---

It was a beautiful afternoon, in the first week of August, and the two ladies set off as usual for their afternoon's drive, the little Louisa seated between them. Mr. de Burgh had been on the steps to see the party start, himself lifting the child with his usual tenderness into the carriage—and wishing them a pleasant drive, he casually inquired in what direction they meant to go.

"To Morland, I think," answered Mrs. de Burgh carelessly, as she gathered up the reins, and arranged herself upon her seat.

"To Morland," he repeated.

"Yes! have you any objection?"

"Oh, none whatever!"

"Well, good bye!" and with a light touch of the whip, the pretty ponies were put in motion.

Ere they had proceeded far through the park Mrs. de Burgh said, laughing:

"I told him we were going to Morland, but that is not at all my intention. You need not say anything about it, but I have made up my mind to drive you to Montrevor. Really I ought to go and see old Uncle Trevor after his illness; at any rate, I must speak to Eugene, and make personal inquiries."

"But why tell Louis that you were going to Morland? Oh, Olivia! do not drive there to-day," Mary exclaimed in some consternation.

"Why not," inquired Mrs. de Burgh, looking at her companion in surprise: "you really do not mean to say that I ought to submit to the absurd objection Louis expressed the other night upon the subject?"

Mary could not say with sincerity, that this—or even the unnecessary deceit which her companion intended to put upon her husband—however this might have offended her conscience, was the chief cause which now rendered the proposed excursion so repugnant to her feelings; there was another, of a nature she could not exactly explain; but which nevertheless influenced them greatly on this occasion.

The fact was, upon poor Mary's heart by this time had been worked an impression far from being of a light or imaginative nature.

The constant visits of the dark-eyed cousin of Mrs. de Burgh, had conjured up feelings as far removed from the dream-like fancy of other days, as is the shadow from the substance, and the very fact of the existence of such feelings made her painfully susceptible to any proceeding which might, in the slightest degree, even on the part of others, make her appear desirous of courting the society of the object who had awakened them—and of whose corresponding sentiments towards herself, she had as yet no certain guarantee.

Mary could not but suspect that this excursion to Montrevor would be only made by Mrs. de Burgh on her account, and that this might be made to appear to Eugene Trevor by his cousin; therefore, when Mrs. de Burgh only laughed at her evident disinclination, she, on the impulse of the feelings with which the idea inspired her, begged that at any rate, if her cousin were really bent upon the plan, that she would suffer her to remain behind. Whereupon Mrs. de Burgh, somewhat coldly drawing in the reins, begged Mary would do as she pleased; if she really had so great an objection to going to Montrevor—perhaps she would not mind returning, as she had a particular wish to go and inquire after her uncle.

Mrs. de Burgh indeed offered to drive her back, but Mary said, she would really like the walk, and accordingly was suffered silently to alight, feeling perhaps a little inclined to doubt, whether she had not gone rather too far in thus decidedly carrying out her own way, yet not liking to give in after she had so strongly expressed her disinclination.

Mrs. de Burgh wished her a pleasant walk, and little Louisa knelt upon the seat and kissed her hand regretfully to her retreating cousin as they went their several ways.

---

Mary walked slowly, and rather dejectedly back towards the house, knowing that her cousin Louis, with whom she would fain have avoided the necessity of giving the reason of her return, had been on the point of setting off towards a distant part of the grounds when they had left him.

Just as she arrived in sight of the mansion, the sound of a horse's feet met her ear, the next moment a horseman riding up a different approach to that by which she came, appeared in sight. It was Eugene Trevor. He immediately perceived her, and dismounting threw his bridle to a servant standing on the step, and hurried forward to meet her.

Mary was so totally unprepared for a rencontre, which circumstances rendered at that moment peculiarly embarrassing to her feelings, that she received Trevor with a coldness and constraint unusual to her manner; and when he mentioned the fear he had entertained of finding them out, she merely answered, that Olivia had gone for a drive, but that Louis was in the grounds, and proposed walking on to find him. Eugene did not object, so they proceeded in the requisite direction.

Then he told her that he had come to say good-bye. A friend of his had engaged a moor in Scotland in partnership with himself, and that he was therefore obliged to set off in a day or two, not much to his gratification—for there were many things which made him regret to leave the neighbourhood just then, and he should be away, he supposed, about a month.

Mary was dismayed to feel how her heart sank low at this communication; she, however, made an effort to rally her spirits; and the subject thus started, she discussed the delights and merits of the grouse-shooting and moorland country, with a careless interest which made her inwardly wonder over her new-found powers of duplicity.

But they fell in with Mr. de Burgh sooner than she had expected, or Eugene, perhaps, had hoped; for in spite of any change which he might have discerned in his companion's manner, his lingering step and earnest attention plainly demonstrated, that the charm he ever seemed to find in her society was not decreased.

