own sex than those of her sister. The sunlight of
a happy and innocent heart sparkled on her face, and gave a beam it
gladdened you to behold, to her quick hazel eye, and a smile that broke
out from a thousand dimples. She did not possess the height of Madeline,
and though not so slender as to be curtailed of the roundness and
feminine luxuriance of beauty, her shape was slighter, feebler, and less
rich in its symmetry than her sister's. And this the tendency of the
physical frame to require elsewhere support, nor to feel secure of
strength, influenced perhaps her mind, and made love, and the dependence
of love, more necessary to her than to the thoughtful and lofty
Madeline. The latter might pass through life, and never see the one to
whom her heart could give itself away. But every village might possess
a hero whom the imagination of Ellinor could clothe with unreal graces,
and to whom the lovingness of her disposition might bias her affections.
Both, however, eminently possessed that earnestness and purity of heart,
which would have made them, perhaps in an equal degree, constant and
devoted to the object of an attachment, once formed, in defiance of
change and to the brink of death.

Their cousin Walter, Geoffrey Lester's son, was now in his twenty-first
year; tall and strong of person, and with a face, if not regularly
handsome, striking enough to be generally deemed so. High-spirited,
bold, fiery, impatient; jealous of the affections of those he loved;
cheerful to outward seeming, but restless, fond of change, and subject
to the melancholy and pining mood common to young and ardent minds: such
was the character of Walter Lester. The estates of Lester were settled
in the male line, and devolved therefore upon him. Yet there were
moments when he keenly felt his orphan and deserted situation; and
sighed to think, that while his father perhaps yet lived, he was a
dependent for affection, if not for maintenance, on the kindness of
others. This reflection sometimes gave an air of sullenness or petulance
to his character, that did not really belong to it. For what in the
world makes a man of just pride appear so unamiable as the sense of
dependence?

CHAPTER II.

A PUBLICAN, A SINNER, AND A STRANGER

"Ah, Don Alphonso, is it you? Agreeable accident! Chance presents you to
my eyes where you were least expected." Gil Blas.

It was an evening in the beginning of summer, and Peter Dealtry and the
ci-de