CHAPTER XX.

THE EMBARRASSMENTS OF HIGH LIFE.

By my troth, Nerissa, my little body is weary of this great world. You would be, sweet madam, if your miseries were in the same abundance as your good fortunes are; and yet, for aught I see, they are as sick that surfeit with too much as they that starve with nothing. SHAKSPEARE.

So thought the Lady Constance, without (like Portia) consulting her waiting-maid; and she thought so, as we have seen, before the first winter of her introduction in the world was

over.

We left her after endeavouring, in vain, to soothe her father in his distress, under phantoms which his imagination had conjured up, but which were also dreaded by Lords Oldcastle and Cleveland; so all-devouring is the suspicion of the ambitious. In earlier days, Godolphin took the alarm, and prophesied ruin, at the sight of Harley's coach coming from Kensington. No

wonder, then, that these watchful persons were tremulously alive when they were told by Clayton (whom they had sent there for the purpose), that Lord B- had twice supped with the royal party at Windsor.

The consternation did not end here; for a great officer of the Crown, whose attachment to the ministry had begun to be equivocal, and who was, therefore, still more strictly observed, had actually brought into the very councilchamber the hat of one of the royal brothers, instead of his own, by which a secret interview at the palace had been detected; and what was worse, the officer, under so trimming a minister as Lord Oldcastle, was thought too powerful to be displaced. Lord Cleveland, who urged instant punishment, but without success, was so alarmed at this cowardice, that he sounded a sauve qui peut; observing, however, drily, that his character of a king's friend made it indifferent to him who was in, who out. This did not diminish the misery of Lord Mowbray. In short, the whole afforded an useful lesson to an observer, upon the nothingness of ambition, when so little understood, or rather so abjectly pursued, as to fix its views on place as an end, not as a mean of glory.

Youthful and inexperienced as she was, to no one was this more obvious than to Constance ; and, we may add, to no one did it bring more chagrin. Though composed of those elements which inclined her to filial reverence, even as a necessary part of her happiness, she could not shut her eyes to what (to say the very best of it) appeared the weakness of her father; and when he continued to complain of the world, and talked of evils which to her seemed so beneath the good and great, we will not say how shocked she was in her best feelings. Uneasy before, from she knew not what disappointments, this became downright distress. Ambition, as she saw it pursued, began to be hateful to her, and no object among all the brilliant prospects of her life seemed so desirable, as to separate her father, if she could, from the alliance he had made with men on whom she willingly laid the blame of all the self-torment which he evidently suffered.

Poor, simple Constance! how wouldest thou have been laughed at in the world, if this little endeavour of thy natural heart had been known among the thousand flatterers that thronged thy brilliant drawing-rooms!-insects that enjoyed the dazzle of the minute, and

thought all grandeur consisted in high-sounding titles or power, no matter how acquired, or at what price pursued.

But Constance was not one of these. Her own disposition, together with Lady Clanellan's lessons, and her aunt Lady Eleanor's history, had made her peculiarly alive to passing scenes; and the futility of most of them (any more than the extreme luxury in which she was immersed), to produce the only end of our being-happiness. The death of Beaufort had been a shock to her which was even yet not worn out; nor could she help wondering at many of her young companions, who, after talking of it with emotion on one day, forgot it the next, and now only seemed to remember it as an event in history. This and the loss (though temporary) to society of such a man as Wentworth; and, may we not add, the separation of Mortimer from his friends, made her serious and uneasy, though decked with all the trappings of public show; and the heiress of Mowbray gave many a sigh under the jewels which nightly sparkled on her bo

som.

If she turned from ambition to other interests, the prospect was still less exhilarating. She was still surrounded by suitors, many of whom might

be lovers, and some of them worthy. But from most she turned, as actuated, if not by mean, at best by mixed motives; and even among those whose frame of mind she respected, she found not one who possessed that grace in disclosing it, that engaging compound of look, manner, and speech; in short, that nameless something, which interests we know not how, charms we know not why, and steals into our hearts before we are aware of it.

Constance might be difficult, and she had a right to be so; but it was not the difficulty of pride. On the contrary, she had a soul formed for the gentlest impressions; as she well proved to those of her own sex whom she loved. In regard to ours, except in so far as an habitual interest respecting De Vere was concerned, there was an absolute void, and that void was not filled up by the number or variety of her admirers. Some of them embarrassed her by the splendour of their proposals; some teased her by their perseverance, and others affronted her by their pride. The Duke of Bellamont had long left her, piqued that his attentions were repulsed. Lord Cleveland was piqued too, and meditated revenge, which excited the energetic, and distressed the softer parts of her character.

VOL. III.