"If it were earlier in the day, I should love to lead you there. Shall we
try the adventure now, Ellen?"

"Oh no!" she replied. "Let us delay no longer. I fear I must even now
abide a rebuke from Mrs. Melmoth, which I have surely deserved. But who is
this, who rides on so slowly before us?"

She pointed to a horseman, whom they had not before observed. He was
descending the hill; but, as his steed seemed to have chosen his own pace,
he made a very inconsiderable progress.

"Oh, do you not know him? But it is scarcely possible you should,"
exclaimed her companion. "We must do him the good office, Ellen, of
stopping his progress, or he will find himself at the village, a dozen
miles farther on, before he resumes his consciousness."

"Has he then lost his senses?" inquired Miss Langton.

"Not so, Ellen,--if much learning has not made him mad," replied Edward
Walcott. "He is a deep scholar and a noble fellow; but I fear we shall
follow him to his grave erelong. Dr. Melmoth has sent him to ride in
pursuit of his health. He will never overtake it, however, at this pace."

As he spoke, they had approached close to the subject of their
conversation; and Ellen had a moment's space for observation before he
started from the abstraction in which he was plunged. The result of her
scrutiny was favorable, yet very painful.

The stranger could scarcely have attained his twentieth year, and was
possessed of a face and form such as Nature bestows on none but her