in a very low voice, as to herself, "It is true--how could I think
otherwise?"

For the next few days Evelyn was unwell, and did not quit her room.
Maltravers was in despair. The flowers, the books, the music he sent;
his anxious inquiries, his earnest and respectful notes, touched with
that ineffable charm which Heart and Intellect breathe into the most
trifling coinage from their mint,--all affected Evelyn sensibly. Perhaps
she contrasted them with Legard's indifference and apparent caprice;
perhaps in that contrast Maltravers gained more than by all his
brilliant qualities. Meanwhile, without visit, without message, without
farewell,--unconscious, it is true, of Evelyn's illness,--Legard
departed for Vienna.

CHAPTER III.

A PLEASING land...
Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye,
And of gay castles in the clouds that pass,
Forever flashing round a summer sky.--THOMSON.

DAILY, hourly, increased the influence of Evelyn over Maltravers. Oh,
what a dupe is a man's pride! what a fool his wisdom! That a girl,
a mere child, one who scarce knew her own heart, beautiful as it
was,--whose deeper feelings still lay coiled up in their sweet
buds,--that she should thus master this proud, wise man! But as
thou--our universal teacher--as thou, O Shakspeare! haply speaking from
the hints of thine own experience, hast declared--

"None are so truly caught, when they are catched,
As wit turned fool; folly in wisdom hatched,
Hath wisdom's warrant."

Still, methinks that, in that surpassing and dangerously indulged
affection which levelled thee, Maltravers, with the weakest, which
overturned all thy fine philosophy of Stoicism, and made thee the
veriest slave of the "Rose Garden,"--still, Maltravers, thou mightest
at least have seen that thou hast lost forever all right to pride,
all privilege to disdain the herd! But thou wert proud of thine own
infirmity! And far sharper must be that lesson which can teach thee that
Pride--thine angel--is ever pre-doomed to fall.

What a mistake to suppose that the passions are strongest in youth! The
passions are not stronger, but the control over them is weaker. They are
more easily excited, they are more violent and more apparent; but they
have less energy, less durability, less intense and concentrated power,
than in maturer life. In youth, passion succeeds to passion, and one
breaks upon the other, as waves upon a rock, till the heart frets itself
to repo