the counterpart of her brother, as well in personal
attraction as in singleness of nature. With all his
affected levity, and notwithstanding his early initiation
into fashionable life--that matter-of-fact life which
strikes at the existence of our earlier and dearer
illusions--there was a dash of romance in the character
of the young baronet which tended much to increase the
pleasure he always took in the warm descriptions of his
friend. The very circumstance of her being personally
unknown to him, was, with Sir Everard, an additional
motive for interest in Miss de Haldimar.

Imagination and mystery generally work their way together;
and as there was a shade of mystery attached to Sir
Everard's very ignorance of the person of one whom he
admired and esteemed from report alone, imagination was
not slow to improve the opportunity, and to endow the
object with characteristics, which perhaps a more intimate
knowledge of the party might have led him to qualify. In
this manner, in early youth, are the silken and willing
fetters of the generous and the enthusiastic forged. We
invest some object, whose praises, whispered secretly in
the ear, have glided imperceptibly to the heart, with
all the attributes supplied by our own vivid and readily
according imaginations; and so accustomed do we become
to linger on the picture, we adore the semblance with an
ardour which the original often fails to excite. When,
however, the high standard of our fancy's fair creation
is attained, we worship as something sacred that which
was to our hearts a source of pure and absorbing interest,