first
delightful to escape from the restraint upon his reverie which he had
lately experienced. He leant for an hour over his empty fireplace in
mute abstraction. The cold, however, in time drove him to bed, but
he could not sleep; his eyes indeed were closed, but the vision of
Henrietta Temple was not less apparent to him. He recalled every feature
of her countenance, every trait of her conduct, every word that she had
expressed. The whole series of her observations, from the moment he
had first seen her until the moment they had parted, were accurately
repeated, her very tones considered, and her very attitudes pondered
over. Many were the hours that he heard strike; he grew restless and
feverish. Sleep would not be commanded; he jumped out of bed, he opened
the casement, he beheld in the moonlight the Barbary rose-tree of which
he had presented her a flower. This consoling spectacle assured him that
he had not been, as he had almost imagined, the victim of a dream. He
knelt down and invoked all heavenly and earthly blessings on Henrietta
Temple and his love. The night air and the earnest invocation together
cooled his brain, and Nature soon delivered him, exhausted, to repose.

CHAPTER VI.

_In Which Captain Armine Pays His First Visit to
Ducie_.

YES! it is the morning. Is it possible? Shall he again behold her? That
form of surpassing beauty: that bright, that dazzling countenance; again
are they to bless his entranced vision? Shall he speak to her again?
That musical and thrilling voice, shall it again sound and echo in his
enraptured ear?

Ferdinand had reached Armine so many days before his calculated arrival,
that he did not expect his family and the Grandisons to arrive for at
least a week. What a respite did he not now feel this delay! if ever he
could venture to think of the subject at all. He drove it indeed
from his thoughts; the fascinating present completely engrossed his
existence. He waited until the post arrived; it brought no letters,
letters now so dreaded! He jumped upon his horse and galloped towards
Ducie.

Mr. Temple was the younger son of a younger branch of a noble family.
Inheriting no patrimony, he had been educated for the diplomatic
service, and the influence of his family had early obtained him
distinguished appointments. He was envoy to a German court when a change
of ministry occasioned his recall, and he retired, after a long career
of able and assiduous se