Genius is lord of the world. Men labor at the
foundation of society, while the lowly lark, unseen
and little prized, sits, hard by, in his nest on the earth,
gathering strength to bear his song up to the sun.
Slowly rise basement and monumental aisle, column
and architrave, dome and lofty tower: and when the
cloud-piercing spire is burnished with gold, and the
fabric stands perfect and wondrous, up springs the forgotten
lark, with airy wheel to the pinnacle, and
standing poised and unwondering on his giddy perch,
he pours out his celestial music till his bright footing
trembles with harmony. And when the song is done,
and mounting thence, he soars away to fill his exhausted
heart at the fountains of the sun, the dwellers
in the towers below look up to the gilded spire
and shout—not to the burnished shaft, but to the
lark—lost from it in the sky.

“Mr. Clay!” repeated the last footman on Mrs. K's
flower-laden staircase.

I have let you down as gently as possible, dear
reader; but here we are in one of the most fashionable
houses in May Fair.

Pardon me a moment! Did I say I had let you
down? What pyramid of the Nile is piled up like
the gradations between complete insignificance and
the affect of that footman's announcement? On the
heels of Ernest, and named with the next breath of
the menial's lips, came the bearer of a title laden
with the emblazoned honors of descent. Had he en
tered a hall of statuary, he could not have been less
regarded. All eyes were on the pale forehead and
calm lips that had entered before him; and the blood
of the warrior who made the name, and of the statesmen
and nobles who had borne it, and the accumulated
honor and renown of centuries of unsullied distinctions—
all these concentrated glories in the midst
of the most polished and discriminating circle on
earth, paled before the lamp of yesterday, burning in
the eye of genius. Where is distinction felt? In
secret, amid splendor? No! In the street and the
vulgar gaze? No! In the bosom of love? She
only remembers it. Where, then, is the intoxicating
cup of homage—the delirious draught for which
brain, soul, and nerve, are tasked, tortured, and
spent—where is it lifted to the lips? The answer
brings me back. Eyes shining from amid jewels,
voices softened with gentle breeding, smiles awakening
beneath costly lamps—an atmosphere of perfume,
splendor, and courtesy—these form the poet's Hebe,
and the hero's Ganymede. These pour for ambition
the draught that slakes his fever—these hold the cup
to lips, drinking eagerly, that would turn away in solitude,
from the ambrosia of the gods!

Clay's walk through the sumptuous rooms of Mrs.
R— was like a Roman triumph. He was borne on
from lip to lip—those before him anticipating his
greeting, and those he left, still sending their bright
and kind words after him. He breathed incense.

Suddenly, behind him, he heard the voice of Eve
Gore. She was making the tour of the rooms on the
arm of a friend, and following Ernest, had insensibly
tried to get nearer to him, and had become flushed
and troubled in the effort. They had never before
met in a large party, and her pride, in the universal
attention he attracted, still more flushed her eyelids
and injured her beauty. She gave him her hand as
he turned; but the greeting that sprang to her lips
was checked by a sudden consciousness that many
eyes were on her, and she hesitated, murmured some
broken words, and was silent. The immediate attention
that Clay had given to her, interrupted at the
same moment the undertoned murmur around him,
and there was a minute's silence, in which the inevitable
thought flashed across his mind that he had overrated
her loveliness. Still the trembling and clinging
clasp of her hand, and the appealing earnestness of
her look, told him what was in her heart—and when
was ever genius ungrateful for love! He made a
strong effort to reason down his disappointment, and
had the embarrassed girl resumed instantly her natural
ease and playfulness, his sensitive imagination
would have been conquered, and its recoil forgotten.
But love, that lends us words, smiles, tears, all we
want, in solitude, robs us in the gay crowd of everything
but what we can not use—tears! As the man
she worshipped led her on through those bright
rooms, Eve Gore, though she knew not why, felt the
large drops ache behind her eyes. She would have
sobbed if she had tried to speak. Clay had given her
his arm, and resumed his barter of compliment with
the crowd, and with it a manner she had never before
seen. He had been a boy, fresh, frank, ardent, and
unsuspicious, at Annesley Park. She saw him now
in the cold and polished armor of a man who has
been wounded as well as flattered by the world, and
who presents his shield even to a smile. Impossible
as it was that he should play the lover now, she felt
wronged and hurt by his addressing the same tone of
elegant trifling and raillery which was the key of the
conversation around them. She knew, too, that she
herself was appearing to disadvantage; and before a
brief hour had elapsed, she had become a prey to another
feeling—the bitter avarice which is the curse
of all affection for the gifted or the beautiful—an avaarice
that makes every smile given back for admiration,

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a germ torn from us—every word, even of thanks for
courtesy, a life-drop of our hearts drank away.


“The moon looks
On many brooks,
The brook can see no moon but this,”
contains the mordent secret of most hearts vowed to
the love of remarkable genius or beauty.

The supper-rooms had been some time open; from
these and the dancing hall, the half-weary guests
were coming back to the deep fauteuils, the fresher
air, and the graver society of the library, which had
served as an apartment of reception. With a clouded
brow, thoughtful and silent, Eve Gore sat with her
mother in a recess near the entrance, and Clay, who
had kept near them, though their conversation had
long since languished, stood in the centre of a small
group of fashionable men, much more brilliant and
far louder in his gayety than he would have been
with a heart at ease. It was one of those nights of
declining May, when the new foliage of the season
seems to have exhausted the air, and though it was
near morning, there came through the open windows
neither coolness nor vitality. Fans, faded wreaths,
and flushed faces, were universal.

