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ROMANCE AND REALITY.

outwardly way to her own; thus, hers, unrelieved and unexhausted by display, grew stronger from concealment. She had mixed little with those of her own age,—hence she was reserved; and the confidante and the confession weaken love, by mixing up with it somewhat of vanity, and taking from its mystery. Emily's idea of love was of the most romantic and exalted kind. Whether borrowed from the Duchess of Cleves, and the other old novels with which the library abound, where love is a species of idolatry; or from the pages of modern poetry, where all that is spiritual and beautiful is thrown around its nature;—all made love to her a species of religion.

She had arrived in London with no very accurate notion of what she had to expect; but it was to be something very delightful. Accustomed to be made much of—aware of her own pretensions, she had come prepared for entertainment and homage; but she had found neither;—and though rich, pretty, and high-born, she was at nineteen very near being philosophical, and pronouncing the pleasures of the world to be vanity and vexation of spirit.

Lorraine's arrival had changed all this. At a glance he saw how weary a time the young