Mr. de Burgh was evidently surprised at Mary's re-appearance, but supposing it was a whim of his wife's to put an end to the intended drive, on account of Eugene Trevor's visit, and that she too had returned to the house, he made no further remark upon the subject than his first exclamation, "What come back already?"

On hearing of Eugene Trevor's intended excursion, he entered into conversation with him on the subject. Then he called Eugene's attention to those alterations he was superintending, into which the former entered with all due interest and understanding; and his attention thus engaged, it was not for some time that he was at liberty to turn to Mary, who stood by in the meantime silent and abstracted.

He did not remain much longer; he was obliged to return home to meet a friend, and therefore took leave of Mr. de Burgh and finally of Mary, lingering a little as if he half hoped to have had a companion in his walk back towards the house; but finding this was not to be the case, he went off regretfully alone.

Mr. de Burgh asked Mary if she felt inclined to extend her walk to a further part of the estate. She acceded cheerfully to the proposal, for she fancied her cousin's eye had glanced somewhat anxiously upon her countenance as they stood silently together after Eugene's departure. And so they proceeded, making a lengthened circuit which did not bring them back to the house till a later hour than they had supposed, and Mrs. de Burgh had by that, time returned.

---

Mary went immediately to her cousin's dressing-room, anxious to do away with any offended feeling her conduct might have excited. She found Mrs. de Burgh quite amicably disposed. She began immediately to rally Mary on the very clever manner in which she had managed her morning's amusement; she had seen Eugene Trevor, who had told her of the delightful walk they had taken together.

"The fact is," Mrs. de Burgh continued, "I did not go to Montrevor after all. It was too far to go all alone—and returning I met Eugene, and we had a long chat."

"He told you, I suppose," said Mary, "that he was going away."

"Yes, for a month—what shall we do without him in the meantime? By the bye, I told him, Mary, of your conduct this afternoon."

"My conduct?" asked Mary in alarm.

"Yes, your insurmountable objection to a drive to Montrevor."

"Oh, Olivia!" in a tone of reproach.

"Yes, I did, indeed; and do you know what he said to this?"

"No, indeed," Mary anxiously replied.

"He laughed quite scornfully and said: 'She shall go there some day,' then spurred his horse and rode off at full speed. Ha! ha!

Nay, Mary do not look offended. He did not intend anything very insulting I dare say. Go dear, and rest yourself after this long walk Louis has dragged you, and which has made you look so pale."

And thus dismissed, Mary went to her room, but not to take up her usual window-seat. There would be no interest in looking across the park that night. No—nor for a great many nights to come.

Most of that next month passed without much outward change or excitement. Mrs. de Burgh declared that the extreme dulness made Mary look quite listless and ill.

On the first of September, however, there was a shooting party, and a few other gaieties in the neighbourhood, the country houses beginning again to fill.

Mary during this interval of time had received one piece of information, which rejoiced her greatly, if it did not succeed in making her so completely happy as she fancied it would have done a month or two before.

Her brother Arthur wrote word, that he should be in England towards the end of the autumn. He gave no very flourishing account of their property and affairs. He spoke of the necessity for his entering into some profession, and of his wish of following up the study of the law. But all was written in as cheerful a strain as if his communication had been of a contrary nature.

Who but the young can thus look cheerfully into the face of the grim monster poverty, and say "be welcome," feeling now that talents which had otherwise been weighed down beneath the deadening power of affluence, may now be given eagle wings wherewith to mount above to honour and renown? For as the German author writes:

"Riches often weigh more heavily on talents than poverty; but," he beautifully continues, "Just Providence preserve the old man from want, for hoary years have already bent him low, and he can no longer stand upright with the youth, and bear the heavy burden on his head. The old man needs rest on the earth, ever while he is upon it, for he can use only the present, and a little bit of the future, and the past does not reflect for him as in a glass the blooming present."

---

It was not till the middle of September that Eugene Trevor returned. Mary saw him first again at an archery fÊte given in the grounds of Morland, the scene of their former meeting and acquaintance.

But that it would prove a day coloured by the same bright remembrances, appeared at first unlikely.

For some time, Mary feared that the expectations of his being present at all were doomed to disappointment, for he did not make his appearance till very late; and Mary walked about with her cousin Louis (who on this occasion proved a better chaperon than on the former), trying to look more cheerful than she really felt.

An hour before dinner, he was discerned among the gay throng, but as Mr. de Burgh did not direct his course that way, he remained—as Mary was too easily inclined to imagine, coldly aloof—either she thought offended, or discouraged by the recollection of the coldness of manner she had shown towards him on his parting visit, or—(why should she imagine it otherwise?) the new pursuits and scenes of interests in which he had been engaged, had effaced all traces of any slight impression she might have made upon his mind or feelings.

