THE LADY ISABEL.

(Continued from page 99.)

Chapter IV.

The Disappearance.

There is nothing so dreadful as the heart’s first disappointment. To love vainly—oh! what is more agonising. We feel as if every one had turned against us; as if there was nothing left to live for in this world; as if the springs of life, and the joy of existence had departed forever from us. The loss of a friend may be compensated for, and the ruin of our fortunes can be borne without despair; but the hopelessness of a first love can never be ameliorated by aught on earth. Go where we will, the blight of the heart will continue with us. We can never forget. Hope will have dried up within us. We feel, like a stranger in a strange land, as an outcast on the world, beholding feelings in which we can take no part around us, and reminded daily of our misery by the happiness of others. Alas! for the one disappointed in a first love.

That night Isabel saw no more of her cousin. But when the whole of the next day passed, and she still did not meet him, she began to be alarmed. She feared to ask for him. Her father had been absent all day, and it was not until night that he returned. When he did, he brought the intelligence, that, in compliance with an old promise, he had that morning visited the earl of ——, an influential courtier of the neighboring county, in order to procure for Lorraine a commission. The page had, the preceding evening, begged to be allowed to join the army so eagerly, that having nothing particularly to do, and noticing and applauding his young cousin’s anxiety to assume arms, he had ridden over with him to —— castle, and after obtaining the appointment for him, had left him there, at his urgent request, with his new colonel.