"Do not question me on that head, Isabella! Let me speak of myself--for it is sweet to be commiserated by such as you! My life for some time past has been a scene of almost unceasing misery. When I came of age I found my vast property dissipated by him to whom it was entrusted. And other circumstances gave a new and unpleasant aspect to those places which were dear to me in my childhood. What wild hopes, in early life, had I there indulged,--what dreams for the future had there visited my mind in its boyhood!--what vain wishes, what strong yearnings, what ambitious aspirations had there first found existence! When I returned to those spots, after an absence of two years, and thought of the feelings that there once agitated my bosom, and contrasted them with those which had displaced them,--when I traced the history of each hope from its inception there, and followed it through the vista of years until its final extinction,--when I thought how differently my course in life had been shaped from that career which I had there marked out, and how vain and futile were all the efforts and strivings which I exerted against the tide of events and the force of circumstances,--I awoke, as it were from a long dream,--I opened my eyes upon the path which I should thenceforth have to pursue, and judged of it by the one I had been pursuing;--I saw the nothingness of men's lives in general, and the utter vanity of the main pursuits which engross their minds, and waste their energies;--and I then felt convinced that I was indeed but an instrument in the hands of another, and that the ends which I had obtained had not been those for which I had striven, but which the Almighty willed! So is it with me now, Isabella. I had planned a dream--a dream of Elysium, with which to cheer and bless the remainder of my existence; and, behold! like all the former hopes and aspirations of my life, this one is also suddenly destroyed!" "How know you that it is destroyed?" inquired Isabella, casting down her eyes. "Oh! I am unworthy of you, Isabella--I do not deserve you; and yet it was to your hand that I aspired;--you were the star that was to irradiate the remainder of my existence! Oh! I could weep--I could weep, Isabella, when I think of what I might have been, and what I am!" "You say that you aspired to my hand," murmured the lovely Italian maiden, casting down her large dark eyes and blushing deeply; "you did me honour!" "Silence, Isabella--silence!" interrupted Richard. "I dare not now hear the words of hope from _your_ lips! But I love thee--I love thee--God only knows how sincerely I love thee!" "And shall I conceal my own feelings with regard to you, Richard?" said Isabella, approaching him and laying her delicate and beautifully modelled hand lightly upon his wrist.