turned away, and sauntered slowly towards the college.

Ellen Langton, on her return from her walk, found Dr. Melmoth's little
parlor unoccupied; that gentleman being deeply engaged in his study, and
his lady busied in her domestic affairs. The evening, notwithstanding
Ellen's remark concerning the chillness of the breeze, was almost sultry;
and the windows of the apartment were thrown open. At one of these, which
looked into the garden, she seated herself, listening, almost
unconsciously, to the monotonous music of a thousand insects, varied
occasionally by the voice of a whippoorwill, who, as the day departed, was
just commencing his song. A dusky tint, as yet almost imperceptible, was
beginning to settle on the surrounding objects, except where they were
opposed to the purple and golden clouds, which the vanished sun had made
the brief inheritors of a portion of his brightness. In these gorgeous
vapors, Ellen's fancy, in the interval of other thoughts, pictured a
fairy-land, and longed for wings to visit it.

But as the clouds lost their brilliancy, and assumed first a dull purple,
and then a sullen gray tint, Ellen's thoughts recurred to the adventure of
the angler, which her imagination was inclined to invest with an undue
singularity. It was, however, sufficiently unaccountable that an entire
stranger should venture to demand of her a private audience; and she
assigned, in turn, a thousand motives for such a request, none of which
were in any degree satisfactory. Her most prevailing thought, though she
could not justify it to her reason, inclined her to believe that the
angler was a messenger from her father. But wherefore he should deem it
necessary to communicate any intelligence that he might possess only by
means of a private interview, and without the knowledge of her friends,
was a mystery she could not solve. In this view of the matter, however,
she half regretted that her instinctive delicacy had impelled her so