Cold Princess! where are your boasted professions now? You taught Calantha to love you, by every petty art of which your sex is mistress. She heard, from your lips, the sugared poisons you were pleased to lavish upon her. You laughed at her follies, courted her confidence, and flattered her into a belief that you loved her. Loved her!—it is a feeling you never felt. She fell into the mire; the arrows of your precious crew were shot at her—like hissing snakes hot and sharpened with malice and venomed fire; and you, yes—you were the first to scorn her:—you, by whom she had stood faithfully and firmly amidst a host of foes—aye, amidst the fawning rabble, who still crowd your doors, and laugh at and despise you. Thanks for the helping hand of friendship in the time of need—the mud and the mire have been washed from Calantha; the arrows have been drawn from a bleeding bosom; the heart is still sound, and beats to disdain you. The sun may shine fairly again upon her; but never, whilst existence is prolonged, will she set foot in the gates of the Palace of the great Nabob, or trust to the smiles and professions of the Princess of Madagascar. CHAPTER XXX. “And what detains you in town?” said Gondimar, on the eve of Mrs. Seymour and Sophia’s departure. “Will this love of gaiety never subside. Tell me, Lady Avondale, do you believe all that the Duke of Myrtlegrove, and your more warlike cousin have said to you?—What means the blush on your indignant cheek? The young duke is more enamoured of the lustre of his diamond ring and broach, than of the brightest eyes that ever gazed on him; and though the words glory and renown drop from the mouth of Buchanan, love, I think, has lost his time in aiming arrows at his heart. Has he one?—I think not? But who has one in London?” “You have not assuredly,” said the Count: “and, if you knew the censures that are every where passed upon you, I think, for Lord Avondale’s sake, you would regret it.” “I do; but indeed—”