intricate, undulating ground."

Margrave seemed delighted at this proposition; and as he led us through
the park, though the way was long, though the sun was fierce, no one
seemed fatigued. For the pleasure he felt in pointing out detached
beauties which escaped an ordinary eye was contagious. He did not talk as
talks the poet or the painter; but at some lovely effect of light amongst
the tremulous leaves, some sudden glimpse of a sportive rivulet below, he
would halt, point it out to us in silence, and with a kind of childlike
ecstasy in his own bright face, that seemed to reflect the life and the
bliss of the blithe summer day itself.

Thus seen, all my doubts in his dark secret nature faded away,--all my
horror, all my hate; it was impossible to resist the charm that breathed
round him, not to feel a tender, affectionate yearning towards him as to
some fair happy child. Well might he call himself the Darling of Nature.
Was he not the mysterious likeness of that awful Mother, beautiful as
Apollo in one aspect, direful as Typhon in another?




CHAPTER L.

"What a strange-looking cane you have, sir!" said a little girl, who was
one of the party, and who had entwined her arm round Margrave's. "Let me
look at it."

"Yes," said Strahan," that cane, or rather walking-staff, is worth looking
at. Margrave bought it in Egypt, and declares that it is very ancient."