“If Ida be a poem,” said Annabella rather coldly, “she is certainly one in blank verse,—a new version of ‘Young’s Night Thoughts,’ exceedingly admirable and sublime!” The countess had always professed herself attached to her cousin, with whom she had from childhood interchanged a thousand little tokens of affection. She would have done much to promote the happiness of Ida, or to avert from her any real sorrow, and yet—strange contradiction—Annabella never liked to hear warm praise of her friend. It almost appeared as though the countess considered the admiration accorded to her beautiful cousin as so much subtracted from herself. When just commendation of another excites an uneasy sensation in our minds, we need no supernatural power to recognise in it the fretting jar of the jealous chain which pride has fixed on our souls. Annabella was also at this time a little displeased with her cousin. Ida Aumerle, from motives of delicacy which the reader will understand though the countess could not, had declined repeated invitations to pay a long visit to Dashleigh Hall. Annabella, who was eager to show her new possessions to the friend of her youth, was hurt at what appeared to her to be coldness, if not unkindness. To be _easily offended_ is one of the most indubitable marks of pride, and from this Annabella was certainly not free. While the preceding conversation was proceeding in the drawing-room, a horseman, attended by a groom, rode up to the entrance of Dashleigh Hall. He was a man who had scarcely yet reached the meridian of life. His figure was graceful, though affording small promise of physical strength; his features well-formed, and of almost feminine delicacy, though the prevailing expression which sat upon them was one of conscious superiority,—now softening into condescension, now, at any real or imagined affront, rising into that of offended dignity. Reginald, Earl of Dashleigh—for this was he—seemed, figuratively speaking, never to be out of the cumbersome robes in which, on state occasions, he appeared as a peer of the realm. Whether he mingled in society, or conversed alone with his wife, proffered hospitality, or received it, he appeared to feel the weight of a coronet always encircling his brow. The question which he asked himself before entering upon any line of action, was less whether it were right or wrong, prudent or foolish, as whether it were worthy of Reginald, twelfth Earl of Dashleigh. Pride had kept the young nobleman from many of the vices and follies of his age; pride had prevented him from doing anything that might injure his character in the eyes of the world, and had led him to do many things which gained for him popular applause; but pride, at the best, is but a miserable substitute for a higher principle of action; its fruits may appear fair to the eye, but are dust and corruption within.