Page:Francesca Carrara 1.pdf/157

Rh "Alas, Henriette! how little are our feelings in our control! I shame to tell you how much mine are altered. I endeavour to persuade myself that it is Evelyn who is changed; but I am forced to confess that the fault is my own."

"Well, after this let no one pretend to be sure they know the heart of another! Why, I would have risked my life on your constancy. You were always so earnest, so grave, so much to be relied upon! I should have thought you would have needed another Petrarch to celebrate your romantic devotion. However, it leaves the field open to me; I shall soon find you another lover in Paris."

"I feel that I am incapable of love—nothing can bring back the illusion of my earlier and happier belief. But, at least, I hold my faith to Mr. Evelyn as sacred as if he still were, what I once deemed he was, the only hope and object of my existence."

"We shall see," said the Duchesse, laughing; "but I am now too tired to enact the part of president in the parliament of love,—we must leave this knotty point for discussion some other night. I own I have my doubts about constancy surviving love; but though your infidelity makes me not quite certain about any thing, yet of one fact I