that his heart rested with me for an
hour, and has now gone on to others."
As she spoke, she sank again into her chair, and clasping her hands
together as they rested on her knee, fixed her eyes upon the ground
during a moment or two of bitter thought.
The other lady advanced toward her, and after gazing at her for a
minute, she kissed her beautiful brow affectionately, saying,
"Nevertheless, Caroline, he does love you. He is a libertine by
habit, Caroline, I trust not a libertine in heart; and I see in every
line that he writes to you that he loves you still, and always will
love you. It is my belief, dear Caroline, that if you behave well to
him now, firmly, though kindly, gently, though decidedly; if you
yield nothing, either to love, or importunity, or remonstrance, but
tell him that you now bid him farewell for ever if he so chooses it,
and that you will never either see him, or hear from him, or write to
him, till he comes openly as your husband, and gives you the same
vows and assurance of future affection and good conduct that he did
at first--it is my firm conviction, I say, that the love for you
which I see is still strong within him, the only good thing perhaps
in his heart, will bring him back to you at last. Passion may lead
him astray, folly may get the better of reason, evil habits may rule
him for a time; but the memory of your sweetness, and your beauty,
and your firmness, and your gentleness, will come back upon his mind,
even in the society of the gay, the light, and the profligate, and
will seem like a diamond beside false stones."
"Hush, hush, hush!" said the younger lady, blushing deeply--"I must
not hear such praises, Helen: praises that I do not deserve."
"Nay, my dear child, I speak but what I mean," replied the Lady
Helen--"I say that the recollection of you and your young fresh
beauty, and your generous mind, will return to his remembrance, my
Caroline, at all times and in all circumstances, even the most
opposite: in the midst of various enjoyments, in the heated revel,
and in the idle pageant; when lonely in his chamber, when suffering
distress, or pain, or illness; amidst the reverses and the strife, as
well as in the prosperity and the vanities, of the world, he will
remember you and love you still. That memory will be to him as a
sweet tune that we have loved in our youth, the recollection of which
brings with it always visions of the only joys that we have known
without alloy. But still, remember, Caroline, that the co