THE HEIRESS;

A NOVEL.

She walks in beauty, like the night

Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright

Meet in her aspect and her eyes."-Byron.

IN TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. II.

NEW-YORK:

PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS,
No. 82 CLIFF STREET.

AND SOLD BY THE PRINCIPAL BOOKSELLERS THROUGHOUT THE

UNITED STATES.

t

4-12-48 MFP

4.5.47

THE HEIRESS.

CHAPTER I.

"A dazzling mass of artificial light,

Which showed all things, but nothing as they were;
The music, and the banquet, and the wine:
The garlands, the rose odours, and the flowers;
The sparkling eyes and flashing ornaments;
The white arms, and the raven hair; the braids
And bracelets; swan-like bosoms, and the necklace,
An India in itself, yet dazzling not

The eye like what it circled;

The many-twinkling feet, so small and sylph-like;
All the delusion of the dizzy scene;

Its false and true enchantments-art and nature."

BYRON.

MRS. THROGMORTON's ball on her son's coming of age was expected to be too gay a thing for any one to decline the invitation who had the power of accepting it, and at eleven o'clock the rooms were brilliant with handsome dresses, and lovely or at least animated faces. We will say nothing of aching hearts and aching heads, veiled by wreathed smiles and gay tones. Happy for us, in some senses, that the fabled ring, whose touch revealed the inmost thoughts, is only to be found in Eastern story; that human beings have no windows in their breasts; that every house is not a palace of Truth. Some few simple people may now gaze on smiling faces, and listen to the laugh, and the jest, and the repartee, and never guess

"That laughter is a veil that's thrown,
To hide from every eye despair."

The kind-hearted may never imagine that envy and malice can lurk under soft words and gentle tones; and the young and unwrung may dream for a while that the world is indeed the Paradise it looks. The delusion will end soon enough to pleasure even the most rigid.