These feelings, so well described by a man of genius, have probably been felt more or less by most young men who have within them any consciousness of talent, or any of that enthusiasm, that eager desire to have or to give sympathy, which, especially in youth, characterises noble natures. But after even one or two seasons in a great metropolis these feelings often change long before they are altered by age. Granville Beauclerc had already persuaded himself that he now detested, as much as he had at first been delighted with, a London life. From his metaphysical habits of mind, and from the sensibility of his temper, he had been too soon disgusted by that sort of general politeness which, as he said, takes up the time and place of real friendship; and as for the intellectual pleasures, they were, he said, too superficial for him; and his notions of independence, too, were at this time quite incompatible with the conventional life of a great capital. His present wish was to live all the year round in the country, with the woman he loved, and in the society of a few chosen friends. Helen quite agreed with him in his taste for the country; she had scarcely ever known any other life, and yet had always been happy; and whatever youthful curiosity had been awakened in her mind as to the pleasures of London, had been now absorbed by stronger and more tender feelings. Her fate in life, she felt, was fixed, and wherever the man she loved wished to reside, that, she felt, must be her choice. With these feelings they arrived at General Clarendon’s delightful house in town. Helen’s apartment, and Cecilia’s, were on different floors, and had no communication with each other. It was of little consequence, as their stay in town was to be but short, yet Helen could not help observing that Cecilia did not express any regret at it, as formerly she would have done; it seemed a symptom of declining affection, of which, every the slightest indication was marked and keenly felt by Helen, the more so because she had anticipated that such must be the consequence of all that had passed between them, and there was now no remedy.