and who were, as he informed our hero, but newly arrived from their chateau in the country to a hotel at Paris, whither he was anxious to bring him that very night to supper; but Charles, having his mind solely pre-occupied with the idea of Geraldine, lent to the colonel a constrained attention, and excused himself from accompanying him, by pleading the lateness of the hour, to which, out of complaisance to the marchioness of T-, he would be compelled to remain.

Mrs. Blandford, however, not the marchioness of T, was the attraction which detained Plunket there, and to whom all his silent and respectful attention was devoted. She alone occupied every thought; and though, from an unwillingness to render his assiduities too particular, he seldom, during the night, conversed with her, yet he failed not to convince her, as well by his manner as by a few words addressed to her private ear, how much the sweet complaisance of her deG 4

meanour

meanour to her husband, and her triumph over all the meaner passions of anger and revenge, won his reverential esteem, and excited his warm admiration.

The arrival in Paris of the Wentworth family (to whom every polite attention on the part of captain Plunket was due, for the kindness with which he was received, and the friendly hospitality with which he was entertained at their chateau, near Marly) so occupied his time for five or six succeeding days, as left him little leisure to devote to Mrs. Blandford, whom he saw but for a few minutes each morning, unless in public, where the same polite but cold distance, the same uninviting reserve, in her manner towards the marquis of Waramour, still continued to merit and gain his approbation.

With a view of enjoying Geraldine's society more frequently, Plunket thought at first of introducing her to Mrs. and Miss Wentworth; but the latter would, on reflection he was well aware, appear to

such

such disadvantage in Mrs. Blandford's company, as must strengthen his disinclination to a union with that young lady, and create in him, by contrast, a too lively and dangerous admiration of the other. Indeed, so far was he now from regarding Horatia Wentworth with a tender interest, or even thinking her company barely agreeable, that her smiles and complaisance fell like drifted snow on a benighted traveller, obscuring every prospect, and chilling every pulse of life in his languid heart. He reproached himself with ingratitude, in not being able to meet, with reciprocal affection, the kindness of this worthy family, to his due sense of whose friendly regard, inclination strongly opposed what was urged by principle; but though his attendance was constant and unremitting, his heart took so little share in these assiduities, that he found their presence only a painful restraint on the freedom of his thoughts, and their civilities oppressive

and unwelcome, as tending to interrupt his attention to Mrs. Blandford.

Meantime Mrs. Blandford herself, neglected of her husband, (who had returned with double zest to the hazard-table), and carefully shunning the assiduities of the marquis of Waramour, to whom she ordered herself to be constantly denied, felt even still more severely the privation of captain Plunket's society, whose sympathy in the first case would have soothed wounded feeling, and whose approbation in the second would continue to encourage and confirm wavering resolution. Thus deprived, by a passion for play in her husband, by a sense of duty in herself, and of propriety in her friend, of the society she might have wished, or which might have amused her, Mrs. Oldenrig became her principal companion; and that lady, charmed with Mrs. Blandford's company, felt it her most pleasing duty to devise means for her entertainment.

In public, however, the attention of a friend of the same sex is not so gratifying to female vanity as the assiduities of the other; and Mrs. Blandford, unadorned of dress in a numerous assembly of the fashionables at Paris, felt herself (confined to the individual attention of Mrs. Oldenrig) unnoticed, overlooked, and most painfully neglected; while lady Castlegloss, blazing in jewels, attracted by the eclat which the restored homage of the marquis of Waramour gave her (so uncertain is general admiration), drew a crowd of gay, flattering worshippers round her fascinating circle. Sweeping gorgeously along, and swelling in every revolution of the apartment her numerous train, by deserters from the now-slighted beauty, the haughty baroness glanced, as she passed triumphantly on, an eye of disdain on the solitary Mrs. Blandford, and took her station near her, with malign intent to heighten her own triumph by the contrast of her rival's humiliation.