contempt of those established forms which popular prejudice holds as sacred. Convinced of the insatiable malice with which envy ever pursues supposed or real superiority, she now almost lamented the possession of those acquirements which rendered her the object of its peculiar persecution; and almost panted to possess that common-place mind of humble mediocrity, which, unconscious of those powers that awaken ambition, or attract the shaft of envy, steals through life in sober tranquillity, equally free from censure or applause. "Alas!" she exclaimed, "how much "more respectable does the character of

the coldly-amiable madame de Rosemont "now appear than that of the flattered, "but condemned, lady de St. Dorval!"And yet that woman, now almost the ob'ject of my envy, was once the object of

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my compassion, if not of my contempt."

At that moment the lady de Rosemont was herself announced; and Imogen had scarcely wiped her last-shed tear from her

cheek, when the subject of her cogitation entered. Madame de Rosemont had come merely to bid farewell to her young friend. Anxious, she said, to return to her favourite residence, the chateau de Rosemont, she had seized on the opportunity of a nobleman and his family going to Picardy to accompany them, and intended to leave Paris the ensuing morning. She addressed Imogen with a warmth and cordiality unusual to her; pressed her not to delay her brother's happiness by unnecessary protraction; talked with some degree of energy on the extreme delicacy of her situation; and, kissing away the tear that stole down Imogen's cheek when she arose to depart, she exclaimed in a tone of pity and affection, "That that world, for which "alone she lived, was unworthy of her."

This kindness and solicitude, expressed by one from whom perhaps she neither expected nor felt she deserved it, touched Imogen to the heart; while in the last equivocal assertion of madame de Rosemont

she perceived a lurking delicate hint of the light in which that unworthy world now beheld her. Inconsequent as she had hitherto considered the character of her phlegmatic friend, she now looked on the loss of her matronly sanction and respectable society as a source of real regret; and, with a mind bowed down by mortification, and spirits depressed beyond the power of revival, from the successive and unpleasant incidents of the morning, she left orders to be denied to all who might call on her during the rest of the day; anxious to conceal from the world those agonizing feelings, whose poignancy its ingratitude and malice had roused. She again resumed her book; but her taste for such calm and sober pursuits was fled. She sat down to her harp, and arose from it in disgust. "To what purpose," said she, " continue to cultivate talents which have proved the bane of my peace?"

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She spent the rest of the day, therefore, in restless agitation, walking through

VOL. IV.

H

To

given rise to, were rather the result of obvious merit than violated decorum. soar above the multitude, to hold some distinguished place in society, had long been the most ardent of her desires:-she had obtained it.

ed,

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"And am I now," she proudly exclaim"to bend beneath those exertions which malicious dulness and envying 'stupidity are making to reduce me to their own level?-No, I will teach them that, though envy loves a lofty mark, it

may reach-but cannon pierce it."

Led on by this delusive sophistry, with which the vanity or the ambition of youth so frequently sanctifies its errors, the next day her doors were again thrown open to the giddy, the dissipated, the unprincipled, to fashionable folly, to witty vice, and dissolute rank. Her morning circle was only graced by the presence of two ladies, madames de Beuil and d'Entragues: but never had her levee been more crowded by gentlemen.

The duke de Montmorency was more than usually gallant, and the marquis de Sancy so pointed in his assiduities, as almost to distance every other claimant on her courted attention. She had just taken up her lute, and begun a pathetic little cantata of her own composition, while de Sancy in apparent ecstacy hung over the back of her chair, when the chevalier de Sorville, accompanied by the duke de Beauvilliers, entered the room. Imogen bowed her head, and attempted to continue her song; but her voice trembled, and her fingers produced only discord. Endeavouring to do away her apparent confusion, she abruptly dropt her pensive strain, and struck into a comic roundelay of exquisite melody, which she executed with peculiar point and humour. The room rung with applause; and she presented the lute to de Sancy.

"No," said he, putting it aside, "I dare "not touch the instrument, except you "have left some of your magic on the