pulses were for the most part
affectionate and generous, but then came the regrets of caution and
experience; and Hastings summoned his intellect to correct the movement
of his heart,--in other words, reflection sought to undo what impulse
had suggested. Though so successful a gallant, he had not acquired
the ruthless egotism of the sensualist; and his conduct to women often
evinced the weakness of giddy youth rather than the cold deliberation
of profligate manhood. Thus in his veriest vices there was a spurious
amiability, a seductive charm; while in the graver affairs of life the
intellectual susceptibility of his nature served but to quicken his
penetration and stimulate his energies, and Hastings might have said,
with one of his Italian contemporaries, "That in subjection to the
influences of women he had learned the government of men." In a word,
his powers to attract, and his capacities to command, may be guessed by
this,--that Lord Hastings was the only man Richard III. seems to have
loved, when Duke of Gloucester, [Sir Thomas More, "Life of Edward V.,"
speaks of "the great love" Richard bore to Hastings.] and the only man
he seems to have feared, when resolved to be King of England.

Hastings was alone in the apartments assigned to him in the Tower, when
his page, with a peculiar smile, announced to him the visit of a young
donzell, who would not impart her business to his attendants.

The accomplished chamberlain looked up somewhat impatiently from the
beautiful manuscripts, enriched with the silver verse of Petrarch,
which lay open on his table, and after muttering to himself, "It is only
Edward to whom the face of a woman never is unwelcome," bade the page
admit the visitor. The damsel entered, and the door closed upon her.

"Be not alarmed, maiden," said Hastings, touched by the downcast bend
of the hooded countenance, and the unmistakable and timid modesty of his
visitor's bearing. "What hast thou to say to me?"

At the sound of his voice, Sibyll Warner started, and uttered a
faint exclamation. The stranger of the pastime-ground was before her.
Instinctively she drew the wimple yet more closely round her face, and
laid her hand upon the bolt of the door as if in the impulse of retreat.

The nobleman's curiosity was roused. He looked again and earnestly on
the form that seemed to shrink from his gaze; then rising slowly, he
advanced, and laid his band on her arm. "Donzell, I recognize thee," he
said, in