“I am astonished my dear Gondimar,” said Viviani one day, addressing him, “at the description which you gave me of Lady Avondale. I have seen her since we conversed together about her, more than once; and there is not, I think, much trace left of that excessive timidity of manner—that monastic rigidity in her opinions and conduct, of which you made mention in one of your letters from Castle Delaval.” “I was wrong, utterly wrong,” said Gondimar, “and you may now rank this model of purity, this paragon of wives, this pupil of nature, whom I have so often praised to you, on a level with the rest of her fellow mortals.” “Not on a level—not on a level,” replied Viviani with gravity; “but falling as I fear, far beneath it.” The Count then repeated in a solemn tone the description of Rome which Lucian has placed in the mouth of Nigrinus applying the enumeration of vices, temptations and corruptions, attributed to the fairest capital of the world, to London; and then asked of Gondimar, if it were possible for one like Calantha to sojourn long amidst such scenes, without in some measure acquiring the manners, if not falling into the errors to which the eyes and ears were every hour accustomed? He spoke of her with regret, as he thus pronounced her on the verge of ruin:—“a prey,” he said indignantly, “for the spoiler—the weak and willing victim of vanity.” “The courts of her father are overrun with petitioners and mendicants,” said Gondimar: “her apartments are filled with flatterers who feed upon her credulity: she is in love with ruin: it stalks about in every possible shape, and in every shape, she hails it:—woe is it; victim of prosperity, luxury and self indulgence.”