or young Myrvin, who found nothing in the society of the young
nobleman to wound his pride by recalling to his mind his own inferior
rank. Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton fancied they had read his character before;
but their previous intimacy had not discovered those many pleasing
qualifications which domestic amusements and occupations betrayed. Much
of his reserve was now banished; his manners were as easy and as free
from pride or hauteur as his conversation, though chaste and
intellectual, was from pedantry. To all the individuals of that happy
circle he was the same; as kind and as gay to Emmeline and Ellen as to
his own sisters; there might, perhaps, have been a degree of reserve in
his demeanour towards Caroline, but that, except to those principally
concerned, might not have been remarked, for his intercourse with her
was even more general than with others. Emmeline and Ellen, or even
Lilla, was often his selected companion for a walk, but such an
invitation never extended to Caroline, and yet he could never be said
either to neglect or shun her; and she shrinking from attracting his
notice as much as she had once before courted it, an impassable yet
invisible barrier seemed to exist between them. In St. Eval's manner,
his mother and Lady Gertrude read that his feelings were not conquered;
that he was struggling to subdue them, and putting their subjection to
the proof; but Caroline and her parents imagined, and with bitter pain,
that much as he had once esteemed and loved her, a feeling of
indifference now possessed him.

Herbert found pleasure in the society of the young Earl, for St. Eval
had penetrated the secret of his and Mary's love; though with innate
delicacy he refrained from noticing it farther than constantly to make
Mary his theme during his walks with Herbert, and speaking of her
continually to the family, warming the heart of Emmeline yet more in his
favour, by his sincere admiration of her friend. He gave an excellent
account of her health, which she had desired him to assure her friends
the air of Italy had quite restored. He spoke in warm admiration of her
enthusiasm, her love of nature, of all which called forth the more
exalting feelings; of her unaffected goodness, which had rendered her a
favourite, spite of her being a foreigner and a Protestant, throughout
the whole hamlet of Monte Rosa, and as he thus spoke, the anxious eye of
Mrs. Hamilton ever rested on her Herbert, who could read in that glance