Page:Waverley Novels, vol. 23 (1831).djvu/140



CHAPTER XXV.

Hark, the bells summon, and the bugle calls, But she the fairest answers not--the tide Of nobles and of ladies throngs the halls, But she the loveliest must in secret hide. What eyes were thine, proud Prince, which in the gleam Of yon gay meteors lost that better sense, That o'er the glow-worm doth the star esteem, And merit's modest blush o'er courtly insolence? --THE GLASS SLIPPER.

The unfortunate Countess of Leicester had, from her infancy upwards, been treated by those around her with indulgence as unbounded as injudicious. The natural sweetness of her disposition had saved her from becoming insolent and ill-humoured; but the caprice which preferred the handsome and insinuating Leicester before Tressilian, of whose high honour and unalterable affection she herself entertained so firm an opinion--that fatal error, which ruined the happiness of her life, had its origin in the mistaken kindness; that had spared her childhood the painful but most necessary lesson of submission and self-command. From the same indulgence it followed that she had only been accustomed to form and to express her wishes, leaving to others the task of fulfilling them; and thus, at the most momentous period of her life, she was alike destitute of presence