gazed upon the changeful eloquence of her cheek. Now that Walter was
gone, he almost took up his abode at the manor-house. He came thither in
the early morning, and rarely returned home before the family retired for
the night; and even then, when all was hushed, and they believed him in
his solitary home, he lingered for hours around the house, to look up to
Madeline's window, charmed to the spot which held the intoxication of her
presence. Madeline discovered this habit, and chid it; but so tenderly,
that it was not cured. And still at times, by the autumnal moon, she
marked from her window his dark figure gliding among the shadows of the
trees, or pausing by the lowly tombs in the still churchyard--the
resting-place of hearts that once, perhaps, beat as wildly as his own.

It was impossible that a love of this order, and from one so richly
gifted as Aram; a love, which in substance was truth, and yet in language
poetry, could fail wholly to subdue and inthral a girl so young, so
romantic, so enthusiastic, as Madeline Lester. How intense and delicious
must have been her sense of happiness! In the pure heart of a girl loving
for the first time--love is far more ecstatic than in man, inasmuch as it
is unfevered by desire--love then and there makes the only state of human
existence which is at once capable of calmness and transport!




CHAPTER II.

A FAVOURABLE SPECIMEN OF A NOBLEMAN AND A COURTIER.--A MAN OF
SOME FAULTS AND MANY ACCOMPLISHMENTS.

Titinius Capito is to rehearse. He is a man of an excellent