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246 that none in the Castle interfered with his interest—he therefore had the field to himself; les absens ont toujours tort was repeated, and on that maxim he proceeded. He saw that Lord Avonleigh had little indulgence, and less love, for his daughter; and that on her he vented that temper which fear or interest repressed in other instances: her home was unhappy. And how many women have believed that any change must be for the better, and only discovered their mistake when too late to remedy it!—a time, by the by, at which mistakes are usually found out.

"Hope deferred maketh the heart sick;" and how long had Francesca suffered under this heart-sickness! Again she felt a return of that utter despondency which had fallen upon her after Guido's death: but then she could indulge in it unmolested, and that was something of relief: now she was forced into exertion, that sort of exertion of all the most tiresome, because the least interesting—a constant attention to people to whom she was indifferent, and to trifles which she could not even fancy to be of consequence. Oh this weariness of the forced spirits! and yet is there one human being but has known it? The brightened eye, which is fain to turn aside and weep; the lively answer, which says all but what is most present to its