"Kate worships Burns," said Lady Desmond, "she has a print of 'John Anderson,' opposite her bed, that her eyes may light upon it on their first opening in the morning." "It is a sweet ballad, I think, and has an honesty about it, I like;" observed Dashwood. "You are right, Colonel Dashwood," said Kate. "Ah," said Lady Desmond, "you have ruined yourself with Kate, Lord Effingham." "I hope not; but Miss Vernon must grant Byron's description to be perfect," he replied. "Yes, but his is the description of 'Woman's Love,' added Lady Desmond, "no man ever felt the tenderness-- 'Unmoved by absence, firm in every clime, And still, oh, more than all, untired by time.' which he ascribes to the Corsair." "And very few women either, Lady Desmond," said the Colonel. "Certainly not a man so pre-occupied by himself, that personal injury or disappointment, could drive him into warfare with his kind, as Conrad is described to have been," cried Kate, "it is not such a character that could experience affection so exquisitely self-forgetful. 'Which, nor defeated hope, nor baffled wile, Could render sullen, were she near to smile, Nor anger fire, nor sickness fret to vent, On her, one murmur of his discontent, Which still with joy could meet, with calmness part, Lest that his look of grief, should reach her heart.'" Her listeners were silent for a few moments, after the tones of her sweet voice, which had breathed these lines with so true, so tender an emphasis, had ceased. Lord Effingham raised himself from his recumbent position, with a sudden gleam of light in his deep-set eyes. "Then what description of man do you think likely to feel such love?" asked Lady Desmond. "One whom we both knew and loved, might have felt thus, Georgy, and he, indeed, _was_ a good man." "The contradictions of human nature are incomprehensible, even to profounder philosophers than you are, Miss Vernon," said the Earl, "and it is not always the most irreproachable characters who have loved most devotedly. But do you not think Conrad justified by the injuries hinted at, in bidding defiance to a world to which he felt himself superior?" "Yes, I admire Conrad, I confess," replied Lady Desmond. "I do not think hatred is ever grand," said Kate, rather timidly. "But it is very natural, sometimes, Miss Vernon," observed Dashwood. "Miss Vernon would have us turn first one cheek and then the other to be smitten," said Lord Effingham. "Yes," said Miss Vernon, colouring, but composed, "I would in that sense in which we were recommended to do so. If Conrad could have loved, as Byron describes, his sense of wrong would have led him to feel a noble pity for his injurers; revenge would have been merged in an effort to teach them truth by forgiveness; and which is the grandest creature, the man who, freed from the petty dominion of self, can look down on his own passions from a real eminence, or he who is their willing slave; before whose frown