feverish bed; she
had neither fear for contagion nor bitterness for past oppression;
everything vanished beneath the one hope of serving, the one
gratification of feeling herself, in the wide waste of creation, not
utterly without use, as she had been hitherto without friends.

Miss St. Leger recovered. "For your recovery, in the first place," said
the doctor, "you will thank Heaven; in the second, you will thank your
young relation;" and for several days the convalescent did overwhelm the
happy Isabel with her praises and caresses. But this change did not last
long: the chaste Diana had been too spoiled by the prosperity of many
years for the sickness of a single month to effect much good in her
disposition. Her old habits were soon resumed; and though it is probable
that her heart was in reality softened towards the poor Isabel, that
softening by no means extended to her temper. In truth, the brother and
sister were not without affection for one so beautiful and good, but
they had been torturing slaves all their lives, and their affection was,
and could be, but that of a taskmaster or a planter.

But Isabel was the only relation who ever appeared within their walls;
and among the guests with whom the luxurious mansion was crowded, she
passed no less for the heiress than the dependant; to her, therefore,
was offered the homage of many lips and hearts, and if her pride was
perpetually galled and her feelings insulted in private, her vanity (had
that equalled her pride and her feelings in its susceptibility) would
in no slight measure have recompensed her in public. Unhappily, however,
her vanity was the least prominent quality she possessed; and the
compliments of mercenary adulation were not more rejected by her heart
than despised by her understanding.

Yet did she bear within her a deep fund of buried tenderness, and a
mine of girlish and enthusiastic romance,--dangerous gifts to one so
situated, which, while they gave to her secret moments of solitude a
powerful but vague attraction, probably only prepared for her future
years the snare which might betray them into error or the delusion which
would colour them with regret.

Among those whom the ostentatious hospitality of General St. Leger
attracted to his house was one of very different character and
pretensions to the rest. Formed to be unpopular with the generality of
men, the very qualities that made him so were those which principally
fascinate the higher