Lionel flung his arm round the artist’s broad breast. “Vance, you are cruel!” It was his turn to console the painter, as the painter had three nights before _a propos_ of the same Mr. Darrell consoled him. Vance gradually sobered down, and the young men walked forth in the moonlight. And the eternal stars had the same kind looks for Vance as they had vouchsafed to Lionel. “When do you start?” asked the painter, as they mounted the stairs to bed. “To-morrow evening. I miss the early train, for I must call first and take leave of Sophy. I hope I may see her again in after life.” “And I hope, for your sake, that if so, she may not be in the same coloured print, with Lady Selina Vipont’s eyeglass upon her!” “What!” said Lionel, laughing; “is Lady Selina Vipont so formidably rude?” “Rude! nobody is rude in that delightful set. Lady Selina Vipont is excruciatingly--civil.” CHAPTER XVIII. Being devoted exclusively to a reflection, not inapposite to the events in this history nor to those in any other which chronicles the life of men. There is one warning lesson in life which few of us have not received, and no book that I can call to memory has noted down with an adequate emphasis. It is this: “Beware of parting!” The true sadness is not in the pain of the parting, it is in the When and the How you are to meet again with the face about to vanish from your view! From the passionate farewell to the woman who has your heart in her keeping, to the cordial good-by exchanged with pleasant companions at a watering-place, a country-house, or the close of a festive day’s blithe and careless excursion,--a cord, stronger or weaker, is snapped asunder in every parting, and Time’s busy fingers are not practised in re-splicing broken ties. Meet again you may; will it be in the same way?--with the same sympathies?--with the same sentiments? Will the souls, hurrying on in diverse paths, unite once more, as if the interval had been a dream? Rarely, rarely! Have you not, after even a year, even a month’s absence, returned to the same place, found the same groups reassembled, and yet sighed to yourself, “But where is the charm that once breathed from the spot, and once smiled from the faces?” A poet has said, “Eternity itself cannot restore the loss struck from the minute.” Are you happy in the spot on which you tarry with the persons whose voices are now melodious to your ear? beware of parting; or, if part you must, say not in insolent defiance to Time and Destiny, “What matters!--we shall soon meet again.” Alas, and alas! when we think of the lips which murmured, “Soon meet again,” and remember how in heart, soul, and thought, we stood forever divided the one from the other, when, once more face to face, we each inly exclaimed, “Met again!”