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nosyllable, or seeming incoherent expression, a volume was unfolded; when the luminous region of genius, opening around them each for a moment, would sparkle with a beam caught from the scintillation of the other's fire; each would anticipate the other's idea, and explain them to themselves. But transient and unfrequent was the sacred communion of feeling and of mind :—the world would still rudely rush between; prudence would hang its icicle on the glowing soul; and duty, with an iron grasp, check the throbbing pulse of the tender heart :-then the golden vision vanished, and all was cold and hopeless. Imogen believed she should rejoice that the duke made not the faintest attempt to renew his intimacy with her, or to visit at her house; but she felt that she regretted it. While the chevalier, still maintaining his boundless empire in her esteem, lost with an hourly decrease his influence over her conduct, it was in vain he advised with the solicitude of a friend,

or the authority of a guardian. Imogen, involved, borne away, alternately the sport of her feelings or her ambition, seeking to conceal the wants of her heart beneath the trophies of her vanity, evinced in her conduct that genius and common mon sense bear no inseparable relation to each other; and that even the virtues of the heart and the understanding are sometimes but remotely connected: for, while her charities flowed like an abundant and devious stream from the rich source of exhaustless benevolence, her justice slumbered; and the industrious creditor was frequently sent empty handed from her door, because the indigent petitioner had already left it no longer indigent. While her open hand was humanely stretched forth to lead drooping merit from the cell of obscurity, it was of necessity closed on the claimant whose wants should have been satisfied, because her feelings and her taste had got the start of her equity; and while the name of Imogen de St. Dorval

called a blush of pleasure on the haggard cheek of misery, and awakened a beam of joy in the eye of neglected genius, justice sued in vain for that which generosity lavished with indiscriminate profusion....

Meantime the Parisian court continued its winter campaign of pleasure with unabating spirit, and Imogen continued to frequent the Louvre, and to shine the brightest of its ornaments. The king himself invited her to accompany the court to Fontainbleau, whither he was going for a few days to enjoy the pleasures of the chase -the pride of Imogen was flattered by the invitation, but her heart denied its interest; for indisposition prevented the duke de Beauvilliers from attending the royal train, and the chevalier de Sorville refused the offer of an invitation from the duchess de Guise.

Imogen, whose drift had long been to appear ever thing but what she was, to affect gaiety even to dissipation, and to pursue the phantom pleasure beyond the

boundary of all rational moderation, appeared on this occasion with unusual taste and characteristic splendor. Mounted on a white palfrey, the brilliant crescent sparkling on her beautiful brow, the sandal betraying the symmetry of her fineturned ancle, the quiver suspended from her shoulder, and a bow in her hand, she appeared amidst the splendid train of Dian like the presiding deity of the chase. Here, as in every other instance, the person of Imogen received its greatest charm from the power of her genius and her taste; and even the beauty of the duchess de Beaufort was eclipsed by the whim and originality of the countess de St. Dorval.

The second day of the stag-hunt all the ladies of the court (who the day before had appeared-dressed according to the unrefined custom of the times on such occasions, en cavalier) adopted the habit à la Diane: the light and modest drapery of this habiliment converted the intrepid votarists of the chase into the attendant

nymphs of the goddess of chastity, while many sportive vaudevilles and arch epigrams were the result of this suden transformation. During this period of festive gaiety Imogen rather sustained than enjoyed her part: her senses were bewildered, her vanity gratified, but her heart was untouched; and the eye which emanated the brighest beams of pleasure during the day, at night drops tears which flowed not from the source of ecstacy.

After an absence of four days, Imogen returned to Paris, weary of amusement— weary of herself; yet anxious that the celebrity which had attended her in her expedition should have arrived before her. She called immediately for her porter's book, and ran her eye over the names of those who had called in her absence; there were fewer women and more men than usual, but among the latter that of the duke de Beauvilliers did not appear. The evening of her return was that on which the wits and literati of Paris assembled

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