contrived to estrange him from all the rest. She was a young lady of great beauty and accomplishments, and was, at present, making one of a series of periodical attacks upon the village. At such times, Mr. Arnaut was apt to be a little forgetful. The infirmity, indeed, was growing upon him daily, to the great distress of some dozen young persons, herself included.

I thought this side-wind put Arnaut a little off his balance; certainly he did not stand his ground quite so dexterously as he might have done, and his fair assailant followed up the attack till he was quite defenceless. She appeared to have touched upon a tender point. His countenance had waned by degrees into silent pensiveness, which he vainly endeavoured to shake off. He seemed sensible that interpretations would be put upon it, and excused it as well as he could, upon the plea of a too prodigal expenditure of spirits; an excess, he said, which those villanous black eyes were always eading him into.

We were not suffered to leave the house without accepting an invitation for the evening, which was to bring me in contact with all the

beauty and peril of the place, and, amongst the rest, with the interesting Mary herself.

As I and my companion became better acquainted, we became better friends. It appeared to me that, at first, he had thought it necessary to wrap himself up in the concealment of a character which did not altogether belong to him, in the anticipation that we should not prove very congenial souls. This, however, soon wore off, and he talked in a natural strain, sometimes gay and sometimes sad; but when he spoke of persons, there was a degree of irony, and, I may say, of bitterness in his manner, which is almost invariably the temper of high spirits to which the world has been unkind. Nevertheless, he was not one of those who could return unkindness, and possessed a tenderness of heart which was quite extravagant. It seemed that there was not an idle vagabond in the neighbourhood who was not supported by him, and I saw him let loose a fellow who had been put in the round-house for robbing him, with no excuse, excepting that he had begged of him till he was ashamed, and was, therefore, bound in good manners to steal.

When he appeared at our evening party, the company were already assembled, and I was honoured by an introduction to some eight or ten village belles, who would have done honour to Almack's. The young lady, of whom such serious mention had been made in the morning, was a tall elegant creature, apparently about four or five-and-twenty. Her face was strikingly handsome, and full of mild and melancholy character, as if, like Arnaut, she had already had her taste of the world, and found it bitter. Her voice was low and mournful; and her dancing, though grace itself, seemed rather the effect of a necessity to avoid singularity than of choice. She regarded her partner with a kindness, and spoke to him with a confidence, which I could not help envying him, and I soon perceived that he estimated her very differently from the rest of his pretty friends. He could not trifle with her, apply pet names, or commit any of those gay offences which used to supply him with little laughing quarrels and subjects of amusement. In short, he looked as if, considering his circumstances, he had suffered his heart to go considerably too far. The

behaviour of Mary, however, was not such as to excite any suspicion of this nature, for her good-will was not breathed in whispers, nor conveyed in secret glances. She did not attempt to conceal it, and feeling that she was above calumny, she knew that others felt it likewise. After the dance, they retired to a remote corner of the room, where they continued conversing, apparently upon some topic deeply interesting to them both, till the hurry of fresh partners, and introductions to the old ladies, who were now retiring from the whist-table, turned my attention into other channels.

I had intended that my visit should not extend beyond three days, but I was overwhelmed with invitations for nearly a fortnight. I was, of course, much flattered at having excited such a sensation, and, when Arnaut joined the throng of petitioners, was fain to say that I would have the honour of waiting upon all and each of them. The truth of the case was, that Arnaut had taken rather a fancy to me, and wished to retain me, for which purpose he had given out that I was a young gentleman with ten thousand a year, in search of a wife.

My first week passed rapidly away. I had become quite naturalized in the little simple society, and passed my mornings joyously in strolling from one house to another. Arnaut soon found that I was able to take care of myself, and followed his own pleasure without ceremony. The study was deserted, the dust was doing the work of time upon the pictures, and the banner of the spider was unfurled upon the strings of the violin. All my companion's pursuits had given place to the paramount one of attending upon Mary. He rode with her, and walked with her, and sat with her, as if there had been no other being upon earth; and I could not help feeling that such an intimacy was likely to produce evil consequences. naut, however, was blind to them, and, free and ingenuous as his character was, I was, as yet, too much a stranger to touch upon a subject of such delicacy. His spirits, instead of mending in her society, grew worse and worse; he always returned from his daily visit much dejected, and, sometimes, so agitated, that I have seen him have recourse to the most baneful stimulants to recover his selfpossession.

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