description of women of ancient birth, which
rendered still more displeasing the pride and coldness of his mien; of
talents peculiarly framed to attract interest as well as esteem; of
a deep and somewhat morbid melancholy, which, while it turned from
ordinary ties, inclined yearningly towards passionate affections; of
a temper where romance was only concealed from the many to become more
seductive to the few; unsocial, but benevolent; disliked, but respected;
of the austerest demeanour, but of passions the most fervid, though
the most carefully concealed,--this man united within himself all that
repels the common mass of his species, and all that irresistibly wins
and fascinates the rare and romantic few. To these qualities were added
a carriage and bearing of that high and commanding order which men
mistake for arrogance and pretension, and women overrate in proportion
to its contrast to their own. Something of mystery there was in the
commencement of the deep and eventful love which took place between this
person and Isabel, which I have never been able to learn whatever it
was, it seemed to expedite and heighten the ordinary progress of love;
and when in the dim twilight, beneath the first melancholy smile of
the earliest star, their hearts opened audibly to each other, that
confession had been made silently long since and registered in the
inmost recesses of the soul.

But their passion, which began in prosperity, was soon darkened. Whether
he took offence at the haughtiness of Isabel's lover, or whether
he desired to retain about him an object which he could torment and
tyrannize over, no sooner did the General discover the attachment of his
young relation than he peremptorily forbade its indulgence, and assumed
so insolent and overbearing an air towards the lover that the latter
felt he could no longer repeat his visits to or even continue his
acquaintance with the nabob.

To add to these adverse circumstances, a relation of the lover, from
whom his expectations had been large, was so enraged, not only at the
insult his cousin had received, but at the very idea of his forming an
alliance with one in so dependent a situation and connected with
such new blood as Isabel St. Leger, that, with that arrogance which
relations, however distant, think themselves authorized to assume, he
enjoined his cousin, upon pain of forfeiture of favour and fortune, to
renounce all idea of so disparaging an alliance. The one thus addr