At sight of Mr. Vane, all her coldness and _nonchalance_ gave way to a gentle complacency; and when she spoke to him, her voice, so clear and cutting in the late _assaut d'armes,_ sank of its own accord into the most tender, delicious tone imaginable. Mr. Vane and she made love. He pleased her, and she desired to please him. My reader knows her wit, her _finesse,_ her fluency; but he cannot conceive how god-like was her way of making love. I can put a few of the corpses of her words upon paper, but where are the heavenly tones--now calm and convincing, now soft and melancholy, now thrilling with tenderness, now glowing with the fiery eloquence of passion? She told him that she knew the map of his face; that for some days past he had been subject to an influence adverse to her. She begged him, calmly, for his own sake, to distrust false friends, and judge her by his own heart, eyes, and judgment. He promised her he would. “And I do trust you, in spite of them all,” said he; “for your face is the shrine of sincerity and candor. I alone know you.” Then she prayed him to observe the heartlessness of his sex, and to say whether she had done ill to hide the riches of her heart from the cold and shallow, and to keep them all for one honest man, “who will be my friend, I hope,” said she, “as well as my lover.” “Ah!” said Vane, “that is my ambition.” “We actresses,” said she, “make good the old proverb, 'Many lovers, but few friends.' And oh, 'tis we who need a friend. Will you be mine?” While he lived, he would. In turn, he begged her to be generous, and tell him the way for him, Ernest Vane, inferior in wit and address to many of her admirers, to win her heart from them all. This singular woman's answer is, I think, worth attention. “Never act in my presence; never try to be eloquent, or clever; never force a sentiment, or turn a phrase. Remember, I am the goddess of tricks. Do not descend to competition with me and the Pomanders of the world. At all littlenesses, you will ever be awkward in my eyes. And I am a woman. I must have a superior to love--lie open to my eye. Light itself is not more beautiful than the upright man, whose bosom is open to the day. Oh yes! fear not you will be my superior, dear; for in me honesty has to struggle against the habits of my art and life. Be simple and sincere, and I shall love you, and bless the hour you shone upon my cold, artificial life. Ah, Ernest!” said she, fixing on his eye her own, the fire of which melted into tenderness as she spoke, “be my friend. Come between me and the temptations of an unprotected life--the recklessness of a vacant heart.” He threw himself at her feet. He called her an angel. He told her he was unworthy of her, but that he would try and deserve her. Then he hesitated, and trembling he said: “I will be frank and loyal. Had I not better tell you everything? You will not hate me for a confession I make myself?” “I shall like you better--oh! so much better!”