ly different from the modern, the same small causes
that ruffle and interrupt the 'course of love', which operate so
commonly at this day--the same inventive jealousy, the same cunning
slander, the same crafty and fabricated retailings of petty gossip,
which so often now suffice to break the ties of the truest love, and
counteract the tenor of circumstances most apparently propitious. When
the bark sails on over the smoothest wave, the fable tells us of the
diminutive fish that can cling to the keel and arrest its progress: so
is it ever with the great passions of mankind; and we should paint life
but ill if, even in times the most prodigal of romance, and of the
romance of which we most largely avail ourselves, we did not also
describe the mechanism of those trivial and household springs of
mischief which we see every day at work in our chambers and at our
hearths. It is in these, the lesser intrigues of life, that we mostly
find ourselves at home with the past.

Most cunningly had the Egyptian appealed to Ione's ruling foible--most
dexterously had he applied the poisoned dart to her pride. He fancied
he had arrested what he hoped, from the shortness of the time she had
known Glaucus, was, at most, but an incipient fancy; and hastening to
change the subject, he now led her to talk of her brother. Their
conversation did not last long. He left her, resolved not again to
trust so much to absence, but to visit--to watch her--every day.

No sooner had his shadow glided from her presence, than woman's
pride--her sex's dissimulation--deserted his intended victim, and the
haughty Ione burst into passionate tears.

Chapter VII

THE GAY LIFE OF THE POMPEIAN LOUNGER. A MINIATURE LIKENESS OF THE ROMAN
BATHS.

WHEN Glaucus left Ione, he felt as if he trod upon air. In the
interview with which he had just been blessed, he had for the first time
gathered from her distinctly that his love was not unwelcome to, and
would not be unrewarded by, her. This hope filled him with a rapture
for which earth and heaven seemed too narrow to afford a vent.
Unconscious of the sudden enemy he had left behind, and forgetting not
only his taunts but his very existence, Glaucus passed through the gay
streets, repeating to himself, in the wantonness of joy, the music of
the soft air to which Ione had listened with such intentness; and now he
entered the Street of Fortune, with its raised footpath--its houses
painted without, and the op