hralled
her. Love weaves his chains of the gossamer's web, as well as of the
unyielding adamant; and both are alike binding and inextricable. She
saw neither form nor face in her visions, and yet the impalpable and
glowing impression stole upon her senses like an odour, or a strain of
soft and soul-thrilling music. Her heart was wrapped in a delirium of
such voluptuous melody, that she chided the morning when she awoke,
and longed for night and her own forgetfulness. Night after night the
vision was repeated; and when her lover came, it was as though some
chord of feeling had jarred, some tie were broken, some delicious
dream were interrupted, and she turned from him with vexation and
regret. He chided her caprice, which he endured impatiently, and with
little show of forbearance. This did not restore him to her favour,
nor render him more winning and attractive; so that the invisible
gallant, a rival he little dreamt of, was silently occupying the heart
once destined for his own.

One evening, Ralph, in pursuance of the commands he had received,
arrayed in his best doublet, his brown hose, and a huge waist or
undercoat, beneath which lay a heavy and foreboding heart, made his
appearance at the house of Sir Nicholas Byron, an irregular and ugly
structure of lath and plaster, well ribbed with stout timber, situated
in a sheltered nook near the edge of the Beil, a brook running below
Belfield, once an establishment of the renowned knights of St John of
Jerusalem, or Knights Templars.

Ralph was ushered into the lady's chamber; and she, as if expecting
some more distinguished visitant, looked with an eye of disappointment
and impatience upon the intruder as he made his homely salutation.

"Thine errand?" inquired she.

"Verily, a fool's, lady," replied Ralph, "and a thriftless one, I fear
me, into the bargain."

"Stay thy tongue. Yet I bethink me now," said she, looking earnestly
at him, "thou art from my cousin: a messenger from him, I trow."

"Nay," said the ambiguous hind, "'tis from other guess folk, belike;
but--who--I--Like enough that the Lady Eleanor will go a
fortune-hunting with such a simpleton as I am."

"Go with thee?" said the lady in amazement.

"Why, ay--I was bid to bring you to the Fairies' Chapel, beyond the
waterfall in the wood by Healey, and that ere to-morrow night. But I
am a doomed and a dying man, for how should the Lady Eleanor Byron
obey this message?"

Here the unhappy miller began