hen he speaks,
is it not like music?--or rather, what music so arrests and touches the
heart? Methinks it is Heaven only to gaze upon him--to note the changes
of that majestic countenance--to set down as food for memory every look
and every movement. But when the look turns to me--when the voice utters
my name, ah! Ellinor, then it is not a wonder that I love him thus much:
but that any others should think they have known love, and yet not loved
him! And, indeed, I feel assured that what the world calls love is not
my love. Are there more Eugenes in the world than one? Who but Eugene
could be loved as I love?"

"What! are there none as worthy?" said Ellinor, half smiling.

"Can you ask it?" answered Madeline, with a simple wonder in her voice;
"Whom would you compare--compare! nay, place within a hundred grades of
the height which Eugene Aram holds in this little world?"

"This is folly--dotage;" said Ellinor, indignantly: "Surely there are
others, as brave, as gentle, as kind, and if not so wise, yet more
fitted for the world."

"You mock me," replied Madeline, incredulously; "whom could you select?"

Ellinor blushed deeply--blushed from her snowy temples to her yet whiter
bosom, as she answered,

"If I said Walter Lester, could you deny it?"

"Walter!" repeated Madeline, "the equal to Eugene Aram!"

"Ay, and more than equal," said Ellinor, with spirit, and a warm and
angry tone. "And indeed, Madeline," she continued, after a pause, "I
lose something of that respect, which, passing a sister's love, I have
always borne towards you, when I see the unthinking and lavish idolatry
you manifest to one, who, but for a silver tongue and florid words,
would rather want attractions than be the wonder you esteem him. Fie,
Madeline! I blush for you when you speak, it is unmaidenly so to love
any one!"

Madeline rose from the window, but the angry word died on her lips when
she saw that Ellinor, who had worked her mind beyond her self-control,
had thrown herself back on the pillow, and now sobbed aloud.

The natural temper of the elder sister had always been much more
calm and even than that of the younger, who united with her vivacity
something of the passionate caprice and fitfulness of her sex. And
Madeline's affection for her had been tinged by that character of
forbearance and soothing, which a superior nature often manifests to
one more imperfect, and which in this instance did not desert her. She
gently closed th