delicate and poetical thought, the
glimpses of a high and noble spirit, which flashed out at times
through the light veil of reckless merriment, which, partly in
compliance with the spirit of the day, and partly because his was a
gay and mirthful nature, he had superinduced over the deeper and
grander points of his character. No; it was a certain originality of
mind, which assured her that, though he might talk lightly, he was one
to feel fervently and deeply--it was the impress of truth, and candor,
and high independence, which was stamped on his every word and action,
that first riveted her attention, and, in spite of her resistance,
half fascinated her imagination.

This it was that had held her abstracted and apparently indifferent,
while Lord St. George was exerting all his powers of entertainment in
her behalf; this it was that had roused her indignation at hearing her
sister speak so slightingly, and, as it seemed to her, so ungenerously
of one whom she felt intuitively to be good and noble.

This it was which now held her mute and thoughtful, and almost sad;
for she felt conscious that she was on the verge of loving--loving one
who, for aught that he had shown as yet, cared naught for her, perhaps
even preferred another--and that other her own sister.

Thereupon her maiden modesty rallied tumultuous to the rescue, and
suggested the shame of giving love unasked, giving it, perchance, to
be scorned--and almost she resolved to stifle the infant feeling in
its birth, and rise superior to the weakness. But when was ever love
vanquished by cold argument, or bound at the chariot-wheels of reason.

The thought would still rise up prominent, turn her mind to whatever
subject she would, coupled with something of pity at the treatment
which he was like to meet from Agnes, something of vague, unconfessed
pleasure that it was so, and something of secret hope that his eyes
would erelong be opened, and that she might prove, in the end, herself
his consoler.

And what, meanwhile, were the dreams of Agnes? Bitter--bitter, and
black, and hateful. Oh! it is a terrible consideration, how swiftly
evil thoughts, once admitted to the heart, take root and flourish, and
grow up into a rank and poisonous crop, choking the good grain
utterly, and corrupting the very soil of which they have taken hold.
There is but one hope--but one! To tear them from the root forcibly,
though the heart-strings crack, and the soul trembles, as with a