and things which
her pining affections once, as it were, overlooked and overshot. She
could feel grateful for all the advantages her station and wealth
procured her; she could cull the roses in her reach, without sighing for
the amaranths of Elysium.

If the great have more temptations than those of middle life, and if
their senses of enjoyment become more easily pampered into a sickly
apathy, so at least (if they can once outlive satiety) they have many
more resources at their command. There is a great deal of justice in
the old line, displeasing though it be to those who think of love in
a cottage, "'Tis best repenting in a coach and six!" If among the
Eupatrids, the Well Born, there is less love in wedlock, less quiet
happiness at home, still they are less chained each to each,--they have
more independence, both the woman and the man, and occupations and
the solace without can be so easily obtained! Madame de Ventadour, in
retiring from the mere frivolities of society--from crowded rooms, and
the inane talk and hollow smiles of mere acquaintanceship--became more
sensible of the pleasures that her refined and elegant intellect could
derive from art and talent, and the communion of friendship. She drew
around her the most cultivated minds of her time and country. Her
abilities, her wit, and her conversational graces enabled her not only
to mix on equal terms with the most eminent, but to amalgamate and
blend the varieties of talent into harmony. The same persons, when met
elsewhere, seemed to have lost their charm; under Valerie's roof every
one breathed a congenial atmosphere. And music and letters, and all that
can refine and embellish civilized life, contributed their resources to
this gifted and beautiful woman. And thus she found that the _mind_ has
excitement and occupation, as well as the heart; and, unlike the latter,
the culture we bestow upon the first ever yields us its return. We talk
of education for the poor, but we forget how much it is needed by
the rich. Valerie was a living instance of the advantages to women
of knowledge and intellectual resources. By them she had purified her
fancy, by them she had conquered discontent, by them she had grown
reconciled to life and to her lot! When the heavy heart weighed down the
one scale, it was the mind that restored the balance.

The spells of Madame de Ventadour drew Maltravers into this charmed
circle of all that was highest, purest, and most gifted in the so