olitary neighbour. His mind, as developed in his works, had half-formed
her own. Her childish adventure with the stranger had never been
forgotten. Her present knowledge of Maltravers was an union of dangerous
and often opposite associations,--the Ideal and the Real.

Love, in its first dim and imperfect shape, is but imagination
concentrated on one object. It is a genius of the heart, resembling that
of the intellect; it appeals to, it stirs up, it evokes, the sentiments
and sympathies that lie most latent in our nature. Its sigh is the
spirit that moves over the ocean, and arouses the Anadyomene into life.
Therefore is it that MIND produces affections deeper than those of
external form; therefore it is that women are worshippers of glory,
which is the palpable and visible representative of a genius whose
operations they cannot always comprehend. Genius has so much in common
with love, the imagination that animates one is so much the property
of the other, that there is not a surer sign of the existence of genius
than the love that it creates and bequeaths. It penetrates deeper than
the reason, it binds a nobler captive than the fancy. As the sun upon
the dial, it gives to the human heart both its shadow and its light.
Nations are its worshippers and wooers; and Posterity learns from its
oracles to dream, to aspire, to adore!

Had Maltravers declared the passion that consumed him, it is probable
that it would soon have kindled a return. But his frequent absence, his
sustained distance of manner, had served to repress the feelings that
in a young and virgin heart rarely flow with much force until they
are invited and aroused. _Le besoin d'aimer_ in girls, is, perhaps, in
itself powerful; but is fed by another want, _le besoin d'etre aime_!
_If_, therefore, Evelyn at present felt love for Maltravers, the love
had certainly not passed into the core of life: the tree had not so far
struck its roots but what it might have borne transplanting. There was
in her enough of the pride of sex to have recoiled from the thought
of giving love to one who had not asked the treasure. Capable of
attachment, more trustful and therefore, if less vehement, more
beautiful and durable than that which had animated the brief tragedy of
Florence Lascelles, she could not have been the unknown correspondent,
or revealed the soul, because the features wore a mask.

It must also be allowed that, in some respects, Evelyn was too young and
inexperi