the lake.

The Villa d'Este was a-glitter with light. The great saloon which opened
on the water blazed with lamps; the terraces were illuminated with
many-colored lanterns; solitary candles glimmered from the windows
of many a lonely chamber; and even through the dark copses and leafy
parterres some lamp twinkled, to show the path to those who preferred
the scented night air to the crowded and brilliant assemblage within
doors. The votaries of hydropathy are rarely victims of grave
malady. They are generally either the exhausted sons and daughters of
fashionable dissipation, the worn-out denizens of great cities, or
the tired slaves of exciting professions,--the men of politics, of
literature, or of law. To such as these, a life of easy indolence, the
absence of all constraint, the freedom which comes of mixing with a
society where not one face is known to them, are the chief charms; and,
with that, the privilege of condescending to amusements and intimacies
of which, in their more regular course of life, they had not even
stooped to partake. To English people this latter element was no
inconsiderable feature of pleasure. Strictly defined as all the ranks of
society are in their own country,--marshalled in classes so rigidly that
none may move out of the place to which birth has assigned him,--they
feel a certain expansion in this novel liberty, perhaps the one sole
new sensation of which their natures are susceptible. It was in the
enjoyment of this freedom that a considerable party were now assembled
in the great saloons of the villa. There were Russians and Austrians
of high rank, conspicuous for their quiet and stately courtesy; a noisy
Frenchman or two; a few pale, thoughtful-looking Italians, men whose
noble foreheads seem to promise so much, but whose actual lives appear
to evidence so little; a crowd of Americans, as distinctive and as
marked as though theirs had been a nationality stamped with centuries of
transmission; and, lastly, there were the English, already presented
to our reader in an early chapter,--Lady Lackington and her friend Lady
Grace,--having, in a caprice of a moment, descended to see "what the
whole thing was like."

[Illustration: 98]

"No presentations, my Lord, none whatever," said Lady Lackington, as
she arranged the folds of her dress, on assuming a very distinguished
position in the room. "We have only come for a few minutes, and don't
mean to make acquaintances."

"Who is the l