to learn,
even from our enemies; seldom safe to instruct even our friends," [Note:
Lacon.] Aram performed with a meekness and simplicity that charmed the
vanity, even while it corrected the ignorance, of the applicant; and so
various and minute was the information of this accomplished man, that
there scarcely existed any branch even of that knowledge usually called
practical, to which he could not impart from his stores something
valuable and new. The agriculturist was astonished at the success of his
suggestions; and the mechanic was indebted to him for the device which
abridged his labour in improving its result.

It happened that the study of botany was not, at that day, so favourite
and common a diversion with young ladies as it is now, and Ellinor,
captivated by the notion of a science that gave a life and a history
to the loveliest of earth's offspring, besought Aram to teach her its
principles.

As Madeline, though she did not second the request, could scarcely
absent herself from sharing the lesson, this pursuit brought the
pair--already lovers--closer and closer together. It associated them not
only at home, but in their rambles throughout that enchanting country;
and there is a mysterious influence in Nature, which renders us, in her
loveliest scenes, the most susceptible to love! Then, too, how often in
their occupation their hands and eyes met:--how often, by the shady wood
or the soft water-side, they found themselves alone. In all times, how
dangerous the connexion, when of different sexes, between the scholar
and the teacher! Under how many pretences, in that connexion, the heart
finds the opportunity to speak out.

Yet it was not with ease and complacency that Aram delivered himself
to the intoxication of his deepening attachment. Sometimes he was
studiously cold, or evidently wrestling with the powerful passion that
mastered his reason. It was not without many throes, and desperate
resistance, that love at length overwhelmed and subdued him; and these
alternations of his mood, if they sometimes offended Madeline and
sometimes wounded, still rather increased than lessened the spell which
bound her to him. The doubt and the fear--the caprice and the change,
which agitate the surface, swell also the tides, of passion. Woman,
too, whose love is so much the creature of her imagination, always asks
something of mystery and conjecture in the object of her affection. It
is a luxury to her to perplex herself