or various and profound
learning, and a genius wholly self-taught, yet never contented to repose
upon the wonderful stores it had laboriously accumulated.

He now stood before the two girls, silent, and evidently surprised; and
it would scarce have been an unworthy subject for a picture--that
ivied porch--that still spot--Madeline's reclining and subdued form and
downcast eyes--the eager face of Ellinor, about to narrate the nature
and cause of their intrusion--and the pale Student himself, thus
suddenly aroused from his solitary meditations, and converted into the
protector of beauty.

No sooner did Aram gather from Ellinor the outline of their story, and
of Madeline's accident, than his countenance and manner testified the
liveliest and most eager sympathy. Madeline was inexpressibly touched
and surprised at the kindly and respectful earnestness with which this
recluse scholar--usually so cold and abstracted in mood--assisted and
led her into the house: the sympathy he expressed for her pain--the
sincerity of his tone--the compassion of his eyes--and as those
dark--and to use her own thought--unfathomable orbs bent admiringly and
yet so gently upon her, Madeline, even in spite of her pain, felt an
indescribable, a delicious thrill at her heart, which in the presence of
no one else had she ever experienced before.

Aram now summoned the only domestic his house possessed, who appeared in
the form of an old woman, whom he seemed to have selected from the whole
neighbourhood as the person most in keeping with the rigid seclusion he
preserved. She was exceedingly deaf, and was a proverb in the village
for her extreme taciturnity. Poor old Margaret; she was a widow, and had
lost ten children by early deaths. There was a time when her gaiety had
been as noticeable as her reserve was now. In spite of her infirmity,
she was not slow in comprehending the accident Madeline had met with;
and she busied herself with a promptness that shewed her misfortunes
had not deadened her natural kindness of disposition, in preparing
fomentations and bandages for the wounded foot.

Meanwhile Aram, having no person to send in his stead, undertook to seek
the manor-house, and bring back the old family coach, which had dozed
inactively in its shelter for the last six months, to convey the
sufferer home.

"No, Mr. Aram," said Madeline, colouring; "pray do not go yourself:
consider, the man may still be loitering on the road. He is armed--goo