On the blue waters that break with a deep and far voice along the rocks of that delicious shore, above which the mountain that rises behind Terracina scatters to the air the odours of the citron and the orange--on that sounding and immemorial sea the stars, like the hopes of a brighter world upon the darkness and unrest of life, shone down with a solemn but tender light. On that shore stood Lucilla and he--the wandering stranger--in whom she had hoarded the peace and the hopes of earth. Hers was the first and purple flush of the love which has attained its object; that sweet and quiet fulness of content--that heavenly, all-subduing and subdued delight, with which the heart slumbers in the excess of its own rapture. Care--the forethought of change--even the shadowy and vague mournfulness of passion--are felt not in those voluptuous but tranquil moments. Like the waters that rolled, deep and eloquent, before her, every feeling within was but the mirror of an all-gentle and cloudless heaven. Her head half-declined upon the breast of her young lover, she caught the beating of his heart, and in it heard all the sounds of what was now become to her the world. And still and solitary deepened around them the mystic and lovely night. How divine was that sense and consciousness of solitude! how, as it thrilled within them, they clung closer to each other! Theirs as yet was that blissful and unsated time when the touch of their hands, clasped together, was in itself a happiness of emotion too deep for words. And ever, as his eyes sought hers, the tears which the sensitiveness of her frame, in the very luxury of her overflowing heart, called forth, glittered in the tranquil stars a moment and were kissed away. “Do not look up to heaven, my love,” whispered Godolphin, “lest thou shouldst think of any world but this!” Poor Lucilla! will any one who idly glances over this page sympathise one moment with the springs of thy brief joys and thy bitter sorrow? The page on which, in stamping a record of thee, I would fain retain thy memory from oblivion; that page is an emblem of thyself;--a short existence; confounded with the herd to which it has no resemblance, and then, amidst the rush and tumult of the world, forgotten and cast away for ever! CHAPTER XXXIII. RETURN TO LADY ERPINGHAM.--LADY ERPINGHAM FALLS ILL.--LORD ERPINGHAM RESOLVES TO GO ABROAD.--PLUTARCH UPON MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS.--PARTY AT ERPINGHAM HOUSE.--SAVILLE ON SOCIETY AND THE TASTE FOR THE LITTLE.--DAVID MANDEVILLE.--WOMEN, THEIR INFLUENCE AND EDUCATION.--THE NECESSITY OF AN OBJECT.--RELIGION. As, after a long dream, we rise to the occupations of life, even so, with an awakening and more active feeling, I return from characters removed from the ordinary world--like Volktman(1) and his daughter--to the brilliant heroine of my narrative.