ften administered consolation to his unhappy
mistress over her brother's tomb, and who knelt by the side of her dying
couch, assured many a sorrowful vassal, and many a sympathising pilgrim
who loved to listen to the mournful tale, that her death was indeed a
beatitude; for he did not doubt, from the distracted expressions that
occasionally caught his ear, that the Holy Spirit, in that material form
he most loves to honour, to wit, the semblance of a pure white dove,
often solaced by his presence the last hours of Imogene de Charolois!

THE CONSUL'S DAUGHTER

CHAPTER I.

_Henrietta_

AT ONE of the most beautiful ports in the Mediterranean Major Ponsonby
held the office of British Consul. The Parliamentary interest of the
noble family with which he was connected had obtained for him this
office, after serving his country, with no slight distinction, during
the glorious war of the Peninsula. Major Ponsonby was a widower, and his
family consisted of an only daughter, Henrietta, who was a child of
very tender years when he first obtained his appointment, but who had
completed her eighteenth year at the period, memorable in her life,
which these pages attempt to commemorate. A girl of singular beauty
was Henrietta Ponsonby, but not remarkable merely for her beauty. Her
father, a very accomplished gentleman, had himself superintended her
education with equal care and interest. In their beautiful solitude,
for they enjoyed the advantage of very little society save that of
those passing travellers who occasionally claimed his protection and
hospitality, the chief, and certainly the most engaging pursuit of Major
Ponsonby, had been to assist the development of the lively talents of
his daughter, and to watch with delight, not unattended with anxiety,
the formation of her ardent and imaginative character: he had himself
imparted to her a skilful practice in those fine arts in which he
himself excelled, and a knowledge of those exquisite languages which
he himself not only spoke with facility, but with whose rich and
interesting literature he was intimately acquainted. He was careful,
also, that, although almost an alien from her native country, she should
not be ignorant of the progress of its mind; and no inconsiderable
portion of his income had of late years been expended in importing from
England the productions of those eminent writers of which we are justly
as proud as of the heroes under whose flag he