d finished his survey, "you are a
kind girl--come and kiss me!"

CHAPTER VI.

THE BEHAVIOUR OF THE STUDENT.--A SUMMER SCENE--ARAM'S
CONVERSATION WITH WALTER, AND SUBSEQUENT COLLOQUY WITH
HIMSELF.

"The soft season, the firmament serene,
The loun illuminate air, and firth amene
The silver-scalit fishes on the grete
O'er-thwart clear streams sprinkillond for the heat,"
--Gawin Douglas.

"Ilia subter
Caecum vulnus habes; sed lato balteus auro
Praetegit."
--Persius.

Several days elapsed before the family of the manor-house encountered
Aram again. The old woman came once or twice to present the inquiries
of her master as to Miss Lester's accident; but Aram himself did not
appear. This want to interest certainly offended Madeline, although she
still drew upon herself Walter's displeasure, by disputing and resenting
the unfavourable strictures on the scholar, in which that young
gentleman delighted to indulge. By degrees, however, as the days passed
without maturing the acquaintance which Walter had disapproved, the
youth relaxed in his attacks, and seemed to yield to the remonstrances
of his uncle. Lester had, indeed, conceived an especial inclination
towards the recluse. Any man of reflection, who has lived for some
time alone, and who suddenly meets with one who calls forth in him, and
without labour or contradiction, the thoughts which have sprung up in
his solitude, scarcely felt in their growth, will comprehend the new
zest, the awakening, as it were, of the mind, which Lester found in the
conversation of Eugene Aram. His solitary walk (for his nephew had the
separate pursuits of youth) appeared to him more dull than before; and
he longed to renew an intercourse which had given to the monotony of his
life both variety and relief. He called twice upon Aram, but the student
was, or affected to be, from home; and an invitation he sent him, though
couched in friendly terms, was, but with great semblance of kindness,
refused.

"See, Walter," said Lester, disconcerted, as he finished reading the
refusal--"see what your rudeness has effected. I am quite convinced that
Aram (evidently a man of susceptible as well as retired mind) observed
the coldness of your manner towards him, and that thus you have deprived
me of the only society which, in this country of boors and savage