“Did you read that paragraph, mamma?” inquired Lady Corisande of the duchess, in a tone of some seriousness.

“I did.”

“And what did you think of it?”

“It filled me with so much amazement that I have hardly begun to think.”

“And Bertram never gave a hint of such things!”

“Let us believe they are quite untrue.”

“I hope Bertram is in no danger,” said his sister.

“Heaven forbid!” exclaimed the mother, with unaffected alarm.

“I know not how it is,” said Lady Corisande, “but I frequently feel that some great woe is hanging over our country.”

“You must dismiss such thoughts, my child; they are fanciful.”

“But they will come, and when least expected—frequently in church, but also in the sunshine; and when I am riding too, when, once, every thing seemed gay. But now I often think of strife, and struggle, and war—civil war: the stir of our cavalcade seems like the tramp of cavalry.”

“You indulge your imagination too much, dear Corisande. When you return to London, and enter the world, these anxious thoughts will fly.”

“Is it imagination? I should rather have doubted my being of an imaginative nature. It seems to me that I am rather literal. But I cannot help hearing and reading things, and observing things, and they fill me with disquietude. All seems doubt and change, when it would appear that we require both faith and firmness.”

“The duke is not alarmed about affairs,” said his wife.

“And, if all did their duty like papa, there might be less, or no cause,” said Corisande. “But, when I hear of young nobles, the natural leaders of the land, going over to the Roman Catholic Church, I confess I lose heart and patience. It seems so unpatriotic, so effeminate.”

“It may not be true,” said the duchess.

“It may not be true of him, but it is true of others,” said Lady Corisande. “And why should he escape? He is very young, rather friendless, and surrounded by wily persons. I am disappointed about Bertram too. He ought to have prevented this, if it be true. Bertram seemed to me to have such excellent principles, and so completely to feel that he was born to maintain the great country which his ancestors created, that I indulged in dreams. I suppose you are right, mamma; I suppose I am imaginative without knowing it; but I have, always thought, and hoped, that when the troubles came the country might, perhaps, rally round Bertram.”

“I wish to see Bertram in Parliament,” said the duchess. “That will be the best thing for him. The duke has some plans.”

This conversation had been occasioned by a paragraph in the Morning Post, circulating a rumor that a young noble, obviously Lothair, on the impending completion of his minority, was about to enter the Roman Church. The duchess and her daughter were sitting in a chamber of their northern castle, and speculating on their return to London, which was to take place after the Easter which had just arrived. It was an important social season for Corisande, for she was to be formally introduced into the great world, and to be presented at court.

In the mean while, was there any truth in the report about Lothair?

After their meeting at their lawyer’s, a certain intimacy had occurred between the cardinal and his ward. They met again immediately and frequently, and their mutual feelings were cordial. The manners of his eminence were refined and affectionate; his conversational powers were distinguished; there was not a subject on which his mind did not teem with interesting suggestions; his easy knowledge seemed always ready and always full; and whether it were art, or letters, or manners, or even political affairs, Lothair seemed to listen to one of the wisest, most enlightened, and most agreeable of men. There was only one subject on which his eminence seemed scrupulous never to touch, and that was religion; or so indirectly............