Still at intervals Cadurcis wrote to Cherbury, to which, as time flew
on, it seemed destined he never was to return. Vacation followed
vacation, alike passed with his guardian, either in London, or at
a country seat still more remote from Cherbury, until at length it
became so much a matter of course that his guardian's house should
be esteemed his home, that Plantagenet ceased to allude even to the
prospect of return. In time his letters became rarer and rarer, until,
at length, they altogether ceased. Meanwhile Venetia had overcome the
original pang of separation; if not as gay as in old days, she was
serene and very studious; delighting less in her flowers and birds,
but much more in her books, and pursuing her studies with an
earnestness and assiduity which her mother was rather fain to check
than to encourage. Venetia Herbert, indeed, promised to become a most
accomplished woman. She had a fine ear for music, a ready tongue for
languages; already she emulated her mother's skill in the arts; while
the library of Cherbury afforded welcome and inexhaustible resources
to a girl whose genius deserved the richest and most sedulous
cultivation, and whose peculiar situation, independent of her studious
predisposition, rendered reading a pastime to her rather than a
task.
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