A footman stood suddenly in the vacant door.

“Lady Mildred —!”

The announcements had been over for hours, and every
eye was turned on the apparition of so late a comer.

Quietly, but with a step as elastic as the nod of a
water-lily, Lady Mildred glided into the room, and
the high tones and unharmonized voices of the different
groups suddenly ceased, and were succeeded by
a low and sustained murmur of admiration. A white
dress of faultless freshness of fold, a snowy turban,
from which hung on either temple a cluster of crimson
camelias still wet with the night dew; long raven
curls of undisturbed grace falling on shoulders of that
undescribable and dewy coolness which follows a
morning bath, giving the skin the texture and the
opaque whiteness of the lily; lips and skin redolent
of the repose and purity, and the downcast but wakeful
eye so expressive of recent solitude, and so peculiar
to one who has not spoken since she slept.
These were attractions which, in contrast with the
paled glories around, elevated Lady Mildred at once
into the predominant star of the night.

“What news from the bottom of the sea, most
adorable Venus?” said a celebrated artist, standing
out from the group and drawing a line through the
air with his finger as if he were sketching the flowing
outline of her form.

Lady Mildred laid her small hand on Clay's, and
with a smile, but no greeting else, passed on. The
bantering question of the great painter told her that
her spell worked to a miracle, and she was too shrewd
an enchantress to dissolve it by the utterance of a
word. She glided on like a spirit of coolness, calm,
silent, and graceful, and, standing a moment on the
threshold of the apartment beyond, disappeared,
with every eye fixed on her vanishing form in wondering
admiration. Purity was the effect she had produced—
purity in contrast with the flowers in the
room—purity (Ernest Clay felt and wondered at it),
even in contrast with Eve Gore! There was silence
in the library for an instant, and then, one by one, the
gay group around our hero followed in search of the
new star of the hour, and he was left standing alone.
He turned to speak to his silent friends, but the manner
of Mrs. Gore was restrained, and Eve sat pale and
tearful within the curtain of the recess, and looked as
if her heart was breaking.

“I should like—I should like to go home, mother!”
she said presently, with a difficult articulation. “I
think I am not well. Mr. Clay—Ernest—will see,
perhaps, if our carriage is here.”

“You will find us in the shawl-room,” said Mrs.
Gore, following him to the staircase, and looking after
him with troubled eyes.

The carriage was at the end of the line, and could
not come up for an hour. Day was dawning, and
Ernest had need of solitude and thought. He crossed
to the park, and strode off through the wet grass,
bathing his forehead with handfuls of dew. Alas!
the fevered eyes and pallid lips he had last seen were
less in harmony with the calm stillness of the dawn
than the vision his conscience whispered him was
charmed for his destruction. As the cool air brought
back his reason, he remembered Eve's embarrassed
address and his wearisome and vain efforts to amuse
her. He remembered her mother's reproving eye,
her own colder utterance of his name, and then in
powerful relief came up the pictures he had brooded
on since his conversation in the chariot with Lady
Mildred, visions of self-denial and loss of caste opposed
to the enchantments of passion without restraint
or calculation, and his head and heart became
wild with conflicting emotions. One thing was certain.
He must decide now. He must speak to Eve
Gore before parting, and in the tone of his voice, if it
were but a word, there must be that which her love
would interpret as a bright promise or a farewell. He
turned back. At the gate of the park stood one of
the guilty wanderers of the streets, who seized him
by the sleeve and implored charity.

“Who are you?” exclaimed Clay, scarce knowing
what he uttered.

“As good as she is,” screamed the woman, pointing
to Lady Mildred's carriage, “only not so rich! Oh,
we could change places, if all's true.”

Ernest stood still as if his better angel had spoken
through those painted lips. He gasped with the
weight that rose slowly from his heart; and purchasing
his release from the unfortunate wretch who
had arrested his steps, he crossed slowly to the
door crowded with the menials of the gay throng
within.

“Lady Mildred's carriage stops the way!” shouted
a footman, as he entered. He crossed the hall, and
at the door of the shawl-room he was met by Lady
Mildred herself, descending from the hall, surrounded
with a troop of admirers. Clay drew back to let her
pass; but while he looked into her face, it became
radiant with the happiness of meeting him, and the
temptation to join her seemed irresistible. She entered
the room, followed by her gay suite, and last of
all by Ernest, who saw with the first glance at the
Gores that he was believed to have been with her during
the half-hour that had elapsed. He approached
Eve; but the sense of an injustice he could not immediately
remove, checked the warm impulse with
which he was coming to pour out his heart, and
against every wish and feeling of his soul, he was
constrained and cold.

“No, indeed!” exclaimed Lady Mildred, her voice
suddenly becoming audible, “I shall set down Mr.
Clay, whose door I pass. Lord George, ask Mr.
Clay if he is ready.”

Eve Gore suddenly laid her hand on his arm, as if
a spirit had whispered that her last chance for happiness
was poised on that moment's lapse.

“Ernest,” she said, in a voice so unnaturally low
that it made his veins creep with the fear that her
reason was unseated, “I am lost if you go with her.
Stay, dear Ernest! She can not love you as I do!
I implore you remember that my life—my life—”

“Beg pardon,” said Lord George, laying his hand
familiarly on Clay's shoulder, and drawing him away,
“Lady Mildred waits for you!”

“I will return in an instant, dearest Eve,” he said,
springing again to her side, “I will apologize and be
with you. One instant—only one—”

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