ed too often supreme in his
unhappy breast? An enchanted scene had suddenly risen from the earth
for his delight and fascination. Could he be unhappy? Why, if all went
darker even than he sometimes feared, that man had not lived in vain who
had beheld Henrietta Temple! All the troubles of the world were folly
here; this was fairy-land, and he some knight who had fallen from a
gloomy globe upon some starry region flashing with perennial lustre.

The hours flew on; the servants brought in that light banquet whose
entrance in the country seems the only method of reminding our guests
that there is a morrow.

[Illustration: frontis-page146.jpg]

''Tis the last night,' said Ferdinand, smiling, with a sigh. 'One more
song; only one more. Mr. Temple, be indulgent; it is the last night. I
feel,' he added in a lower tone to Henrietta, 'I feel exactly as I did
when I left Armine for the first time.'

'Because you are going to return to it? That is wilful.'

'Wilful or not, I would that I might never see it again.'

'For my part, Armine is to me the very land of romance.'

'It is strange.'

'No spot on earth ever impressed me more. It is the finest combination
of art and nature and poetical associations I know; it is indeed
unique.'

'I do not like to differ with you on any subject.'

'We should be dull companions, I fear, if we agreed upon everything.'

'I cannot think it.'

'Papa,' said Miss Temple, 'one little stroll upon the lawn; one little,
little stroll. The moon is so bright; and autumn, this year, has brought
us as yet no dew.' And as she spoke, she took up her scarf and wound
it round her head. 'There,' she said, 'I look like the portrait of the
Turkish page in Armine Gallery.'

There was a playful grace about Henrietta Temple, a wild and brilliant
simplicity, which was the more charming because it was blended with
peculiarly high breeding. No person in ordinary society was more calm,
or enjoyed a more complete self-possession, yet no one in the more
intimate relations of life indulged more in those little unstudied
bursts of nature, which seemed almost to remind one of the playful child
rather than the polished woman; and which, under such circumstances,
are infinitely captivating. As for Ferdinand Armine, he looked upon the
Turkish page with a countenance beaming with admiration; he wished it
was Turkey wherein he then beheld her, or any other strange land, where
he could have placed her on his courser,