"I am ill," said Imogen faintly, and endeavouring to give another turn to the suspicions of her servant.

"What, lady, a sickness about the heart, "I warrant?" returned Beatrice.

Imogen shook her head, and wept afresh. "Poor dear lady!" exclaimed Beatrice, "that is a woful disorder. I had a cousin " who died of it, although he wore a sca"pular round his neck which had been "rubbed on the jaw-bone of St. Paul. It "came on all of a sudden after he had "finished a game of quoits, by which he "lost the last farthing he was worth."He died shortly after; and his poor chil"dren are now begging through the "world. Christ be good to us!"

Imogen arose, dried her eyes, endeavoured to conceal her emotion, and desired Beatrice to give orders to the porter to deny her to all who should call. Beatrice looked surprised, but flew to obey her; and Imogen, collecting the papers which lay scattered on the table, retired to her bou

doir; and, having divested herself of all her ornaments, spent the rest of the day in pacing her chamber with that restless agitation, that vague and desultory state of mind, which can repose on no one point of reflection, which can form no determinate plan of conduct. Thought rushed after thought in tumultuous emotion, and chased each other down as they successively arose.

At the usual hour a sumptuous dinner was served up; and Imogen, to avoid the surmises of impertinent curiosity in her domestics, descended to the salon-à-manger. A number of covers were laid, but for the first time laid in vain; for Imogen for the first time dined alone. She shuddered as she contemplated the solitary splendor by which she was surrounded and, having trifled with some sweetmeats, which a tear more than once moistened, she arose, and passed on to her own apartment, amidst a numerous range of domestics splendidly habited.

The grey light of a winter's evening, the faint beam of an almost-extinguished fire, which burnt in a brasier of a beautiful antique form, dimly lighted up the room, which Imogen still continued to pace with an undeviating step. The magnificent salon-à-manger, the sumptuouslycovered table, the crowd of luxurious and indolent domestics, still haunted her conscience; while the sickly train of misery, the imprisoned tradesman, the impoverished farmer, the bankrupt merchant, and the oppressed peasant, rose in sad succession on her memory. The forms of de Beauvilliers and de Sorville closed the visionary procession which remorse had conjured up. The gloom seemed to thicken round her. With a mind almost frenzied she flew to the saloon; it was beautifully illuminated, but it was empty, and darkness still hung on the mind of its solitary mistress. The porter as usual sent in his book; two names only were registered in it during the day, the names of an ingrate

and a creditor, de Servin and de Sancy. Imogen trembled as she read, and returned the book in silence. The agent's letter, which she expected would have enabled her to cancel her debt to de Sancy, had now arrived, but what had been its contents she shuddered to remember.

Wearied by the agitation of mind and body she had sustained, she retired early to bed, but not to rest. Conscience, like the hag of midnight's witching dream, still pressed a deadly weight upon her bosom ; and even in the transient repose which exhausted nature snatched from woe, the visions of remorse hovered round her pillow, and chased the spirit of slumber that would have lulled her cares into momentary oblivion.

CHAP. XXXV.

Un alma granda

E teatro a se stissa-ella en segretto

S'approva e si condemna

E placida e secura

Del volgo spittatore l'aura non cura.

METASTASIO.

Left and abandoned by her velvet friends.

SHAKESPEARE.

THE next morning Imogen arose rather wearied than refreshed by the short and harassing slumbers of the night; unable to form any independent plan of conduct, while the faintest hope of awakening an interest in the bosom of de Sorville lived

in her own. So long accustomed to repose on his better judgment in every exigency, and, till within the last two months of her life, to be guided by his opinion and governed by his advice, she could now decide on nothing, until she made one struggle to regain that inestimable friendship