He at least has education and eloquence and mind.

What has Mr.
Vernon ?" "Mr.Vernon?
I did not speak of him!" Lucretia gazed hard upon the Provencal's countenance,--gazed with that unpitying air of triumph with which a woman who detects a power over the heart she does not desire to conquer exults in defeating the reasons that heart appears to her to prompt.

"No," she said in a calm voice, to which the venom of secret irony gave stinging significance,--"no, you spoke not of Mr.Vernon; you thought that if I looked round, if I looked nearer, I might have a fairer choice." "You are cruel, you are unjust," said Dalibard, falteringly.

"If I once presumed for a moment, have I repeated my offence?
But," he added hurriedly, "in me,--much as you appear to despise me,--in me, at least, you would have risked none of the dangers that beset you if you seriously set your heart on Mainwaring." "You think my uncle would be proud to give my hand to M.Olivier Dalibard ?" "I think and I know," answered the Provencal, gravely, and disregarding the taunt, "that if you had deigned to render me--poor exile that I am!--the most enviable of men, you had still been the heiress of Laughton." "So you have said and urged," said Lucretia, with evident curiosity in her voice; "yet how, and by what art,--wise and subtle as you are,--could you have won my uncle's consent ?" "That is my secret," returned Dalibard, gloomily; "and since the madness I indulged is forever over; since I have so schooled my heart that nothing, despite your sarcasm, save an affectionate interest which I may call paternal rests there,--let us pass from this painful subject.

Oh, my dear pupil, be warned in time; know love for what it really is, in the dark and complicated history of actual life,--a brief enchantment, not to be disdained, but not to be considered the all-in all.