asleep in their vapoury cell.

As he passed through the crowded chambers, in which his spirit felt a happy solitude, the conversations of Mr. Athelstone often occurred to him; and he leaned pensively against many a rosy-wreathed arcade, musing on the prophetic lessons of his earliest friend.

All around was prosperity and enjoyment. But he recollected, that his uncle had said, "sweet are the uses of adversity!—Bitter to the taste, but aromatic in effect, they preserve nature from corruption. Man, in the indolence of repletion, breaks out with infinite disorders; and like the ocean, whose constant motion keeps its waters pure, requires exercise of mind and body. If it be not active to good, it will be to evil, for what lies between is stagnation. Unchanging prosperity cloys by possession; and the sated spirit looks around for new excitements. It is then that the passions and the appetites wander abroad in the stimulating search, and are easily tempted to forbidden paths." The Pastor of Lindisfarne had once paused on the page of Shakespeare, which his nephew was reading to his cousins:—

"Not love, my children," cried the venerable instructor; "love was bestowed by heaven on man, to be a help-mate to his labours. It is wantonness, that is the offspring of idleness. But the son of the bondswoman, arrays himself like the heir of promise, and the sons and daughters of earth, are a while mocked by his pretensions!"

When Louis saw this scene performed before him, he thought how melancholy it was to behold the cheat; how wretched to see the blessings of life transformed into its bane. To view men and women of rank and talents, and abundant power to become the benefactors and examples of mankind, immerse all in one broad system of selfishness, till a dangerous delusion spread over every faculty, and the character exhibited one mass of sentimental weakness, intemperate passions, splendid follies, and hardened vice!

In many of these parties, Louis met Duke Wharton; but he never staid more than a few minutes, though those few were hailed by an adulation that might have detained a prouder spirit. He ever left sighs behind; and Louis shared the regret; though still his friend passed him by unheeding; except, sometimes by a smile from a distance, or a glance of the eye, as they mingled in the crowd.

By a similar wordless communion, Louis found the impression he had made on the Electress, was not effaced. In riding through the Prato, he often met her carriage; and she always leaned forward, with looks he could not mistake; and when she thought herself unobserved, she kissed her hand to him, with all the eagerness of suppressed, but ardent gratitude. He generally gazed wistfully after her carriage; for the image of Wharton united with her idea. He was her counsellor, her friend. How great must be her qualities, to have secured such a distinction!—Louis would not believe that she could have been privy to the murderous policy of some of her agents: he had seen enough in his last interview, to excite his fancy to complete the flattering picture; and where his imagination kindled, his heart was too apt to glow.

Things were in this state, when the Imperial family, and with them the Duke de Ripperda, arrived suddenly from the country. As soon as he alighted at his own house, Louis flew to welcome him.

"Follow me," replied the Duke.

Louis saw a contraction on his father's brow, which he noted as a herald of disagreeable tidings, yet he did not linger in obeying. They entered the saloon.

"I see you anticipate what I have to tell you," said the Duke. "The Empress is resolved on your marrying her favourite."

Louis was momentarily shocked by this announcement, but rallying himself with the hope that he had offended Otteline past forgiveness, he answered; "could I be weak enough to second the Empress's wishes; after what I said to Countess Altheim in our last conference, she must reject me." "If she loved you she would. But as it is all one to her, by what means she ascends to distinction; she cares not whether it be on your heart, or over her own delicacy. The Empress, too, forgets her own consequence, in eagerness to aggrandise her favourite. She protests that you have given Otteline every proof of attachment; that circumstances demanded it; and your honour is pledged to redeem the reputation she has lost on your account."

As his father recapitulated her patroness's discourse, in which, more earnest than judicious, she allowed too much of the selfish aim in the views of her friend to be seen; the entire remains of Louis's infatuation, (which still lurked in the shape of pity), passed away like a mist; and with faculties, at once cleared from every suggestion of vanity or tenderness, he strongly declared that he never would marry Countess Altheim. He allowed, that he had shewn too many signs of headlong passion; but he repeated, in his extremest phrenzy, he had warned her that he was at his father's disposal alone: and, for her reputation being sacrificed, that could be no longer an argument, since the avowed object of his visits to the Empress would sufficiently confute the slander grounded on them.

"It must not be avowed that your discovered visits to these apartments were to the Empress. The Emperor knows that you negociated with Sinzendorff; but am I to remind you, that should he ever suspect her private interference in the affair, his latent jealousy would find its object, and the consequence I need not repeat."

"Then," exclaimed Louis, in a sudden agony of spirit, "I am lost!"

"Not if your father can extricate you," returned the Duke; "but I fear you must marry her."

Though his heart had just told him the same, the words uttered by his father were like a death-stroke; and knocking his clenched hand upon his breast, he groaned aloud.

"De Montemar," said the Duke, "does not the spirit you so devoutly dedicated to glory, does it not suggest the means of performing this hard act of duty to your country; and yet not allow it to trouble you beyond the present hour?"

"Impossible," returned he; "in marrying the Countess Altheim, I shall marry my disgrace and my abhorrence."

"The act must pass for that of headstrong passion; or, perhaps, a little more in your own way, as an act of romantic justice to the woman who has incurred dishonour for your sake.—Passion always finds its apology with men; so the world may smile, but it will forgive you; and when she is your wife——"

"My wife! never, never!" interrupted Louis, "my name shall never be rendered infamous by giving the world to suppose that it was possible for me to make her my wife, whom even her future husband could persuade from virtue. How could the Empress sully her matron-lips with the vile suggestion? I never dishonoured the Countess Altheim, in word or deed; and I will not act as if I had been such a villain. I will not brand myself as a seducer, a dupe, or a madman! One of the three he must be, who unites himself to the reputation she has incurred, by her own arts and follies alone!"

The Duke permitted him to exhaust himself before he again spoke.

Equally averse with Louis, to his son's union with the mere minion of any crowned