‘We are none of us very happy, I think,’ said Venetia, mournfully.  ’I am sure when I look back to the last few years of my life it seems to me that there is some curse hanging over our families.  I cannot penetrate it; it baffles me.’

‘I am sure,’ said Captain Cadurcis with great animation, ’nay, I would pledge my existence cheerfully on the venture, that if Lady Annabel would only relent towards Cadurcis, we should all be the happiest people in the world.’

‘Heigho!’ said Venetia.  ’There are other cares in our house besides our unfortunate acquaintance with your cousin.  We were the last people in the world with whom he should ever have become connected.’

‘And yet it was an intimacy that commenced auspiciously,’ said her friend.  ’I am sure I have sat with Cadurcis, and listened to him by the hour, while he has told me of all the happy days at Cherbury when you were both children; the only happy days, according to him, that he ever knew.’

‘Yes! they were happy days,’ said Venetia.

’And what connection could have offered a more rational basis for felicity than your union?’ he continued.  ’Whatever the world may think, I, who know Cadurcis to the very bottom of his heart, feel assured that you never would have repented for an instant becoming the sharer of his life; your families were of equal rank, your estates joined, he felt for your mother the affection of a son.  There seemed every element that could have contributed to earthly bliss.  As for his late career, you who know all have already, have always indeed, viewed it with charity.  Placed in his position, who could have acted otherwise?  I know very well that his genius, which might recommend him to another woman, is viewed by your mother with more than apprehension.  It is true that a man of his exquisite sensibility requires sympathies as refined to command his nature.  It is no common mind that could maintain its hold over Cadurcis, and his spirit could not yield but to rare and transcendent qualities.  He found them, Venetia, he found them in her whom he had known longest and most intimately, and loved from his boyhood.  Talk of constancy, indeed! who has been so constant as my cousin?  No, Venetia! you may think fit to bow to the feelings of your mother, and it would be impertinence in me to doubt for an instant the propriety of your conduct:  I do not doubt it; I admire it; I admire you, and everything you have done; none can view your behaviour throughout all these painful transactions with more admiration, I might even say with more reverence, than myself; but, Venetia, you never can persuade me, you have never attempted to persuade me, that you yourself are incredulous of the strength and permanency of my cousin’s love.’

‘Ah, George! you are our friend!’ said Venetia, a tear stealing down her cheek.  ’But, indeed, we must not talk of these things.  As for myself, I think not of happiness.  I am certain I am not born to be happy.  I wish only to live calmly; contentedly, I would say; but that, perhaps, is too much.  My feelings have been so harrowed, my mind so harassed, during these last few years, and so many causes of pain and misery seem ever hovering round my existence, that I do assure you, my dear friend, I have grown old before my time.  Ah! you may smile, George, but my heart is heavy; it is indeed.’