ith which had not been returned. Such is the madness of
love! Such is the magic of beauty!

Music rose upon the air. Some huntsmen were practising their horns. The
triumphant strain elevated his high hopes, the tender tone accorded with
his emotions. He paced up and down the terrace in excited reverie, fed
by the music. In imagination she was with him: she spoke, she smiled,
she loved. He gazed upon her beaming countenance: his soul thrilled with
tones which, only she could utter. He pressed her to his throbbing and
tumultuous breast!

The music stopped. He fell from his seventh heaven. He felt all the
exhaustion of his prolonged reverie. All was flat, dull, unpromising.
The moon seemed dim, the stars were surely fading, the perfume of the
trees was faint, the wind of the woods was a howling demon. Exhausted,
dispirited, ay! almost desperate, with a darkened soul and staggering
pace, he regained his chamber.

CHAPTER XIV.

_Pride Has a Fall_

THERE is nothing more strange, but nothing more certain, than the
different influence which the seasons of night and day exercise upon the
moods of our minds. Him whom the moon sends to bed with a head full of
misty meaning the sun-will summon in the morning with a brain clear and
lucid as his beam. Twilight makes us pensive; Aurora is the goddess of
activity. Despair curses at midnight; Hope blesses at noon.

And the bright beams of Phoebus--why should this good old name be
forgotten?--called up our Duke rather later than a monk at matins, in
a less sublime disposition than that in which he had paced among the
orange-trees of Dacre. His passion remained, but his poetry was gone. He
was all confidence, and gaiety, and love, and panted for the moment when
he could place his mother's coronet on the only head that was worthy to
share the proud fortunes of the house of Hauteville.

'Luigi, I will rise. What is going on to-day?' 'The gentlemen are all
out, your Grace.'

'And the ladies?'

'Are going to the Archery Ground, your Grace.'

'Ah! she will be there, Luigi?'

'Yes, your Grace.'

'My robe, Luigi.'

'Yes, your Grace.'

'I forgot what I was going to say. Luigi!'

'Yes, your Grace.'

'Luigi, Luigi, Luigi,' hummed the Duke, perfectly unconscious, and
beating time with his brush. His valet stared, but more when his lord,
with eyes fixed on the ground, fell into a soliloquy, not a word of
which, most provokingly, was audible, except to my reader.

'H