from the dawn. How hard it is to convince youth, that sees all the
world of the future before it, and covers that future with golden
palaces, of the inequalities of life! In my fantastic and sublime
romance I looked out into that Great Beyond, saw myself orator,
statesman, minister, ambassador,--Heaven knows what,--laying laurels,
which I mistook for rent-rolls, at Fanny's feet.

Whatever Fanny might have discovered as to the state of my heart, it
seemed an abyss not worth prying into by either Trevanion or Lady
Ellinor. The first, indeed, as may be supposed, was too busy to think
of such trifles. And Lady Ellinor treated me as a mere boy,--almost
like a boy of her own, she was so kind to me. But she did not notice
much the things that lay immediately around her. In brilliant
conversation with poets, wits, and statesmen, in sympathy with the toils
of her husband or proud schemes for his aggrandizement, Lady Ellinor
lived a life of excitement. Those large, eager, shining eyes of hers,
bright with some feverish discontent, looked far abroad, as if for new
worlds to conquer; the world at her feet escaped from her vision. She
loved her daughter, she was proud of her, trusted in her with a superb
repose; she did not watch over her. Lady Ellinor stood alone on a
mountain and amidst a cloud.




CHAPTER II.


One day the Trevanions had all gone into the country on a visit to a
retired minister distantly related to Lady Ellinor, and who was one of