“Calantha,” said Lady Margaret, in a protecting tone, “are you not vain?” “This Glenarvon has been the lover of many hundreds; to be thus preferred is flattering. Shall I tell you, my dear niece, in what consists your superiority? You are not as fair as these; you are not perhaps as chaste; but you are loved more because your ruin will make the misery of a whole family, and your disgrace will cast a shade upon the only man whom Glenarvon ever acknowledged as superior to himself—superior both in mind and person. This, child, is your potent charm—your sole claim to his admiration. Shew him some crime of greater magnitude, point out to him an object more worth the trouble and pain of rendering more miserable and he will immediately abandon you.” Glenarvon cast his eyes fiercely upon Lady Margaret. The disdain of that glance silenced her, she even came forward with a view to conciliate: and affecting an air of playful humility—“I spoke but from mere jealousy,” she said. “What woman of my age could bear to see another so praised, so worshipped in her presence. It is as if the future heir of his kingdom were extolled in presence of the reigning sovereign. Pardon me, Glenarvon. I know, I see you love her.” “By my soul I do;” “and look,” he cried exultingly, “with what furious rage the little tygress gazes on you. She will harm you. I fear,” he continued laughing, “if I do not carry her from your presence. Come then Calantha: _we_ shall meet again,” he said, turning back and pausing as they quitted Lady Margaret’s apartment. The tone of his voice, and his look, as he said this were peculiar: nor did he for some moments regain his composure. Lady Margaret spoke a few words to Calantha that evening. “I am in the power of this man,” she said, “and you soon will be. He is cold, hard and cruel. Do any thing: but, if you have one regard for yourself, go not with him.” “I know his history, his errors,” said Calantha; “but he feels deeply.” “You know him,” said Lady Margaret, with a look of scornful superiority, “as he wishes you to believe him. He even may exaggerate, were that possible, his crimes, the more to interest and surprise. You know him, Calantha, as one infatuated and madly in love can imagine the idol of its devotion. But there will come a time when you will draw his character with darker shades, and taking from it all the romance and mystery of guilt, see him, as I do, a cold malignant heart, which the light of genius, self-love and passion, have warmed at intervals; but which, in all the detail of every-day life, sinks into hypocrisy and baseness. Crimes have been perpetrated in the heat of passion, even by noble minds, but Glenarvon is little, contemptible and mean. He unites the malice and petty vices of a woman, to the perfidy and villany of a man. You do not know him as I do.”