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ROMANCE AND REALITY.
259

of a strange land with the songs of their own. The other window has the rich Italian evening only shut out by the luxuriant branches of a myrtle; and beyond is a grove of cypress, a small and a winding river—

'A fairy thing,
Which the eye watches in its wandering.'

Seated on the triclinium in the midst is a middle-aged man, with a high and noble brow; the fine aquiline nose, so patrician, as if their eagle had set his own seal on his warlike race; an expression of almost melancholy sweetness in his mouth, but of decision in the large meditative blue eye: on one side a written scroll, bearing the name of Plato, has just dropped from his hand; and on the other a beautiful youth kneels to announce to him, 'that Lucullus sups with Lucullus to-night.' Mr. Morland has a vacant niche in his breakfast-room: I really must call his attention to this."

"You could never do so better than to-day," said that identical gentleman, entering the little drawing-room where they were seated.

"I have just been persuading Delawarr to leave politics, parchments, places, and plans, for my acacias, now in full bloom, and some of my most aromatic Burgundy. Lady Alicia,