bend in the neck rather than the shoulders, somewhat curtailed his proper
advantages of height. His frame was thin and slender, but well knit and
fair proportioned. Nature had originally cast his form in an athletic
mould; but sedentary habits, and the wear of mind, seemed somewhat to
have impaired her gifts. His cheek was pale and delicate; yet it was
rather the delicacy of thought than of weak health. His hair, which was
long, and of a rich and deep brown, was worn back from his face and
temples, and left a broad high majestic forehead utterly unrelieved and
bare; and on the brow there was not a single wrinkle, it was as smooth as
it might have been some fifteen years ago. There was a singular calmness,
and, so to speak, profundity, of thought, eloquent upon its clear
expanse, which suggested the idea of one who had passed his life rather
in contemplation than emotion. It was a face that a physiognomist would
have loved to look upon, so much did it speak both of the refinement and
the dignity of intellect.

Such was the person--if pictures convey a faithful resemblance--of a man,
certainly the most eminent in his day for various and profound learning,
and a genius wholly self-taught, yet never contented to repose upon the
wonderful stores it had laboriously accumulated.

He now stood before the two girls, silent, and evidently surprised; and
it would scarce have been an unworthy subject for a picture--that ivied
porch--that still spot--Madeline's reclining and subdued form and
downcast eyes--the eager face of Ellinor, about to narrate the nature and
cause of their intrusion--and the pale Student himself, thus suddenly
aroused from his solitary meditations, and converted into the protector
of beauty.

No sooner did Aram gather from Ellinor the outline of their story, and of