to Mr. Langham's serious-"I hope not, colonel,”—he replied,

"It must indeed be so; and I am not only compelled to go myself, but must, I fear, take others with me,"--looking first at Hamond, and then at Captain Bathurst, "quite as unwilling as myself to leave such hospitable-quarters."

Hamond's ready and cheerful reply, "Very well, colonel, -I can start at any hour," fell offensively on Jeannette's ear, and she was not without a slight suspicion that her brother had suggested this scheme for their departure to the colonel. Lindsay Bathurst more than shared in this surmise, and he had perhaps never felt so much displeased. He had merely bowed acquiescence to Colonel Hawkins's proposition, but the current of his thoughts was put into rapid motion. Had his love for Jeannette required a spur instead of a rein, few things could have acted so favourably as this sudden and unavoidable fiat of his superior officer. To one who watched him observingly at that moment, his countenance was a perplexing enigma; for, while his closely compressed lips indicated a mixture of contempt and vanquished anger, his dark, fearless, and brilliant eye beamed with the elevation of triumph.

He again looked at Jeannette, and now she did not avoid his gaze. What she had heard had given an abstractedness to her feelings and to her air. She looked on Lindsay Bathurst with all the sadness that was overpowering her heart, but she knew not that she was looking on him. Her father said to her from a distant part of the table, "The colonel promises, Jeannette, that we shall have Hamond with us at Cheltenham."

Jeannette bowed and smiled-but the effort of that smile brought the tears, that were almost suffocating her, into their natural channels. She was most grateful to her father for giving her this just excuse for her sorrow, and she availed herself of it by saying,-"I have seen so little of Hamond." The hour of parting drew nigh. To Jeannette's imagination, all around her was as a hideous dream. Hawkins made numerous gallant and flattering speeches on the pleasure he had enjoyed, and the pain he felt in going away. Regrets, thanks, promises, and adieux, were exchanged around her; but of all that passed that morning, she remembered only three occurrences distinctly: first, that

Colonel

her father had expressed very lively regret at parting with Captain Bathurst, and pressed him to repeat his visit; secondly, that she had reproved Hamond for not being sorry to leave them; and finally, that to the only words Lindsay Bathurst had addressed to her,--" Think of me, Jeannette, and oh! if you can, love me-" she had made the singular reply of " Dare I?"

CHAPTER XXVI.

There is such confusion in my powers
As, after some oration fairly spoke
By a beloved prince, there doth appear
Among the buzzing, pleased multitude:
Where every something, being blent together,
Turns to a wild of nothing, save of joy
Express'd and not express'd.

MERCHANT of Venice.

It was Jeannette's fate, on the day of Lindsay Bathurst's departure, to hear his name frequently mentioned, and sometimes in dispraise. Mrs. Crosbie said more than once, "La! I am so glad he's gone, with his wild staring eyes, that look exactly as if they could pierce through stone walls and see what was going forward on the other side."

And she unfortunately overheard Matilda remark to Lady Everard, "I really am not sorry that Captain Bathurst has left us--for, I certainly never felt quite at my ease in his presence.

"Strange infatuation!" thought Jeannette: and this opinion of her sister gave her more than passing pain.

He

But at dinner Mr. Langham made some amends for those casualties of the day which had wounded her self-love. praised Captain Bathurst (as Matilda thought extravagantly), and in animated terms pronounced him "handsome without conceit, talented without pedantry or presumption, a manly officer, and a most perfect gentleman.'

Jeannette had great reverence for her father's judgment,* and she possibly thought he had never given a more decided

proof of its excellence than by this eulogium. She certainly felt more grateful to him for it than if he had bestowed on her the riches of the East.

And she repeated each separate epithet that had given her so much innate pleasure again and again, as if to examine, but in reality only to approve. "A perfect gentleman!' Yes, how invariably well-mannered to every body-more courteous too, I observed, to the Misses Thomson than to Lady Everard or to Matilda; and talented.' Oh, yes! my father is quite right--and some portion of talent is so indispensable in a man. A woman may pass through life respectably without it; but a man, I think, never. And 'handsome;' my father too mentioned even that he was handsome, and so he is--but what of that? Lindsay Bathurst could have dispensed with beauty." And Jeannette, in rejecting the thought of being unduly influenced by his personal attractions, only did justice to her own mind. These have been much and frequently insisted on in these pages, because it is necessary to give to hearts not in love, an image which themselves may adorn with the beautiful and resistless ad libitum. Because too it is more universally than truly admitted that "I vezzi sono esca d'amore."

