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know the state of her heart, the fancied possession of which he so extravagantly and wildly prized, he would spurn it from him with a contempt almost amounting to hatred. She feared him; she had been accustomed, in spite of all her childish confidence, to stand a little in awe of him, as the older and the wiser, and now and then not only the stronger, but as one whose strength might be used in deeds of injustice and violence. This awe, in spite of all his tenderness and devotion, gained force every day, because she felt she was deceiving him, and feared she was wronging him, and lost something of her own self-esteem at every fresh proof of his love and admiration.

ness,

name,

These things gave a certain uncertainty to her manners which, though softened as it quite unintentionally was, by her invariable gentleness and sweethe detected. He did not give this feeling a for it took no definite form, but there was a something in her with which he felt dissatisfied, he knew not how; he knew not why. However, things went on progressing to the catastrophe as they mostly do in all courtships. The visit at Ravenscliffe came to a close. Eleanor with her parents was to return to Lidcote Hall, her own home. Here Randal was in a few days to follow her, and make a short visit; and in about six weeks from that time, the parents talked about beginning their preparations for the marriage. January had now almost passed away, but the winter had set in severely after Christmas, and the party had been a good deal confined to the house; nevertheless, Randal had contrived to muffle up his darling in all sorts of warm furs, and to enjoy many a delightful walk upon the crisped paths of the woods; now ren

dered supremely beautiful by the wreaths of snow which lay heavy upon the branches of the fir-trees, and streaked with a line of light every tiny twig of the leafless oaks and birches. I think he enjoyed this happy period of life that short one passed with the betrothed and adored, in all the ecstasy of hope, assured hope, which attends a propitious engagement more in this rude season than he would have done in a more genial one; and Eleanor certainly got along better than if it had been in the summer or spring. Those seasons were too full of associations with another.

"To-morrow, then you go; and what will become of me when you are gone, Eleanor? - The effect your presence exercises upon me is quite strange. You are literally to me as the sun. When you are here, everything is bright to the intellect and genial to the heart; the very atmosphere that I breathe seems changed. My feelings are all so softened and melted that I am become like a little child. Indeed, I can never recollect when I really was a little child feeling so childlike as I do now. Tell me, my darling, where you learned all your witchery? For you are a witch, a very witch, Eleanor. Do you know there are moments when I could almost believe you had literally cast a spell over me falsified my vision and that all this delusion of happiness was unreal, and would some day or other dissolve like a baseless dream.'

Such a speech as this was sure to distress her. She held down her head, and her eyes, bent upon the ground, seemed following her feet as they tracked the thin snow upon the path. Could she have answered this appeal, by one slight pressure of the arm upon

which she leaned, no words would have been necessary; all would have been said; but Eleanor could not be actively deceptive, only passively so. He felt disappointed that she did not speak, and said so.

"I do not know what to say," she replied, "when you talk in this manner. I wish you would not speak in that exaggerated way, Randal. You invest me with a thousand ideal good qualities which I am far from deserving, but then in return you seem to suspect me of ...

"Of things you do not deserve to be suspected of. Oh Eleanor! only say this repeat this swear this only say, vow, swear; I am unjust, that I distrust you without reason that you are no witch, no enchantress, no magician, but a real, substantial, sincere, loving woman. Be angry, be offended, only be real only make me feel you are real.”

She sighed, and drooped her head a little lower. "Ah!" he cried impatiently, "that is just what drives me mad, that soft, passive, gentle way of taking my rude violence, that submission, that unresistance One would almost fancy that you felt that you deserved it, Eleanor," he added angrily.

-

She sighed again, but it was more heavily than before; and then she muttered, "It is very difficult to please you."

"Now, how can you say that? gesture, syllable, is to me a source miration. I love you to distraction

when every look,

of distracting ad

you know that

I do, Eleanor. How can you be so unjust as to say, you do not know how to please me?"

"I did not intend to be unjust. I should be so sorry to be unjust; so sorry to be wrong,' " she said,

and the tears came to her eyes. "I wish

I wish to do right!"

oh! how

"Right! What are we saying about right? I don't want you to be right

I want you to be real. I me, Eleanor; or, at least, that you really like, that I should love you." She answered not.

want to feel that you really love

"Will you not say so much as that, Eleanor?"

She lifted up those eyes of hers with such a soft deprecating look. He felt as if he could go distracted, as he had said, with love and admiration.

And in this manner such conversations usually ended, the blind struggles of two hearts to break through the fetters that bound them, and understand each other and themselves. The more and more enthralled but the more and more feeling that it was a thrall she the more and more persuaded of the iniquity of the deceit she was practising; and yet, finding herself every day farther and farther from the possibility of explaining herself.

CHAPTER XI.

Break, break, break,

At the foot of thy crags, O sea!

But the tender grace of a day that is dead,

Will never come back to me,

TENNYSON.

THE wild sea-coast at the south-west of Ireland, and a dark stormy day.

The clouds roll heavily over the bare treeless waste of mountains stretching to the shore, where the Atlantic rolls its world of waters, falling with sublime force against the grand precipitous rocks, which, worn by the conflict of sixty centuries, still resist the force of the mighty waves. The wind howls mournfully amid the crevices of the rocks; the dark waters break at intervals, thundering upon the sands; all around wears an aspect of grand and gloomy desolation.

Two gentlemen are walking upon the beach. The one a young man in the prime of youthful strength and beauty, but his face almost deformed by the violence of his emotions, is walking impetuously forward, every gesture betraying his grief and his impatience. The other, a small slender figure, is somewhat past the middle age, as the gray, scattered locks, which - shadow a countenance of singular sweetness and gentleness, betray.

This last figure has something pliant and bending about it, which implies a certain deficiency in muscu

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