and fervently as he desired such an event, there was an
innate sense of decorum, and it may be secret pride, that
caused him to abstain from any observation having the
remotest tendency to compromise the spotless delicacy of
his adored sister; and such he would have considered any
expression of his own hopes and wishes, where no declaration
of preference had been previously made. There was another
motive for this reserve on the part of the young officer.
The baronet was an only child, and would, on attaining
his majority, of which he wanted only a few months, become
the possessor of a large fortune. His sister Clara, on
the contrary, had little beyond her own fair fame and
the beauty transmitted to her by the mother she had lost.
Colonel de Haldimar was a younger son, and had made his
way through life with his sword, and an unblemished
reputation alone,--advantages he had shared with his
children, for the two eldest of whom his interest and
long services had procured commissions in his own regiment.

But even while Charles de Haldimar abstained from all
expression of his hopes, he had fully made up his mind
that Sir Everard and his sister were so formed for each
other, it was next to an impossibility they could meet
without loving. In one of his letters to the latter, he
had alluded to his friend in terms of so high and earnest
panegyric, that Clara had acknowledged, in reply, she
was prepared to find in the young baronet one whom she
should regard with partiality, if it were only on account
of the friendship subsisting between him and her brother.
This admission, however, was communicated in confidence,