spise a Lancashire girl who dares not play with Cupid's
arrows, but loves in sad sincerity, or rejects with steady courtesy; yet
if you suspect that you cannot meet my devoted constancy with equal
singleness of heart, leave me now, good Evellin, ere yet my life is so
bound up in your sincerity, that I shall want strength of mind to
dissolve the bond. At present I am so much more disposed to respect you
than myself, that I may think what you have said was only meant for
gallantry, which my ignorance of the world has misconstrued. If after
this warning you still persist in your suit, you must either be, till
death, my faithful lover, or virtually my murderer."

"My own betrothed Isabel," answered Evellin, "to love, pourtrayed with
such chaste simplicity, I owe a confidence as unbounded as thy own. I
will put my life in thy keeping, by disclosing the bosom-secret I have
concealed even from thy saint-like brother. 'Tis the pledge of my
constancy. Mark me, dearest maiden, though a proscribed wanderer wooes
thy love, thy hand may be claimed by a peer of England, and those graces
which adorn thy native village may ornament the palace of our King."

He paused to see if the glow of ambition supplanted the virgin blushes
of acknowledged love; but Isabel's cheek displayed the same meek roseate
hue. No hurried exclamation, no gaspings of concealed delight, no lively
flashings of an exulting eye, proclaimed that he was dearer to her now
than before he acknowledged his high descent. Her objections to a speedy
marriage were even confirmed by this discovery. "I must know," said she,
"that there is no one who possesses a natural or acquired right to
control your choice. People in eminent stations owe many duties to the
state, and must not soil their honours by unworthy alliances. Perhaps
under your tuition I might so deport myself as not to shame your choice,
but I must be well assured that I shall be no obstacle to your moving in
your proper sphere, or I will die Isabel Beaumont, praying that you may
be happier than my love could make you."

Evellin rewarded this generous attachment by telling her his assumed
name was an anagram of his real one, Allan Neville, presumptive heir to
the earldom of Bellingham, the honours of which were now possessed by an
elder brother, whose declining state of health made it probable that
Allan would soon be called from the obscurity in which he lived, and
compelled to clear his slandered fame or sink un