66 Then, my lord," she replied, gravely, never let me hear this conversation again, nor teach me to think ill of a man of whom I have always had a very different opinion. Forbear, my lord, forbear," she added, seeing lord Burton about to speak, "both out of respect to yourself, and to what you must know would have been the opinion of your late excellent father;" and she quitted the room. The feelings of lord Burton were of the most painful kind that human nature can endure for what can equal the agony of knowing that one to whom we are fondly attached, regards our affection with indifference? There was, however, but one course before him. It was vain to regret, or even to think of what was past, and he resolved to quit the Abbey that day, and England as soon as he possibly could. But there was one thing which he could not understand-the allusion Miss Stanhope had made to what would have been the opinion of his father." Could she have known him?" he often asked himself. But, no-she was evidently too young to remember one who had died nearly eight years before. He at one time determined to ask another interview with her, but a second thought made him reject the idea, and he left the library to order his servants to prepare for their departure. In the hall he met lady Jane Evelyn, who accosted him gaily-" Burton," said she, "do not look so much in despair, for there is no occasion for it." હૃદ "You do not know what you are speaking of, Jane,” replied her cousin; "I am going to leave the Abbey to-night." "Nonsense!" exclaimed she; but seeing he was serious, she added—" Frederic, are you not throwing away your happiness ?" "No," replied lord Burton; "for any chance of happiness I must go." "7 Well, perhaps you are right," she replied; "though no sometimes means yes, Burton." "I think “I think I am right," he replied, and turned away-" I think I am.” CHAPTER IX. To kinder skies, where gentler manners reign, The Traveller. First Impressions. As there are some men in society who never attempt to make use of the senses which Heaven has bestowed on them, who go through the world in a state of semi-somnambulance, whose faculties are inexcitable, who see nothing, unless startled by a flash of lightning, and hear nothing less remarkable than a peal of thunder-who wonder how their fellow-beings find so many objects for apprehension, yet never strive to observe any thing external themselves, and who therefore may be truly said to have no eyes; so also there are moments in the life of most people, when the mind seems shut to every thing without-when, from some internal sensation, we cannot lend our attention to the passing scene, and when we regard the great lessons that nature and existence offer to us every moment, as a child turns over the pages of some foreign book, beholding the characters, without comprehending their signification. These may be called our blind hours, and the man who has many of them, ought to send to Laputa for a flapper, in order to rouse him from them into a state of active being. No man perhaps ever had more occasion for an officer of this kind to attend him, than had Charles Melville on the day he quitted London for his continental tour; for from that city till his arrival at Calais, he observed nothing of the scenes or places through which he passed, although it was a road entirely new to him. It was not that he, like many others, in going forward towards an object of great interest, neglected the more minute attractions scattered in his way, and having fixed his eyes upon some distant point, saw nothing but that point before himit was not that Canterbury cathedral had been etched, lithographed, and engraved, described, and written upon, till the eye was tired of arches, chapels, and cloisters, and the mind worn out with the whole throng of bishops, abbots, and clergy-it was not that all the world had heard of Dover, with its castle, that every body goes to see, and its cliff, that every body goes to look over, because Shakespeare wrote a speech about it-neither was it that the mind of Charles Melville was in the least degree apathetic; but it was, that there were feelings in his breast which, without his concurrence, and scarcely with his knowledge, made him think with some degree of regret on quitting England, and |