oor thing had evidently come here to drink,
when it had been seized upon by some dog; and I cannot express my
mixture of rage and remorse as I watched the damp, warm vapour slowly
rising from the lacerated and bloody flank, and contemplated the
beautiful but dimmed eye, glazed by the pale moonlight. Our peaceful
sanctuary was violated!

I borrowed the very old gun of the very old butler, and watched for
the moment of my revenge till daybreak, but it was never satiated.

A few months after this, having received an invitation to a delightful
residence near the sea, and at the same time to meet some families of
the county, among whom was to be "my own dear somebody," Seymour and I
had set off in high glee with such a break in the monotony of our
monastic habits.

That afternoon, then, I was riding by the side of this "somebody." A
sort of confidence had arisen between us, very delightful and
unaccountable; except simply that, on one side of me, as I rode along
the edge of the cliffs, there was the Atlantic looking lowering and
stormy, mingled in the horizon with the still drearier sky, broken or
relieved by the contrast of a very lovely girl.

At this moment it was blowing and raining heavily, and, as she
cantered along, my admiration of her was anything but diminished, when
I witnessed the cheerful and good-natured indifference with which she
treated a boisterous day of "bleak and chill December."

Being an ardent sort of little personage, she had been descanting with
considerable animation and enthusiasm on a subject which affected her
deeply. Her hair, completely dripping, was hanging down her cheek, now
freshened by the coldness of the pelting rain. I cannot conceive how
anything could look more beautiful than this girl did at that moment.
At the same time though she appeared serious and melancholy, and, I
think, a little out of humour too, while her hat, which was too large
for her, had, from the wet, become quite shapeless, and appeared
pressed down over her face, so that I could not forbear laughing, in
spite of everything, though at the moment I felt wofully wretched!

Interrupting herself, and looking up towards the clouds, she pointed
out to me, with her whip, a portion of blue sky, perhaps intimating a
cessation of the storm. Regardless of either, I coolly as
thoughtlessly put my hand out to take hers! but owing to the action of
our horses, missed it. She never saw the attempt, and I narrowly
escaped maki