itself;
its experience profits no others. In no two lives does love play the
same part or bequeath the same record.

I know not whether I am glad or sorry that the word "love" now falls on
my ear with a sound as slight and as faint as the dropping of a leaf in
autumn may fall on thine.

I volunteer but this lesson, the wisest I can give, if thou canst
understand it: as I bade thee take art into thy life, so learn to look
on life itself as an art. Thou couldst discover the charm in Tasso; thou
couldst perceive that the requisite of all art, that which pleases, is
in the harmony of proportion. We lose sight of beauty if we exaggerate
the feature most beautiful.

Love proportioned adorns the homeliest existence; love disproportioned
deforms the fairest.

Alas! wilt thou remember this warning when the time comes in which it
may be needed?

E----- G-------.

BOOK II.

CHAPTER I.

It is several weeks after the date of the last chapter; the lime-trees
in the Tuileries are clothed in green.

In a somewhat spacious apartment on the ground-floor in the quiet
locality of the Rue d'Anjou, a man was seated, very still and evidently
absorbed in deep thought, before a writing-table placed close to the
window.

Seen thus, there was an expression of great power both of intellect and
of character in a face which, in ordinary social commune, might rather
be noticeable for an aspect of hardy frankness, suiting well with the
clear-cut, handsome profile, and the rich dark auburn hair, waving
carelessly over one of those broad open foreheads, which, according to
an old writer, seem the "frontispiece of a temple dedicated to Honour."

The forehead, indeed, was the man's most remarkable feature. It could
not but prepossess the beholder. When, in private theatricals, he had
need to alter the character of his countenance, he did it effectually,
merely by forcing down his hair till it reached his eyebrows. He no
longer then looked like the same man.

The person I describe has been already introduced to the reader as
Graham Vane. But perhaps this is the fit occasion to enter into
some such details as to his parentage and position as may make the
introduction more satisfactory and complete.

His father, the representative of a very ancient family, came into
possession, after a long minority, of what may be called a fair squire's
estate, and about half a million in moneyed investments, inherited on
the female side. Bo