hours a day in making love,--nor in vain.

"And what say they still of the Lord Hastings?" asked Alwyn, breaking
silence. "Nothing, I trow and trust, that arraigns the poor lady's
honour, though much that may scoff at her simple faith in a nature so
vain and fickle. 'The tongue's not steel, yet it cuts,' as the
proverb saith of the slanderer."

"No! scandal spares her virtue as woman, to run down her cunning as
witch! They say that Hastings hath not prevailed, nor sought to
prevail,--that he is spell-bound. By Saint Thomas, from a maid of
such character Marmaduke Nevile is happily rescued!"

"Sir Marmaduke," then said Alwyn, in a grave and earnest voice, "it
behooves me, as true friend, though humble, and as honest man, to give
thee my secret, in return for thine own. I love this girl. Ay, ay!
thou thinkest that love is a strange word on a craftsman's lips, but
'cold flint hides hot fire.' I would not have been thy rival, Heaven
forefend! hadst thou still cherished a hope, or if thou now wilt
forbid my aspiring; but if thou wilt not say me nay, I will try my
chance in delivering a pure soul from a crafty wooer."

Marmaduke stared in great surprise at his foster-brother; and though,
no doubt, he spoke truth when he said he was cured of his love for
Sibyll, he yet felt a sort of jealousy at Alwyn's unexpected
confession, and his vanity was hurt at the notion that the plain-
visaged trader should attempt where the handsome gentleman had
failed.--However, his blunt, generous, manly nature after a brief
struggle got the better of these sore feelings; and holding out his
hand to Alwyn, he said, "My dear foster-brother, try the hazard and