“I should,” said Caroline; “especially as he has just ordered his carriage to take him to his aunt, Lady B----, in Leicestershire.” “Oh! poor man!” said Rosamond, “now I do pity him.” “Because he is going to his aunt?” “No; Caroline--you are very cruel--because I am sure he is very much touched and disappointed by your refusal. He cannot bear to see you again. Poor! _poor_ Mr. Barclay! I have been shamefully ill-natured. I hope I did not prejudice your mind against him--I’ll go directly and take leave of him--poor Mr. Barclay!” Rosamond, however, returned a few minutes afterwards, to complain that Mr. Barclay had not made efforts enough to persuade Caroline to listen to him. “If he had been warmly in love, he would not so easily have given up hope. ‘None, without hope, e’er loved the brightest fair; But love can hope, where Reason should despair.’” “That, I think, is perfectly true,” said Rosamond. Never--begging Rosamond and the poet’s pardon--never--except where reason is very weak, or where the brightest fair has some touch of the equivocating fiend. Love, let poets and lovers say what they will to the contrary, can no more subsist without hope than flame can exist without fuel. In all the cases cited to prove the contrary, we suspect that there has been some inaccuracy in the experiment, and that by mistake a little, a very little hope has been admitted. The slightest portion, a quantity imperceptible to common observation, is known to be quite sufficient to maintain the passion; but a total exclusion of hope secures its extinction. Mr. Barclay’s departure was much regretted by all at Hungerford Castle, most, perhaps, by the person who expressed that regret the least, Lady Mary Pembroke--who now silently enjoyed the full chorus of praise that was poured forth in honour of the departed. Lady Mary’s common mode of enjoying the praise of her friends was not in silence; all she thought and felt usually came to her lips with the ingenuous vivacity of youth and innocence. Caroline had managed so well by not managing at all, that Lady Mary, far from guessing the real cause of Mr. Barclay’s sudden departure, repeatedly expressed surprise that her aunt Hungerford did not press him to stay a little longer; and once said she wondered how Mr. Barclay _could_ leave Hungerford Castle whilst Caroline was there; that she had begun to think he had formed an attachment which would do him more honour than his passion for Lady Angelica Headingham, but that she feared he would have a relapse of that fit of folly, and that it would at last end fatally in marriage.