scrutiny could have detected
in their light, one glance of unquiet or immodest passion. Her manner was
warm and unreserved toward Paul, because she had a right to love him, and
cared not who knew that she did so. Lucia's was as cold as snow, on the
contrary; yet it required no second glance to perceive that the coldness
was but the cover superinduced to hide passions too warm for revelation.
Her eye was downcast; yet did its stolen glances speak things, the secret
consciousness of which would have debased the other in her own estimation
beyond the hope of pardon. Her tongue was guarded, and her words slow and
carefully selected, for her imaginations would have made the brazen face
of the world blush for shame could it have heard them spoken.

Hortensia smiled to witness the manifest affection of her sweet child; but
the smile was, she knew not why, half mournful, as she said--

"You are unwise, my Julia, to show this truant how much you prize his
coming; how painfully his absence depresses you. Sages declare that women
should not let their lords guess, even, how much they are loved."

"Why, mother," replied Julia, her bright face gleaming radiantly with the
pure lustre of her artless spirit, "I _am_ glad to see him; I _do_ prize
his coming; I _do_ love Paullus. Why, then, should I dissemble, when to do
so were dishonest, and were folly likewise?"

"You should not tell him so, my child," replied the mother, "I fear you
should not tell him so. Men are not like us women, who love but the more
devotedly, the more fondly we are cherished. There is, I fear, something
of the hunter's, of the conqueror's, ardour, in their passion; the pursuit
is the great allurement; the winning the great rapture; and the prize,
once securely won, too often cast aside, and disregarded."

"No! no!" returned the girl eagerly, fixing her eyes on her lover's
features, as if she would read therein the outward evidences of that
nobility of soul, which she believed to exist within. "I will not believe
it; it were against all gratitude! all honor! all heart-truth! No, I will
not believe it; and if I did, Hortensia, by all the Gods, I had rather
live without love, than hold it on so vile a tenure of deceit. What,
treasure up the secrets of your soul from your soul's lord? No! no! I
would as soon conceal my devotion from the powers of heaven, as my
affections from their rightful master. I, for one, never will believe that
all men are selfish and unfa