Whom call we gay? That honour has been long The boast of mere pretenders to the name. The innocent are gay. The lark is gay, That dries his feathers saturate with dew Beneath the rosy cloud, while yet the beams Of dayspring overshoot the humble nest. Cowper. The morning after De Molton's departure, our two cousins were prepared for an excursion to Versailles, and were expecting the gentlemen who were to accompany them, when Lord Glenrith entered. Lady Westhope inquired what was become of Captain De Molton. "Gone," he replied: "he set off for England yesterday;--called home on some tiresome regimental business. But did you not see him? did you not hear from him? Very uncivil, faith! not at all like De Molton." "I wonder he did not call," said Lady Westhope: and she stole a look towards Blanche, who was so busily employed in tying her bonnet and putting on her shawl, with her back towards them, and her veil half covering her face, that she could not detect how she took this unexpected intelligence. The carriages of the rest of the party drew up in the street. Lord Glenrith ran down stairs to deliver a message to one of the Miss Elwicks, offering her Captain De Molton's seat in the barouche; when Lady Westhope remarked, "How strange in Captain De Molton!" "How mortifying!" replied Lady Blanche: "the idea of marrying may be foolish and imprudent, as you say, but he might leave me to find it out. I hate cold, calculating men, who do exactly what is right, and discreet, and proper; whose conduct nobody can find the least fault with. Such men may be esteemed, but they cannot expect to be loved. I almost think I should prefer a warm-hearted, impetuous person, who was generously wrong, to a wary, prudent one, who was coldly right. But what am I saying? The simple fact is, that the poor man did not happen to like me. I do not know why I should find fault with him because he did not fall in love with me!" And she tried to smile, and to treat the whole thing lightly. Lady Westhope could not help adding, "that she had thought, and indeed she did still think, that he was in love, notwithstanding his prudence." Lady Blanche had just time to reply, half bitterly, half jestingly, "that there could not be much love, if prudence could so completely master it;" when Lord Glenrith returned to hand them from their splendid apartments, down the dirty brick-stairs of a French hotel.