observer as Hamilton to detect her feelings. Whenever any slight
circumstance made him sensible of them, a smile might be seen to flit
over the young man's sallow visage. None, that had once beheld this
smile, were in any danger of forgetting it; whenever they recalled to
memory the features of Edward Hamilton, they were always duskily
illuminated by this expression of mockery and malice.

In a few weeks after Hamilton's arrival, he presented to Sylvia Etherege
a miniature of her cousin, which, as he informed her, would have been
delivered sooner, but was detained with a portion of his baggage. This
was the miniature in the contemplation of which we beheld Sylvia so
absorbed, at the commencement of our story. Such, in truth, was too
often the habit of the shy and musing girl. The beauty of the pictured
countenance was almost too perfect to represent a human creature, that
had been born of a fallen and world-worn race, and had lived to manhood
amid ordinary troubles and enjoyments, and must become wrinkled with age
and care. It seemed too bright for a thing formed of dust, and doomed to
crumble into dust again. Sylvia feared that such a being would be too
refined and delicate to love a simple girl like her. Yet, even while her
spirit drooped with that apprehension, the picture was but the masculine
counterpart of Sylph Etherege's sylphlike beauty. There was that
resemblance between her own face and the miniature which is said often to
exist between lovers whom Heaven has destined for each other, and which,
in this instance, might be owing to the kindred blood of the two parties.
Sylvia felt, indeed, that there was something familiar in the
countenance, so like a friend did the eyes smile upon her, and seem to
imply a knowledge of her thoughts. She could account for this impression
only by supposing that, in some of her day-dreams, imagination had
conjured up the true similitude of her distant and unseen lover.