But it was not, in fact, his starlit eyes, or voice of music, or graceful figure, pre-eminent as these all were, that spellbound poor Jeannette's heart so strongly and invisibly; for had it been possible for her to have remembered him divested of one of all these fascinations, he would still have been to her the same being, unspeakably dear-illimitably loved. It is in the imperceptible and inexplicable links of human sympathy that the beauty and mystery of all devoted affections consist, those links that mock the inquiries of the philosopher, and elude the research of the self-examiner.

CHAPTER XXVII.

FROM the time of Lindsay Bathurst's departure, the company at Langham Court became to Jeannette a mere gallery of pictures, their talk a "tinkling cymbal." No one interested her but Miss Sherrard, and she only in a trifling degree.

Jeannette's esteem for Miss Sherrard had been on the wane from the hour she had talked seriously of marrying Mr. Grant.

But Miss Sherrard liked Jeannette, and had confidence in her. Jeannette made no endeavour to repel this confidence ; her intimacy therefore with her former friend was greater than ever, although her friendship had declined.

Miss Sherrard seemed to have the power as well as the inclination of speaking all she thought and felt: Jeannette, could not have disclosed the present state of her feelings to any one, scarcely to Lindsay Bathurst himself. Even in her journal,--for she kept a journal,-and which is a faithful transcript of her mind, it is more by frequent allusion to him, than by any direct confession of attachment, that she betrays the state of her heart. It is most irregularly written: sometimes merely the date of the day recorded, and an unimportant fact stated beneath it as briefly as possible; at others, whole pages are devoted to some novel emotion of her heart, or some new thought which she seems to have hailed and chased with the wild pleasure of a child after a butterfly, or with the wilder carelessness of the butterfly, flying from flower to flower, indifferent alike to what she chose or what she rejected. For Jeannette's was a fertile mind, and would often, like that of the melancholy Jacques, break into a "thousand similes."

The following extracts are confined to those parts of Jeannette's journal which may best develope her character and advance her narrative.

"SEPT. 182-. Monday.-I read to-day to Captain Bathurst the story of Ugolino. He loves Italian literature, and above all things in it loves Dante. So does my father, so

does Matilda, and so do I! I begin to think I can partly guess a person's character from the books he best loves. The old proverb says, Tel me your company,'—I say, 'Tell me your books, and I will find out what you are.'

6

And

I have this weighty reason on my side,--that we can choose the one, but the other is beyond our power. I often find myself with people I do not at all like; but I am never guilty of reading a book I do not thoroughly love. Wordsworth is quite right,-books are a real world.

"Wednesday. What a bright, beautiful, bewitching day has this been to us! How happy we all seemed. Seemed!

:

No how happy we all were! No one appeared to have a care, and we gazed on the illuminated heavens (how deep and cloudless!) till our hearts were as sunny as what we gazed on. For a time too we talked only of what was before us, like epicures at a feast. And Lindsay Bathurst said that the many-coloured tints of the woods at this season always made him think that Nature, like other ladies, had her fits of vanity, and was sometimes ambitious of wearing all her garniture at once, and that if she could disfigure herself she would. 'But that,' he added, 'is out of her power, and yours too, Miss Jeannette Langham, though I must confess I never saw you try.' And presently after, when I pointed out to him the distant blue line we call the sea, and asked him if he saw what I meant, he said, “No, Jeannefte; and to-day I care for nothing, either distant or future. Enough for me the knoll above my head-that wooded bank to look at, and you to talk to.' It was the first time he had ever called me Jeannette, and he continued to do so through the day. I saw Matilda did not like him to do so, although she tolerates it in Sir William Sherrard. Now, I do not dislike it in Captain Bathurst, and think it intolerable in Sir William. Perhaps that is because the voice of one is more agreeable to me than the other. Of all charms, surely a sweetly modulated voice is the most attractive-that with which we the soonest sympathize, and which we the most heartily admire, To me, a voice, when entirely good, indicates culture, refinement, delicacy, and goodness of heart. I have somewhere read that painters paint themselves, that is, stamp their own characters on their works. I think that people speak themselves. Never yet have I loved anybody dearly whose voice did not become to me this herald of their