the great master of the human heart termed the "Egyptian toy," to whom one of the world's masters "would return," was far less indebted to her beauty than her genius for her influence; and in all countries and ages, women so gifted, who are tolerably handsome, are generally found to have an abiding or a recurring power of captivation over that slippery thing, the heart of man, which, if once felt, is rarely wholly eradicated. There is a charm in the companionship, the novelty of idea, the poetry, which irradiates common objects; and the sublimity which occasionally pervades those beyond them, which mixes itself alike with the taste and the affections, the imagination and the intellect, and will not be forgotten, since it enhances all that is most lovely in beauty and attractive in youth, so long as they exist, and not unfrequently supplies their departure by its own imperishable talisman.
Margarita Riccardini held this spell; therefore was Glentworth to be more pitied than blamed in this unhappy conjuncture; but far more than either should the innocent Isabella claim our compassion. That information, which on her journey she received by fits and starts, as the resolution or the agony of the hour prevailed, we will offer in the following chapter.
