w, on which the very tenure of his existence depended. After he
had consented, a trembling came over him; he hastily left the room, and
till the day arrived, was observed by his friends of the Manor-house to
be more gloomy and abstracted than they ever had known him, even at the
earliest period of acquaintance.

On the day itself, as they proceeded to the castle, Madeline perceived
with a tearful repentance of her interference, that he sate by her side
cold and rapt; and that once or twice when his eyes dwelt upon her, it
was with an expression of reproach and distrust.

It was not till they entered the lofty hall of the castle, when a vulgar
diffidence would have been most abashed, that Aram recovered himself.
The Earl was standing--the centre of a group in the recess of a window
in the saloon, opening upon an extensive and stately terrace. He came
forward to receive them with the polished and warm kindness which he
bestowed upon al his inferiors in rank. He complimented the sisters; he
jested with Lester; but to Aram only, he manifested less the courtesy
of kindness than of respect. He took his arm, and leaning on it with a
light touch, led him to the group at the window. It was composed of the
most distinguished public men in the country, and among them (the Earl
himself was connected through an illegitimate branch with the reigning
monarch,) was a prince of the blood royal.

To these, whom he had prepared for the introduction, he severally, and
with an easy grace, presented Aram, and then falling back a few steps,
he watched with a keen but seemingly careless eye, the effect which so
sudden a contact with royalty itself would produce on the mind of
the shy and secluded Student, whom it was his object to dazzle and
overpower. It was at this moment that the native dignity of Aram, which
his studies, unworldly as they were, had certainly tended to increase,
displayed itself, in a trial which, poor as it was in abstract theory,
was far from despicable in the eyes of the sensible and practised
courtier. He received with his usual modesty, but not with his usual
shrinking and embarrassment on such occasions, the compliments he
received; a certain and far from ungraceful pride was mingled with his
simplicity of demeanour; no fluttering of manner, betrayed that he was
either dazzled or humbled by the presence in which he stood, and the
Earl could not but confess that there was never a more favourable
opportunity for compa