I pity from my heart the frailest, the most utterly fallen of her sex, when once the social Nemesis hands her over to the chorus of the Eumenides.

We deride the subsignanae who line the wall; we make a mock at their old-fashioned whist; we risk jokes whereat our partners smile approvingly on their false fronts and wonderful head-gears; but may the wittiest of us never know by experience how much worse is the bite than the bark of the Veteran Battalion!

Caroline Mannering had all this to contend with, for Vienna was a favorite resort in those days for the English, and she was constantly encountering some of her old set.  She bore up bravely for a while, but it killed her.  She never wearied her lover with her self-reproach, but crushed back her sorrows into her heart, and met him always with a gentle smile.  That same smile contrasted so sadly, at last, with the wan, worn features, that it often made him bend his bushy brows to conceal the rising tears.

If her destiny had been different—­if she had died ripe in years, after a life spent in calm matronly happiness, with all that she loved best round her, would she have been nursed so tenderly or mourned so bitterly by the nearest and dearest of them all as she was by her tempter to sin?  I think not.  I believe that in all the world there never was a greater sorrow than that which Mohun endured as he saw his treasure slowly escaping him; never a desolation more complete and crushing than that which fell upon him as he stood by her corpse, with dry eyes, folded arms, and a heavy, frowning brow.  It was not only that he felt her place could never be filled again—­many feel that, and find it turn out so—­but a part of his being was gone:  all that was soft, and kind, and tender in his nature died with Caroline Mannering.  He never could get rid of a certain chivalry which was inherent in him, so sometimes he would do a generous thing; but he did it so harshly as to deprive the act of the semblance of good-nature.  I think he very seldom again felt sympathy or compassion for any living creature.  Perhaps he thought the world had behaved hardly to his dead love, and so never forgave it.  She passed away very stilly and painlessly.  She was leaning on his breast when he saw death come into her eyes:  he shivered then all over, as if a cold wind had struck him suddenly, but spoke no word.  She understood him, though.  Her last motion was to draw his cheek down to hers with her thin, shadowy arm, and her last breath went up to the God who would judge them both in an unselfish prayer.

“She was rightly served,” says Cornelia; “such women ought to be miserable.”

O rigid mother of the Gracchi! how we all respect you, tronante in the comfortable cathedra of virtue inexpugnable, perhaps unassailed.  Your dictum must stand for the present.  The court is with you.  But I believe other balances will weigh the strength of temptation, the weakness of human endurance, the sincerity of repentance, and the extent of suffered retribution, when the Father of all that have lived and erred since the world began shall make up His jewels.  In that day, I think, the light of many orthodox virgins and dignified matrons will pale before the softer lustre of Magdalene the Saint.