138 ALL IS NOT GOLD THAT GLITTERS.

after all, is the creating and existing principle
of woman’s nature—natural affection; but this
was refused by its mother’s wisdom. Her
worldly prospects had been doomed to disap-
pointment, because she hungered and thirsted
after vanities and distinctions, which never can
afford sustenance to an immortal spirit; and
even when she desired to cultivate attachment,
it did not proceeed from the pure love of wo-
man—the natural stream was corrupted by an
unworthy motive. .

Again years rolled on. In the records of
fashionable life, the movements and fetes of
Lady continued to be occasionally noted
as the most brilliant of the season; then ru-
mours became rife that Lord and Lady
did not live as affectionately as heretofore ;
then, after twenty years of union, separation
ensued upon the public ground of “ incompati-
bility of temper’’—his friends expressing their
astonishment how his lordship could have so
long endured the pride and caprice of one so
lowly born, while hers—but friends! she had
no friends !—a few partizans of the “ rights of
women”? there were, who, for the sake of “ the
cause,”’ defended the woman. She had been
all her life too restless for friendship, and when
the sensation caused by her separation from her
husband had passed away, none of the gay
world seemed to remember her existence. Rose
and her husband lived, loved, and laboured to-