train
which imagination has already laid. But he suppressed his emotion,
recollecting how easily an incident so indifferent might have happened,
and that it was only the uniform monotony of the movement of the
choristers which made the incident in the slightest degree remarkable.

Still, while the procession, for the third time, surrounded the chapel,
the thoughts and the eyes of Kenneth followed exclusively the one among
the novices who had dropped the rosebud. Her step, her face, her form
were so completely assimilated to the rest of the choristers that it
was impossible to perceive the least marks of individuality; and yet
Kenneth's heart throbbed like a bird that would burst from its cage, as
if to assure him, by its sympathetic suggestions, that the female who
held the right file on the second rank of the novices was dearer to him,
not only than all the rest that were present, but than the whole sex
besides. The romantic passion of love, as it was cherished, and indeed
enjoined, by the rules of chivalry, associated well with the no less
romantic feelings of devotion; and they might be said much more to
enhance than to counteract each other. It was, therefore, with a glow
of expectation that had something even of a religious character that
Sir Kenneth, his sensations thrilling from his heart to the ends of
his fingers, expected some second sign of the presence of one who, he
strongly fancied, had already bestowed on him the first. Short as
the space was during which the procession again completed a third
perambulation of the chapel, it seemed an eternity to Kenneth. At length
the form which he had watched with such devoted attention drew nigh.
There was no difference betwixt that shrouded figure and the others,
with whom it moved in concert and in unison, until, just as she passed
for the third time the kneeling Crusader, a part of a little and
well-proportioned hand, so beautifully formed as to give the highest
idea of the perfect proportions of the form to which it belonged, stole
through the folds of the gauze, like a moonbeam through the fleecy cloud
of a summer night, and again a rosebud lay at the feet of the Knight of
the Leopard.

This second intimation could not be accidental---it could not be
fortuitous, the resemblance of that half-seen but beautiful female hand
with one which his lips had once touched, and, while they touched it,
had internally sworn allegiance to the lovely owner. Had further proof
b