d you shall leave me. Say that if I can
create for myself a new source of independence; if I can carve out a
road where the ambition you erroneously impute to me can be gratified,
as well as the more moderate wishes our station has made natural to us
to form,--say, that if I do this, I may permit myself to hope,--say,
that when I have done it, I may claim you as my own!"

Isabel paused, and turned once more her face towards his own. Her lips
moved, and though the words died within her heart, yet Mordaunt read
well their import in the blushing cheek and the heaving bosom, and the
lips which one ray of hope and comfort was sufficient to kindle into
smiles. He gazed, and all obstacles, all difficulties, disappeared; the
gulf of time seemed passed, and he felt as if already he had earned and
won his reward.

He approached her yet nearer; one kiss on those lips, one pressure
of that thrilling hand, one long, last embrace of that shrinking and
trembling form,--and then, as the door closed upon his view, he felt
that the sunshine of Nature had passed away, and that in the midst of
the laughing and peopled earth he stood in darkness and alone.

CHAPTER XI.

He who would know mankind must be at home with all men.
STEPHEN MONTAGUE.

We left Clarence safely deposited in his little lodgings. Whether
from the heat of his apartment or the restlessness a migration of beds
produces in certain constitutions, his slumbers on the first night of
his arrival were disturbed and brief. He rose early and descended to the
parlour; Mr. de Warens, the nobly appellatived foot-boy, was laying
the breakfast-cloth. From three painted shelves which constituted the
library of "Copperas Bower," as its owners gracefully called their
habitation, Clarence took down a book very prettily bound; it was "Poems
by a Nobleman." No sooner had he read two pages than he did exactly what
the reader would have done, and restored the volume respectfully to its
place. He then drew his chair towards the window, and wistfully eyed
sundry ancient nursery maids, who were leading their infant charges to
the "fresh fields and pastures new" of what is now the Regent's Park.

In about an hour Mrs. Copperas descended, and mutual compliments were
exchanged; to her succeeded Mr. Copperas, who was well scolded for his
laziness: and to them, Master Adolphus Copperas, who was also chidingly
termed a naughty darling for the same offence. Now then Mrs