natured creature, and therefore ought I not to be amazed at any act of generosity thou doest. Yet this I scarcely could expect,-What!not merely to forgive a wretch who would have ruined thee! but also place thyself 'twixt him and my wrath-to intercede for him!— No, Inez, I lack words to speak the admiration which I have of thee. Go then, thou loved one, thou dost deserve to have thy prayer granted; I yield to thee, or rather to the influence of thy virtue :-D'Artois is safe."

CHAPTER XXII.

"At last then am I safe!" exclaimed Inez, clapping to her hands in exultation, as the door closing, the King left her alone to pace around the chamber and meditate upon her victory. "Now then I indeed am safe!-How I trembled how my heart beat, and my pulse throbbed, and my head swam round with giddiness-when he refused my prayer! I'm not given to faint, yet could I, in good troth, have done so from very fear!

66

Ay, now I'm safe!-thanks to mine own good wit-thanks also to the King's goodness -for good, and kind, and generous he is—of that there is no question. Yes, 'tis all over, and I need no longer fear this D'Artois-him who Louis and some others say hath sworn

my ruin;-well, I've ruined him instead!-the lists were open and we entered them we fought and I have conquered.

“Yet, yet doth it grieve me thus to cheat the King!—ay, truly doth it:- himself, too noble to deceive, suspecteth not deceit in others-least of all from-from me-alas!Yet I but fence myself from hurt-would I were not compelled!-Oh, what a wretch I am!--I love the King-yes I do love him— who knows, and loves him not? How different is he from that false losel, that consummate traitor, Flanders !-how do I both detest and scorn the shameless palterer. Please Heaven, that whilst thus playing on the King, that I may rid me of a foe, this seeming friend of mine, this caitiff, trap me not in mine own wiles, and urge me to a crime by which himself shall only profit! Shall I renounce the scheme?-No, no-it is too late-the blow hath been too deeply struck-Robert must fall or I-away the thought!"

Such were the reflections which passed through Inez's mind after the King had

quitted her; and from them, I think, one gathers that it was female vanity which had originally angered her against the Count of Artois and his dame; but that this would scarcely have prompted her to more than some passionate exhibitions of wounded pride, and some harmless invectives against him and the Countess, had it not been that Louis of Flanders had more deeply poisoned her mind against them by exciting terror; and making her think it would be impossible for her long to retain the King's affections unless she contrived to undermine their influence in the palace.

It cannot, therefore, be wondered at that Inez, whose principal passion throughout life had been an advancement in it, resolved to ruin those she disliked, rather than suffer them to ruin her. Yet was she punished by her own conscience for the means she took to bring this about; and her expressions of sorrow and regret seem to shew that her disposition was not altogether depraved-that she was

Not quite degraded

By all the crimes through which she waded;"

and that, however vicious her conduct might be, there still lurked some good feelings at the bottom of her heart.

I hold but as poor artist, him, who portrays any individual as either perfectly good, or perfectly bad. Nothing is perfect;-no one is perfectly beautiful, nor is any one perfectly ugly; perfectly foolish, or perfectly wise; ivory is not perfectly elastic, nor is lead perfectly dull; adamant is not perfectly hard, nor down perfectly soft; nor can either Trouten or Carey divide a circle into perfect degrees, that is, each of them measuring the exact space they ought to occupy; in short, perfection is not of this world, and there is not to be found in it either perfect virtue or perfect viciousness.

It will not, perhaps, be displeasing to the reader thus to find that Inez was not quite lost to the sense of right and wrong. In truth, one hates to behold a character on which there is no single speck of brightness; nothing to relieve eye which gazes on it,—where all is vicious,

the