A month stole away as if it had been a day, and Lady Lodore was engaged to pass some weeks with another friend in a distant county. It was easily contrived, without contrivance, by Saville, that he should visit a relation who lived within a morning's ride of her new abode. The restriction placed upon their intercourse while residing under different roofs contrasted painfully with the perfect freedom they had enjoyed while inhabiting the same. Their attachment was too young and too unacknowledged to need the zest of difficulty. It required indeed the facility of an unobstructed path for it to proceed to the accustomed bourne; and a straw thrown across was sufficient to check its course for ever. The impatience and restlessness which Cornelia experienced during her journey; the rush of transport that thrilled through her when she heard of Saville's arrival at a neighbouring mansion, awoke her in an instant to a knowledge of the true state of her heart. Her pride was, happily for herself, united to presence of mind and fortitude. She felt the invasion of the enemy, and she lost not a moment in repelling the dangers that menaced her. She resolved to be true to the line of conduct she had marked out for herself--she determined not to love. She did not alter her manner nor her actions. She met Horatio with the same sweet smile--she conversed with the same kind interest; but she did not indulge in one dream, one thought--one reverie (sweet food of love) during his absence, and guarded over herself that no indication of any sentiment less general than the friendship of society might appear. Though she was invariably kind, yet his feelings told him that she was changed, without his being able to discover where the alteration lay; the line of demarcation, which she took care never to pass, was too finely traced, for any but feminine tact to discern, though it obstructed him as if it had been as high and massive as a city wall. Now and then his speaking eye rested on her with a pleading glance, while she answered his look with a frank smile, that spoke a heart at ease, and perfect self-possession. Indeed, while they remained near each other, in despite of all her self-denying resolves, Cornelia was happy. She felt that there was one being in the world who took a deep and present interest in her, whose thoughts hovered round her and whose mind she could influence to the conception of any act or feeling she might desire. That tranquillity yet animation of spirit--that gratitude on closing her eyes at night--that glad anticipation of the morrow's sun--that absence of every harsh and jarring emotion, which is the disposition of the human soul the nearest that we can conceive to perfect happiness, and which now and then visits sad humanity, to teach us of what unmeasured and pure joy our fragile nature is capable, attended her existence, and made each hour of the day a new-born blessing.