its just reward; and that every tongue was busy in its censure, and every gossip in exaggerating the extraordinary feats of such a trifler. Yet Calantha, upon the whole, was treated with only too much kindness; and the world, though sometimes called severe, seemed willing to pause ere it would condemn, and was intent alone to spare—to reclaim a young offender. CHAPTER XXV.