Page:Glenarvon (Volume 1).djvu/214

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.
  • ceived amidst the higher classes in England,

from the very apprehension they feel of falling into it. Even those, who are natural, do not entirely appear so.

Calantha's life was like a feverish dream:—so crowded, so varied, so swift in its transitions, that she had little time to reflect; and when she did, the memory of the past was so agreeable and so brilliant, that it gave her pleasure to think of it again and again. If Lord Avondale was with her, every place appeared even more than usually delightful; but, when absent, her letters, no longer filled with lamentations on her lonely situation, breathed from a vain heart the lightness, and satisfaction it enjoyed.

It may be supposed that one so frivolous and so thoughtless, committed every possible fault and folly which opportunity and time allowed. It may also be supposed, that such imprudence met with its just reward; and that every tongue was busy in its censure, and every gossip in exag-