favorite spot, sketching the ruins. The lady was young, more beautiful
than any woman I had yet seen,--at least to my eyes. In a word, I was
fascinated, and as the trite phrase goes, 'spell-bound.' I seated
myself at a little distance, and contemplated her without desiring to
speak. By and by, from another part of the ruins, which were then
uninhabited, came a tall, imposing elderly gentleman with a benignant
aspect, and a little dog. The dog ran up to me barking. This drew the
attention of both lady and gentleman to me. The gentleman approached,
called off the dog, and apologized with much politeness. Surveying me
somewhat curiously, he then began to ask questions about the old place
and the family it had belonged to, with the name and antecedents of
which he was well acquainted. By degrees it came out that I was the
descendant of that family, and the younger son of the humble rector who
was now its representative. The gentleman then introduced himself to me
as the Earl of Rainsforth, the principal proprietor in the neighborhood,
but who had so rarely visited the country during my childhood and
earlier youth that I had never before seen him. His only son, however,
a young man of great promise, had been at the same college with me in my
first year at the University. The young lord was a reading man and a
scholar, and we had become slightly acquainted when he left for his
travels.

"Now, on hearing my name Lord Rainsforth took my hand cordially, and
leading me to his daughter, said, 'Think, Ellinor, how fortunate!--this
is the Mr. Caxton whom your brother so often spoke of.'

"In short, my dear Pisistratus, the ice was broken, the acquaintance
made; and Lord Rainsforth, saying he was come to atone for his long
absence from the county, and to reside at Compton the greater part of
the year, pressed me to visit him. I did so. Lord Raipsforth's liking