emitted a faint sound; Imogen started: "Shall we put down this harp?" "No," said Imogen, "this I cannot part " with. It is dear to me for a thousand reasons. It is the gift of a friend also." It had been given her by the chevalier.The moment when she had received it was present to her. She was reading by her father's side in the little portico of the villa de Fiora when it arrived from Florence, and the chevalier placed it before her. The pleasure with which she pressed its chords, the delight which sparkled in the eyes of her parent and her friend, all arose to her memory. She was then innocent, happy, and proud in the consciousness of her well-tried virtue. What was she now! The contrast was too humiliating to her feelings. She could not conceal her tears; and, leaving her servants and the usurer to finish the inventory, she retired to her boudoir. "De Sorville! de Beauvilliers!" she passion ately exclaimed, "why are you not here "to witness the expiation of all my errors!" In a short time the usurer rejoined her. He read over the inventory, of which, as he read, the steward took a copy. Then, promising to bring her the money at an early hour the following morning, he departed, leaving Imogen deeply impressed with the almost-fatherly interest he took in her concerns, the liberality of his sentiments, and the uncommon generosity with which he had behaved to her on a point where her ignorance of business might have left her wholly at his mercy. CHAP. XXXVI. Ah! whither now are fled Those dreams of greatness; those unsolid hopes THOMSON. SOLITARY and alone, Imogen passed the rest of this eventful day, resigned to a train of reflection which no longer fluctuated between the goading recollection of her errors, and the wish, unaccompanied by the means, of reparation. Fixed, resolved, she determined on paying off and discharging her servants the following morning, on assembling her creditors, and cancelling her debts; and, having finally settled her affairs at Paris, to set off for the chateau de St. Dorval, far from that world by which she had been betrayed and deserted, to pass the rest of her days in retirement, and, from the reflection of that happiness she bestowed on others, steal one beam to illuminate the gloomy hopeless aspect of her own destiny. "My con"science appeased," she mentally exclaimed," the wounds of my feelings cica trized, if not healed; my principles re"stored to their dignity; my heart alone "will remain unsatisfied-that heart on "which alone I am, and ever have been, dependent for every hope of happiness." Imogen dared not pursue this dangerous train of thought. The strength of the heroine was no shield against the tenderness of the woman; and the soft instincts of nature triumphed, for a moment, over the powers of reason: her heart alternately glowed with the pure and elevated sentiments of friendship and gratitude, or throbbed with the feverish pulse of ardent but disappointed love. De Sorville and de Beauvilliers alternately filled her imagination, until the tender recollection of the lover and the friend subsided in the sad and agonizing conviction, that both were lost to her for ever. The next morning at an early hour the usurer waited on her. Imogen at his request produced the bills of the various articles he meant to purchase, and received, in spite of some delicate remonstrances, the full sum she had paid, or was to give, for them. On her collection of paintings, statues, &c. &c. she herself set the price paid for them in Italy; and her menage was disposed of at a valuation, including her carriages, horses, &c. &c. Imogen, in the course of the transaction, frequently expressed surprise, gratitude, and amazement, at a conduct so disinterestedly generous. The usurer replied: "My dear young lady, I perceive you are apt to be led away by the ardor of your immediate feelings: over-reached by the world's fraud, and still smarting 66 |