“That does you much honor,” she replied, “for you necessarily embark in a most painful enterprise. The toiling multitude have their sorrows, which, I believe, will some day be softened, and obstacles hard to overcome; but I have always thought that the feeling of satiety, almost inseparable from large possessions, is a surer cause of misery than ungratified desires.”
“It seems to me that there is a great deal to do,” said Lothair.
“I think so,” said the lady.
“Theodora,” said the colonel, who was a little in advance with the professor, and turning round his head, “this reminds me of Mirabel,” and he pointed to the undulating banks covered with rare shrubs, and touching the waters of the lake.
“And where is Mirabel?” said Lothair.
“It was a green island in the Adriatic,” said the lady, “which belonged to Colonel Campian; we lost it in the troubles. Colonel Campian was very fond of it. I try to persuade him that our home was of volcanic origin, and has only vanished and subsided into its native bed.”
“And were not you fond of it?”
“I never think of the past,” said the lady.
“Oxford is not the first place where I had the pleasure of meeting you,” Lothair ventured at length to observe.
“Yes, we have met before, in Hyde Park Gardens. Our hostess is a clever woman, and has been very kind to some friends of mine.”