it would be like drawing
the game between us; but she is rash, headlong, and passionate. I doubt
if even her fears would control her. And yet I might work well upon
these! I have the will, and the way, both; the event shall decide
whether I employ them." With these thoughts passing in his mind he
reached the house, and entering unobserved, since they were all at
breakfast, repaired to his own room.

He immediately sat down and wrote a few lines to Lord Kilgoff, inquiring
with solicitude after his health, and craving the favor of being
permitted to wait upon him. This done, he amused himself by inventing a
number of little political "gossipries" for the old peer,--those small
nothings which form the sweepings of clubs and the whisperings of
under-secretaries' offices; the pleasant trifles which every one
repeats, but no one believes.

"My Lord will see Mr. Linton whenever he pleases," was the answer of the
valet; and Linton lost no time in availing himself of the permission.

"His Lordship is at breakfast?" said he to the servant, as he walked
along.

"Yes, sir."

"And her Ladyship?"

"My Lady breakfasts below stairs, sir."

"As it ought to be; he is alone," thought Linton, who, in his present
incertitude of purpose, had no desire to meet her.

"If you 'll have the goodness to wait a moment, sir, I 'll tell my
Lord you are here," said the man, as he ushered Linton into a handsome
drawing-room, which various scattered objects denoted to be her
Ladyship's.

As Linton looked over the table, where books, drawings, and embroidery
were negligently thrown, his eye caught many an object he had known
long, long before; and there came over him, ere he knew it, a strange
feeling of melancholy. The past rushed vividly to his mind,--that time
when, sharing with her all his ambitions and his hopes, he had lived
in a kind of fairy world. He turned over the leaves of her
sketch-book,--she had done little of late,--an unfinished bit, here
and there, was all he found; and he sat gazing at the earlier drawings,
every one of which he remembered. There was one of an old pine-tree
scathed by lightning, at the top, but spreading out, beneath, into a
light and feathery foliage, beneath which they had often sat together. A
date in pencil had been written at the foot, but was now erased, leaving
only enough to discover where it had been. Linton's breathing grew
hurried, and his pale cheek paler, as with his head resting on his hands