ed
forward with a hope rather sanguine than anxious to the ultimate
realization of his cherished domestic scheme. And he pleased himself
with thinking that when all soreness would, by this double wedding, be
banished from Walter's mind, it would be impossible to conceive a family
group more united or more happy.

And Ellinor herself, ever since the parting words of her cousin, had
seemed, so far from being inconsolable for his absence, more bright of
cheek and elastic of step than she had been for months before. What a
world of all feelings, which forbid despondence, lies hoarded in the
hearts of the young! As one fountain is filled by the channels that
exhaust another; we cherish wisdom at the expense of hope. It thus
happened from one cause or another, that Walter's absence created a less
cheerless blank in the family circle than might have been expected, and
the approaching bridals of Madeline and her lover, naturally diverted in
a great measure the thoughts of each, and engrossed their conversation.

Whatever might be Madeline's infatuation as to the merits of Aram, one
merit--the greatest of all in the eyes of a woman who loves, he at least
possessed. Never was mistress more burningly and deeply loved than she,
who, for the first time, awoke the long slumbering passions in the
heart of Eugene Aram. Every day the ardour of his affections seemed
to increase. With what anxiety he watched her footsteps!--with what
idolatry he hung upon her words!--with what unspeakable and yearning
emotion he gazed upon the changeful eloquence of her cheek. Now that
Walter was gone, he almost took up his abode at the manor-house. He came
thither in the early morning, and rarely returned home before the family
retired for the night; and even then, when all was hushed, and they
believed him in his solitary home, he lingered for hours around the
house, to look up to Madeline's window, charmed to the spot which held
the intoxication of her presence. Madeline discovered this habit, and
chid it; but so tenderly, that it was not cured. And still at times, by
the autumnal moon, she marked from her window his dark figure gliding
among the shadows of the trees, or pausing by the lowly tombs in the
still churchyard--the resting-place of hearts that once, perhaps, beat
as wildly as his own.

It was impossible that a love of this order, and from one so richly
gifted as Aram; a love, which in substance was truth, and yet in
language poetry, could