ETHEL CHURCHILL :

OR,

THE TWO BRIDES.

BY THE AUTHOR OF

"THE IMPROVVISATRICE," "FRANCESCA CARRARA,"

"TRAITS AND TRIALS OF EARLY LIFE,"

ETC. ETC.

"Yet knowing something-dimly though it be;
And, therefore, still more awful of that strange
And most tumultuous thing, the heart of man.
It chanceth oft that, mix'd with nature's smiles,
My soul beholds a solemn quietness

That almost looks like grief, as if on earth

There were no perfect joy, and happiness

Still trembled on the brink of misery.". WILSON.

IN THREE VOLUMES.

VOL. II.

LONDON:

HENRY COLBURN, PUBLISHER,

GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.

M.DCCC.XXXVII.

LONDON:

PRINTED BY J. MES, CASTLE STREET,

LEICESTER SQuare.

ETHEL CHURCHILL.

CHAPTER I.

THE CORONATION.

What memories haunt the venerable pile!
It is the mighty treasury of the past,
Where England garners up her glorious dead.
The ancient chivalry are sleeping there
Men who sought out the Turk in Palestine,
And laid the crescent low before the cross.

The sea has sent her victories: those aisles
Wave with the banners of a thousand fights.
There, too, are the mind's triumphs-in those tombs
Sleep poets and philosophers, whose light

Is on the heaven of our intellect.

The very names inscribed on those old walls

Make the place sacred.

LADY MARCHMONT TO SIR JASPER

MEREDITH.

I SUPPOSE, my dear uncle, that we shall all

now come to our senses

- that is, those who

have any senses to which they could come

VOL. II.

B

---

for the coronation is over, We have talked of nothing during the last six weeks, but ermine and purple velvet. The day has been devoted to walking up and down the room, practising the stately pace with which we were to enter the abbey; and all night to dreaming that none looked so well as ourselves. Peers have been at a premium - that is, the unmarried ones; not an heiress but would have waved settlements altogether for the sake of walking in the procession. I can assure you I felt quite glad that I was married-glad for the first and last time, peut-être.

Will you believe me, dearest uncle, when I say, that there are times when I could almost wish that I loved my husband? I often feel, in spite of the perpetual gaiety in which I live, so lonely and so unvalued. One cannot always be amused, one would wish sometimes to be interested. How often have I feelings that crave for sympathy, and thoughts eager for communication! Lord Marchmont would enter as little into the feeling as he could understand the thought. Every day shews

me more forcibly the narrowness of his mind, and the coldness of his heart. I do not believe that, in the whole course of his life, he had ever one lofty aspiration, or one warm and generous emotion. He is selfish, but it is selfishness on a singularly small scale he is scarcely to be called ambitious; for his desires extend no further than a riband and a title the wish to influence or to control his fellow men by talent and by exertion, would never enter the vacant space called his mind. He loves money, because it is the only shape that power takes, which he can comprehend. Moreover, he delights in its small miserable enjoyments; he likes a fine house, fine dresses, and fine dinners; they are the material pleasures of which alone he is capable.

I am like a plant brought from the kind and genial air of your affection, into a cold and bright atmosphere e-a frosty day in winter is for ever around me; while the chill hardens my nature, and I shall soon become a very icicle. What would Lord Marchmont do with