canting, talking, professing piety-that spirit which it is the mistaken fashion of the times too much to mingle with what are, after all, in general, most sincere impressions.

But she wanted courage to explain her meaning to one whom she now began, indistinctly, to fear. She ceased to urge her point, and the Park was decided upon.

The Marchioness and Lady Fanny then took leave, in order to go to church-where Lady Fanny passed her time in looking about her, criticizing dresses and attitudes, and whispering, at times, her remarks to Lady Gertrude, who, always scornful and often cross, replied in short, pithy, sarcastic sentences; while the Marchioness, repeating every response, mechanically and aloud, her thoughts being employed on a thousand other things, considered herself as wonderfully exemplary, and was somewhat scandalized by the behaviour of her stepdaughters, with whom, however, she on no occasion whatsoever interfered.

Louisa was left alone with Lord William, who never went to church.

His religious opinions are easily explained: they are those of numbers of his class and stamp. With little examination, he had decided upon the whole business, as an invention of priests to keep the world in subjection-an invention still useful for the purpose of maintaining order and subordination among the lower ranks of society-and a superstition amiable and desirable, to a certain degree, in women.

Louisa, kneeling devoutly before him (for, as an exception to the never, he had regularly gone to church with her, during their sojourn in Wales), had sometimes appeared to his eyes as a lovely St. Catherine, in one of the divine representations of Correggio; or, at others, as a beautiful Magdalene, might we imagine her before sin and tears had stained her celestial countenance. And he had delighted himself with picturing the pencil of Raphael employed in giving immortality to such extreme beauty of form and expression; but, within his

mind, her piety excited neither sympathy nor the slightest portion of interest, as piety.

A Sunday in London presented to his imagination, a fashionable chapel, in the most chosen division of town, fitted up with pews of engrained oak, abundance of brass rods and crimson curtains-an exquisite preacher, with mellifluous voice, white and perfumed handkerchief, and well-rounded periods; or, a ranting, noisy, vain-glorious professor of piety, gesticulating to a set of silly, affected, pharisaical woman-followed by the Park, the Gardens, a dinner the most recherché, discussed in the company of some of the best wits about town; and, perhaps, a Sunday concert.

Had he been so minded, he might have found those even in the great Babylon itself, who would have recommended the words of truth by the simplicity and energy of their teaching-even he might have" remained to pray." But he was too indifferent to the whole matter to trouble himself with any inquiries upon the subject.

He therefore lounged over his Sunday paper; laughed at some of the jokes-too good for his innocent Louisa; and had the feeling to put the paper in his pocket, for which mark of interest, had she been aware of it, she would have thanked him. He then tossed off his last cup of coffee, gave her a kiss, and told her that they dined at eight; that half-a-dozen intimate friends would dine with them; hoped she would like the Park, and not tire herself; and so left her for another long day.

The usual routine of a London Sunday followed-the Park-the Gardens-the Zoological Gardens were now in vogue-the fashionable world having selected that day for the purpose of staring at the elephant, and giving nuts to the monkeys; the profane vulgar being then excluded, in order that the "toe of the artisan" might, by no possibility, impinge upon "the heel of the courtier," though one might have thought that the spectacle of a set of honest people and their families, enjoying a fine walk and amusing spectacle, on this their only day of

recreation, could have hurt neither the pride nor the nicety of any one.

Lady Fanny, without the slightest consideration for her companion, had driven and dragged her, during three consecutive hours, through these scenes, exhibiting her pale and beautiful sister-in-law-the phaton and adorable ponies, followed by two grooms on ponies equally adorable-to the admiring Park, and afterwards carrying her to the Gardens, where the lively young lady was quickly surrounded by a swarm of gay and gallant cavaliers, with whom she chatted away, while Louisa, tired to death, both of the lounge and the conversation, moved wearily along, surrounded by strangers, and separated from the only person for whose society she cared.

The late return-the toilette-the dinner-succeeded. Louisa, placed at the side of the table where Lord William presided, had taste to have enjoyed the agreeable conversation that there circulated that delightful union of wit, knowledge, and high breeding-of lively sally and brief, racy remark—of ease without familiarity, and fine manners without pretension, which is to be found, in perfection, in such assemblages, and in such assemblages alone; but, as her ill-star would have it, she, unused to fashionable fatigue, and wanting the iron frame of a fine lady, was so weary, faint, and thoroughly exhausted, by her previous exertions, that she could scarcely keep her chair, and did little credit, that day, to Lord William's taste in female beauty.

Lady Fanny flirted and laughed with a couple of young men.

Lady Gertrude, too proud to be a blue, and too sensible to be a flirt, condescended, however, to take some part in the general conversation, and to show, that, fine lady as she was, she was anything but an ignorant fine lady.

The Marchioness was, as usual, common-place and intolerable, teasing Louisa with care and notice, when all her prayers and aspirations were but to be let alone, and driving Lord William, to whom she was ever the

supremest of bores, almost desperate, by her ill-timed attentions to his pale and languid wife.

It was past two o'clock when Louisa retired to her lofty, her vast, her solitary apartments, and laid her aching head upon her pillow.

She felt a depression for which she could not herself account; but delightful as this day would have been to many, to her it had proved a sad, uninteresting scene. Was it that she felt obscurely a presentiment of the depth and breadth of the gulf which was about to separate her from her husband? the only being in this new world for whom she could feel the slightest interest, and whom she adored with the restless, unchastened vehemence of a tender, unschooled heart.

CHAPTER XIV.

So passed days and weeks, till they amounted to

months.

Louisa walked this new world a solitary stranger— as completely a stranger as if she had dropped from another planet. She neither understood others, nor found it possible to make others understand her.

Some circumstances were likewise peculiarly against her. One was the absence of Mrs. Digby, who was gone to Madeira with her son, and who, while she would have given consequence by her friendship, might, by the delicacy and prudence of her counsels, have saved her from many causes of uneasiness; while the cheerful good sense which distinguished her, might have proved a remedy to what was morbid in Louisa's feelings.

But a far more unfortunate circumstance than this, was the footing on which Lord William's mother-inlaw and sisters had established themselves in his family. They had, during his bachelor's life, always occupied, while in town, apartments in his house; and now, though they did not continue strictly to live with him, they came and went just as they thought proper, and were, one or other, continually imposing themselves upon Louisa. It was a thing of which she could not by possibility complain; and it was a matter about which Lord William was not likely to trouble himself. He was too little at home to observe what uncongenial companions they made for Louisa, and too careless of her happiness to remark the circumstance, if he had had the opportunity.

He went his own way, and left her to follow hers, as well as she could.

She might, without doubt, had fate so ordained, have found among the aristocracy, of which she now