CHAPTER XV.
THE CONFESSION.
"What a strange position this of mine!" thought I, a few mornings after the events detailed in the last chapter.

"How very fascinating in some respects, how full of all the charm of romance, and how confoundly difficult to see one's way through!" To understand my cogitation right, _figurez-vous_, my dear reader, a large and splendidly furnished drawing-room, from one end of which an orangery in full blossom opens; from the other is seen a delicious little boudoir, where books, bronzes, pictures and statues, in all the artistique disorder of a lady's sanctum, are bathed in a deep purple light from a stained glass window of the seventeenth century.
On a small table beside the wood fire, whose mellow light is flirting with the sunbeams upon the carpet, stands an antique silver breakfast-service, which none but the hand of Benvenuto could have chiselled; beside it sits a girl, young and beautiful; her dark eyes, beaming beneath their long lashes, are fixed with an expression of watchful interest upon a pale and sickly youth, who, lounging upon a sofa opposite, is carelessly turning over the leaves of a new journal, or gazing steadfastly on the fretted gothic of the ceiling, while his thoughts are travelling many a mile away.
The lady being the Senhora Inez; the nonchalant invalid, your unworthy acquaintance, Charles O'Malley.
What a very strange position to be sure.
"Then you are not equal to this ball to-night ?" said she, after a pause of some minutes.
I turned as she spoke; her words had struck audibly upon my ear, but, lost in my revery, I could but repeat my own fixed thought,--how strange to be so situated! "You are really very tiresome, Signor; I assure you, you are.

I have been giving you a most elegant description of the Casino _fete_, and the beautiful costume of our Lisbon belles, but I can get nothing from you but this muttered something, which may be very shocking for aught I know.

I'm sure your friend, Major Power, would be much more attentive to me; that is," added she, archly, "if Miss Dashwood were not present." "What! why! You don't mean that there is anything there--that Tower is paying attention to--" "_Madre divina_, how that seems to interest you, and how red you are! If it were not that you never met her before, and that your acquaintance did not seem to make rapid progress, then I should say you are in love with her yourself." I had to laugh at this, but felt my face flushing more.

"And so," said I, affecting a careless and indifferent tone, "the gay Fred Power is smitten at last!" "Was it so very difficult a thing to accomplish ?" said she, slyly.
"He seems to say so, at least.