Well, my child, let us frankly grant that this foreigner has gained some hold on your thoughts, on your fancy, perhaps also on your heart. Do not fear that he will love you less enduringly, or that you will become alienated from him, because he is not an artist. If he be a strong nature, and with some great purpose in life, your ambition will fuse itself in his; and knowing you as I do, I believe you would make an excellent wife to an Englishman whom you honoured as well as loved; and sorry though I should be that you relinquished the singer’s fame, I should be consoled in thinking you safe in the woman’s best sphere,--a contented home, safe from calumny, safe from gossip. I never had that home; and there has been no part in my author’s life in which I would not have given all the celebrity it won for the obscure commonplace of such woman-lot. Could I move human beings as pawns on a chessboard, I should indeed say that the most suitable and congenial mate for you, for a woman of sentiment and genius, would be a well-born and well-educated German; for such a German unites, with domestic habits and a strong sense of family ties, a romance of sentiment, a love of art, a predisposition towards the poetic side of life, which is very rare among Englishmen of the same class. But as the German is not forthcoming, I give my vote for the Englishman, provided only you love him. Ah, child, be sure of that. Do not mistake fancy for love. All women do not require love in marriage, but without it that which is best and highest in you would wither and die. Write to me often and tell me all. M. Savarin is right. My book is no longer my companion. It is gone from me, and I am once more alone in the world. Yours affectionately. P. S.--Is not your postscript a woman’s? Does it not require a woman’s postscript in reply? You say in yours that you have fully made up your mind to renounce all thoughts of the stage. I ask in mine, “What has the Englishman to do with that determination?” CHAPTER IV. Some weeks have passed since Graham’s talk with Isaura in the garden; he has not visited the villa since. His cousins the D’Altons have passed through Paris on their way to Italy, meaning to stay a few days; they stayed nearly a month, and monopolized much of Graham’s companionship. Both these were reasons why, in the habitual society of the Duke, Graham’s persuasion that he was not yet free to court the hand of Isaura became strengthened, and with that persuasion necessarily came a question equally addressed to his conscience. “If not yet free to court her hand, am I free to expose myself to the temptation of seeking to win her affection?” But when his cousin was gone, his heart began to assert its own rights, to argue its own case, and suggest modes of reconciling its dictates to the obligations which seemed to oppose them. In this hesitating state of mind he received the following note:-- VILLA ------, LAC D’ENGHIEN.