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CHAPTER XII.

Here's royal feasting! Here are lamps and flowers!
So thickly twined, that you would swear the buds
Grew from those starry cressets, and the flames,
Were but their lighted perfume. Here are roofs !
Old Titian's hand has laid his purple brush
Among those clouds. There Danae lies,
Lifting her blue and wonder-gazing glance
To the gold-dropping Heavens! Arcadia's here,
With all its crystal founts, blue mountain tops,
Deep meads, and bowers where winter dares not come
To kill the roses. There's a glorious shape,

Goddess or nymph, that sits beneath the trees,
Making them full of beauty; there one bends,
Listening the murmuring music of you stream,
That glitters in the crimson set o' the sun!"

Phineas Webb.

A FEW days subsequent, there was a grand fête given at the villa of Velasquez, in honour of the general triumph of Spain and Europe, to which Vaughan, along with a crowd of his brother officers, was invited. On such an occasion, he would not absent himself; but he wandered through the splendid apartments like a living spectre, a joyless figure, which turned the same gaze on all. There was mirth and revelry in those proud halls that evening. Every tongue was loud with animation; but he spoke to no one. All his

countrymen exhibited the natural joy of the prospect of returning to kind friends and true. To him alone the future was dark; and he felt that "welcome," unless pronounced by the lips he loved, would be almost a pang.

The band struck up some triumphant national airs. The hall resounded with acclamations. Vaughan turned moodily away; he felt how coldly public triumph stirs the mind, when private feelings have been keenly wrung. They drank to the health of the British heroes; and yet he felt as if all around was but falsehood and delusion. He turned into an ante-chamber, which, to his relief, he found vacant, and stood for some moments leaning his head and arm against one of the marble pilasters, like one exhausted by bodily fatigue.

The sound of footsteps roused him. The Donna Leonora had approached him unperceived. 66 Why, Signor Vaughan, why this dejection? Do you alone refuse to share our fête? Has the word 'country' no charm in your ear? Oh! when my period of exile was at an end, with what a bounding heart I prepared for my return, though it was to a land of desolation, and you are returning to one of peace and plenty, and to the smiles of your fair lady. Ah! you see Don Ferdinand has betrayed you, Senor. Trust me, she will take it but an ill compliment if you appear before her with that clouded brow."

"Spare your raillery, Donna Leonora. The smile of which you speak will not meet me; enjoyment, friendship, are to me henceforth but a name. I begin almost to look upon the world but as one vast desert, in which my own country appears the most barren spot of all.”

"Come, Senor, I must not hear such language; you are infected with some jealous mania;" (and she blushed as she pronounced the word.) "Yes, men of every age and country, I see, are all alike; all discontent, Ι all suspicion,-yet infinitely easy to be imposed upon after all. You are too impetuous. Permit me to undertake this unknown lady's defence. I know too well the misery of being the object of unfounded suspicion, not to pity one who is probably thus circumstanced." She spoke in a graver tone. "Senor, are you afraid to state your case fairly before me? Women are the fittest judges of each other's actions. Your sex know nothing of the nameless scruples, the secret springs, which sometimes actuate us. Be candid."

"So much kindness well deserves to be trusted. There is nothing new in my story. It is a tale five thousand year old. Young heads made giddy with sudden prosperityearly promises set at nought, and the heart that would have loved till death insulted and

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forgotten." He gave a slight sketch of his story.

"All women have a small portion of coquetry in their character. I know not this lady; but may she not have had only a little more than her share ?"

Vaughan disclaimed the idea with a vehemence that made the Donna smile. "No one could be freer from such a failing. She was superior to artifice." "Ay, Senor Vaughan, you would not be her lover, if you did not even now think her little short of perfection. Yes, I see you are ready to kiss the hand that dealt the blow; but let us, for argument's sake, suppose her to possess some female foibles; what is the language that your own immortal poet puts into the lips of one of his most fond and faithful heroines? Your Shakspeare is one of my favourite bards;" and she repeated, with a strong foreign accent, but much grace and naïveté of expression, Juliet's address to Romeo:

"Yet, if thou think'st I am too quickly won,
I'll frown, and be perverse, and say thee nay,
So thou wilt woo; but else, not for the world."

"No," said Vaughan, still more earnestly; "she is above all trifling, and at all events would never have employed it at such a time, when her coldness was liable to a so much deeper interpretation."

"May she not have addressed you in a moment of irritation? Can you recal no letter unanswered?-no careless expression? May not this father of whom she speaks have enforced her obedience by some tyrannical command? Is there no such thing as an obstinate and imperious parent? May not this letter have been looked over, even dictated by himself? If so, I can fancy the anguish with which it was penned, the tears which were shed over it. I interpret but ill, if her heart is not yours."

"Would to heaven it were," exclaimed Vaughan. "A light breaks in upon me. I will see her, she may have been deceivedI may have been maligned-her own words shall decide. We shall be immediately under orders for England: then, Catherine," said he, almost in soliloquy, "all shall be known at once, and forever."

Leonora had stood watching the varying expression of his features; then turning away as if not to obtrude upon his feelings, that were evidently in high agitation, she walked into an adjoining saloon. Vaughan, recovering from the meditations which had shaken him, perceived her absence, and followed to thank her. He found her contemplating a magnificent Italian picture. She looked round on his entrance, and with a smile of celestial rosy red, love's proper hue, congratulated

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