s. The horse was bought; nothing could go
quieter; Evelyn was not at all afraid. They made two or three little
excursions. Sometimes only Mr. Merton and Maltravers accompanied the
young ladies, sometimes the party was more numerous. Maltravers appeared
to pay equal attention to Caroline and her friend; still Evelyn's
inexperience in equestrian matters was an excuse for his being ever by
her side. They had a thousand opportunities to converse; and Evelyn
now felt more at home with him; her gentle gayety, her fanciful yet
chastened intellect, found a voice. Maltravers was not slow to
discover that beneath her simplicity there lurked sense, judgment, and
imagination. Insensibly his own conversation took a higher flight. With
the freedom which his mature years and reputation gave him, he mingled
eloquent instruction with lighter and more trifling subjects; he
directed her earnest and docile mind, not only to new fields of written
knowledge, but to many of the secrets of Nature, subtle or sublime. He
had a wide range of scientific as well as literary lore; the stars, the
flowers, the phenomena of the physical world, afforded themes on which
he descanted with the fervent love of a poet and the easy knowledge of a
sage.

Mr. Merton, observing that little or nothing of sentiment mingled with
their familiar intercourse, felt perfectly at ease; and knowing that
Maltravers had been intimate with Lumley, he naturally concluded that
he was aware of the engagement between Evelyn and his friend. Meanwhile
Maltravers appeared unconscious that such a being as Lord Vargrave
existed.

It is not to be wondered at that the daily presence, the delicate
flattery of attention from a man like Maltravers, should strongly
impress the imagination, if not the heart, of a susceptible girl.
Already prepossessed in his favour, and wholly unaccustomed to a society
which combined so many attractions, Evelyn regarded him with unspeakable
veneration; to the darker shades in his character she was blind,--to
her, indeed, they did not appear. True that once or twice in mixed
society his disdainful and imperious temper broke hastily and harshly
forth. To folly, to pretension, to presumption, he showed but slight
forbearance. The impatient smile, the biting sarcasm, the cold repulse,
that might gall, yet could scarce be openly resented, betrayed that he
was one who affected to free himself from the polished restraints of
social intercourse. He had once been