withstand the sight of his affliction.

"Now, do not be in such haste," she said; "I will go up again, and tell
her how it stands with you, and bring her down, if it is in woman's
power to do it."

And so saying, she left the apartment, and ran upstairs.

Julian Peveril, meanwhile, paced the apartment in great agitation,
waiting the success of Deborah's intercession; and she remained long
enough absent to give us time to explain, in a short retrospect, the
circumstances which had led to his present situation.

CHAPTER XII

Ah me! for aught that ever I could read,
Could ever hear by tale or history,
The course of true love never did run smooth!
--Midsummer Night's Dream.

The celebrated passage which we have prefixed to this chapter has, like
most observations of the same author, its foundation in real experience.
The period at which love is formed for the first time, and felt most
strongly, is seldom that at which there is much prospect of its being
brought to a happy issue. The state of artificial society opposes many
complicated obstructions to early marriages; and the chance is very
great, that such obstacles prove insurmountable. In fine, there are few
men who do not look back in secret to some period of their youth, at
which a sincere and early affection was repulsed, or betrayed, or become
abortive from opposing circumstances. It is these little passages of
secret history, which leave a tinge of romance in every bosom, scarce
permitting us, even in the most busy or the most advanced period of
life, to listen with total indifference to a tale of true love.

Julian Peveril had so fixed his affections, as to insure the fullest
share of that opposition which early attachments are so apt to
encounter. Yet nothing so natural as that he should have done so. In
early youth, Dame Debbitch had accidentally met with the son of her
first patroness, and who had himself been her earliest charge, fishing
in the little brook already noticed, which watered the valley in
which she resided with Alice Bridgenorth. The dame's curiosity easily
discovered who he was; and besides the interest which persons in her
condition usually take in the young people who have been under their
charge, she was delighted with the opportunity to talk about former
times--about Martindale Castle, and friends there--about Sir
Geoffrey and his good lady--and, now and t