l
herself would fain cherish--the deep, earnest, spiritual life and high
consecrated purpose that were with the Provencal maiden through all her
enforced round of gay festivals, light minstrelsy, tourneys, and Courts
of Love. Thus far had the story gone. Isabel had been writing a wild,
mysterious ballad, reverting to that higher love and the true spirit of
self-sacrifice, which was to thrill strangely on the ears of the
thoughtless at a contention for the Golden Violet, and which she had
adapted to a favourite air, to the extreme delight of the two girls.
To them the Chapel in the valley, Roland and his Adeline, were very
nearly real, and were the hidden joy of their hearts,--all the more
because their existence was a precious secret between the three sisters
and Miss King, who viewed it as such an influence on the young ones,
that, with more meaning than she could have explained, she called it
their Telemaque. The following-up of the teaching of Isabel and Miss
King might lead to results as little suspected by Lady Conway as
Fenelon's philosophy was by Louis XIV.

Lady Conway was several years older than her beautiful sister, and had
married much later. Perhaps she had aimed too high, and had met with
disappointments unavowed; for she had finally contented herself with
becoming the second wife of Sir Walter Conway, and was now his serene,
goodnatured, prosperous widow. Disliking his estate and neighbourhood,
and thinking the daughters wanted London society and London masters,
she shut up the house until her son should be of age, and spent the
season in Lowndes-square, the autumn either abroad, in visits, or at
watering-places.

Beauchastel was an annual resort of the family. Isabel was more
slenderly portioned than her half-sisters; and she was one of the
nearest surviving relations of her mother's cousin, Mr. Mansell, whose
large comfortable house was always hospitable; and whose wife, a great
dealer in goodnatured confidential gossip, used to throw out hints to
her great friend Lady Conway, that much depended on Isabel's
marriage--that Mr. Mansell had been annoyed at connexions formed by
others of his relations--but though he had decided on nothing, the dear
girl's choice might make a great difference.

Nothing could be more passive than Miss Conway. She could not remember
her mother, but her childhood had been passed under an admirable
governess; and though her own Miss Longman had left her, Miss King, the