see it. There was his fault--he let me see it! It was my dream for many a year to show the humble folk from whom I came what my ambition and my capacity could make me; and I thought of myself as the proud mistress of Dalradern without a pang for all the misery the victory would cost me. Now the victory has escaped me, and I go back, so far as my own efforts are concerned, defeated! What next--ay, what next?” As the day wore on, every incident of her ordinary life rose before her. Nine o’clock. It was the hour the carriage came to take her to her bath. She bethought her of all the obsequious attention of her maid, that quiet watchfulness of cunning service, the mindful observance that supplies a want and yet obtrudes no thought of it. The very bustle of her arrival at the bathing-place had its own flattery. The eager attention, the zealous anxiety of the servants, that showed how, in her presence, all others were for the time forgotten. She knew well--is beauty ever deficient in the knowledge?--that many came each morning only to catch a glimpse of her. Her practised eye had taught her, even as she passed, to note what amount of tribute each rendered to her loveliness; and she could mark the wondering veneration here, the almost rapturous gaze of this one, and not unfrequently the jealous depreciation of that other. Eleven o’clock. She was at breakfast with Sir Within, and he was asking her for all the little events of the morning. And what were these? A bantering narrative of her own triumphs--how well she had looked--how tastefully she was dressed--how spitefully the women had criticised the lovely hat she swam in, and which she gave to some poor girl as she came out of the water--a trifle that had cost some “louis” a few days before. It was noon--the hour the mail arrived from Brussels--and Sir Within would come to present her with the rich bouquet of rare flowers, despatched each morning from the capital. It was a piece of homage he delighted to pay, and she was wont to accept it with a sort of queen-like condescension. “What a strange life of dreamy indulgence--of enjoyments multiplied too fast to taste--of luxuries so lavished as almost to be a burden--and how unreal it was all!” so thought she, as they drew near the tall chalk cliffs of the English coast, and the deck grew crowded with those who were eagerly impatient to quit their prison-house. For the first time for a long while did she find herself unnoticed and unattended to; none of that watchful, obsequious attention that used to track her steps was there. Now, people hurried hither and thither, collecting their scattered effects, and preparing to land. Not one to care for her, who only yesterday was waited on like royalty! “Is this your trunk, Miss?” asked a porter. “No; this is mine,” said she, pointing to a bundle. “Shall I carry it for you, my dear?” said a vulgar-looking and over-dressed young fellow, who had put his glass in his eye to stare at her.