I do not think I shall ever get into
mine again. I am almost glad they have destroyed my chariot. I am sure I
shall never be able to drive in anything else now except a brougham.'

'Why did you not keep mine?'

'You are magnificent; too gorgeous and oriental for these cold climes.
You shower your presents as if you were in the East, which Lord
Valentine tells me you are about to visit. When do you leave us?'

'I think of going immediately.'

'Indeed!' said Lady Bertie and Bellair, and her countenance changed.
There was a pause, and then she continued playfully, yet as it were half
in sadness, 'I almost wish you had not come to my rescue this morning.'

'And why?' 'Because I do not like to make agreeable acquaintances only
to lose them.'

'I think that I am most to be pitied,' said Tancred.

'You are wearied of the world very soon. Before you can know us, you
leave us.'

'I am not wearied of the world, for indeed, as you say, I know nothing
of it. I am here by accident, as you were in the stoppage to-day. It
will disperse, and then I shall get on.'

'Lord Valentine tells me that you are going to realise my dream of
dreams, that you are going to Jerusalem.'

'Ah!' said Tancred, kindling, 'you too have felt that want?'

'But I never can pardon myself for not having satisfied it,' said Lady
Bertie and Bellair in a mournful tone, and looking in his face with her
beautiful dark eyes. 'It is the mistake of my life, and now can never be
remedied. But I have no energy. I ought, as a girl, when they opposed
my purpose, to have taken up my palmer's staff, and never have rested
content till I had gathered my shell on the strand of Joppa.'

'It is the right feeling' said Tancred. 'I am persuaded we ought all to
go.'

'But we remain here,' said the lady, in a tone of suppressed and elegant
anguish; 'here, where we all complain of our hopeless lives; with not
a thought beyond the passing hour, yet all bewailing its wearisome and
insipid moments.'

'Our lot is cast in a material age,' said Tancred.

'The spiritual can alone satisfy me,' said Lady Bertie and Bellair.

'Because you have a soul,' continued Tancred, with animation, 'still
of a celestial hue. They are rare in the nineteenth century. Nobody now
thinks about heaven. They never dream of angels. All their existence is
concentrated in steamboats and railways.'

'You are right,' said the lady, earnestly; 'and you fly from it.'

'I go for other purposes; I w