hing, this very fierceness, that
had challenged my love. For I must confess mine is not one of those
curious natures that I have read of, whose love is based only upon the
goodness of the object. That _is not love_.

My heart recognised in her _the heroine of extremes_. One of those
natures gifted with all the tenderness that belongs to the angel idea--
woman; yet soaring above her sex in the paralysing moments of peril and
despair. Her feelings, in relation to her sister's cruelty to the
gold-fish, proved the existence of the former principle; her actions, in
attempting my own rescue when battling with the monster, were evidence
of the latter. One of those natures that may err from the desperate
intensity of one passion, that knows no limit to its self-sacrifice
short of destruction and death. One of those beings that may fall--but
_only once_.

"What would I not give--what would I not do--to be the hero of such a
heart?"

These were my reflections as I quitted the house.

I had noted every word, every look, every action, that could lend me a
hope; and my memory conjured up, and my judgment canvassed, each little
circumstance in its turn.

How strange her conduct at bidding adieu! How unlike her sister! Less
friendly and sincere; and yet from this very circumstance I drew my
happiest omen.

Strange--is it not? My experience has taught me that love and hate for
the _same_ object can exist in the _same_ heart, and at the _same_ time.
If this be a paradox, I am a child of error.

I believed it then; and her apparent coldness, which would have rendered
many another hopeless, produced with me an opposite effect.

Then came the cloud--the thought of Don Santiago--and a painful feeling
shot through my heart.

"Don Santiago, a naval officer, young, handsome. Bah! hers is not a
heart to be won by a face."

Such were my reflections and half-uttered expressions as I slowly led my
soldiers through the tangled path.

Don Santiago's age and his appearance were the creations of a jealous
fancy. I had bidden adieu to my new acquaintances knowing nothing of
Don Santiago beyond the fact that he was an officer on board the Spanish
ship of war, and a relation of Don Cosme.

"Oh, yes! Don Santiago is on board! Ha! there was an evident interest.
Her look as she said it; her manner--furies! But he is a relation, a
cousin--_a cousin--I hate cousins_!"

I must have pronounced the last words aloud, as Lincoln, who