No greeting passed between them until, on their way to the dÉjeÛner, Eugene passed her with another lady on his arm, and the one they then exchanged was necessarily slight and hurried, signifying nothing.

His companion was young and beautiful, and Mary, with pardonable curiosity, inquired who she was of the gentleman who escorted her.

She was told it was the young Lady Darlington, lately married, and we will not say that the substance of this communication was not a relief to Mary. They sat at the same side of the table, not very far divided, and Mary's companion must have found her rather an absent neighbour, she so often discovered her attention directed to what was being said by Eugene Trevor, though there was nothing very particular to interest an indifferent listener in his conversation with the young Countess.

Indeed, even to Mary it might have seemed most satisfactorily uninteresting, neither did it appear incapable of speedy exhaustion, for before the close of the repast, the Countess had turned her attention to her other neighbour, a young captain of the Guards, who seemed to have a greater flow of small talk at his disposal, whilst Eugene was joining in general conversation with others of the company, or leaning forward ever and anon, as if carelessly to review the guests beyond.

At length, Mary heard some remarks made upon some figs of peculiar growth, which had appeared upon the table. A few minutes after, a servant, to whom Trevor had been whispering some directions, brought the dish containing them round to a lady, a seat or two below, and said, distinctly enough for Mary to hear:

"Mr. Trevor sends these, Miss, with his compliments, and hopes you will take one, as they come from Montrevor."

The lady, not a very attractive person, acceded to the request, most graciously bending forward to smile and bow her acknowledgment of the flattering attention bestowed upon her.

But Eugene Trevor, who had also bent forward, seemed anything but gratified. On the contrary, he looked back in an irritated way at the servant, as if dissatisfied with the manner in which he had performed his behest; and in a few seconds more he had risen, and was standing himself behind Mary's chair.

"That fool of a man," he said, in a suppressed tone, "evidently would not know a rose from a peony. I told him to take those figs to the young lady with the blue forget-me-nots in her white bonnet, and he took them to your neighbour with the unconscionably large china-asters. You must oblige me by taking one. They come out of my father's hot-house. I had them picked on purpose to send to Silverton, as I remembered hearing you say they were your favourite fruit; but Lady Dorington happened to call, and carried them off for this affair of to-day."

Mary turned her head, and lifted up her face towards the speaker. A look met hers from the dark eyes of Eugene Trevor—a look surely possessed of deeper meaning—which must have been intended to plead a greater boon than her acceptance of the fruit of his father's garden. And though the next moment he was gone, and she left with a beating heart to taste the luscious offering—nay, though he was scarcely many minutes by her side again that afternoon—for dancing quickly succeeded the repast, and Trevor did not dance, while Mary's hand was in great request—yet a feeling of such perfect happiness had suddenly taken possession of her soul, that she was fully contented to feel that, as he stood apart amongst those not joining in the dance, Trevor's eye was constantly following her every movement with earnest, never-diverted attention.

How strange the secret power which sometimes attracts one towards the other, two beings of natures the most opposite!

Perhaps if two individuals had been chosen from amongst that large assembly, by those who knew them best—who on the score of incompatibility were least calculated to blend harmoniously together—it would have been that pure-hearted, single-minded, high-souled girl, whose ideal standard of the good and beautiful was of so refined and elevated a nature, a standard hitherto kept intact by the peculiar circumstances of her youthful existence—from whose very outward aspect seemed to breathe the undisturbed harmony of her lovely character;—she and that man, of a corrupted and corrupting world, upon whose brow was set the mark of many a contracting aim, many a darkening thought, a debasing pursuit, upon whose soul lay perhaps as dark a stain of actual crime as any in that company;—yet it seemed that this mysterious unaccountable power, did from the very first draw their hearts with sympathetic unison one towards another.

Well it showed at least that Trevor's soul was not as yet "all evil," that it could still bow before an image of purity and goodness, such as was enshrined in Mary's breast, and she—

Absorbed in her happy dreams, Mary drove home that evening with her cousins, too happy, even, to be much disturbed by that generally most fruitful source of disturbance, the bitter words passing between her companions.

They seemed now to have been provoked by some imprudence of Mrs. de Burgh's during that day; her husband's animadversions thereupon exciting the lady's scornful resentment; but its exact nature, Mary had too little observed Mrs. de Burgh during the day, to be able fully to understand.

Mrs. de Burgh, on her part, had been too much occupied with her own pleasure and interests to attend much to Mary and her concerns; but she told her, as they parted for the night, that she expected Eugene the next day to dinner.

Mary also had received information to the same effect, communicated in her ear, as she was being handed to the carriage.

Expectation on this point was, however, doomed to disappointment; the next evening, about the time that Eugene Trevor generally arrived, when he was to dine and sleep at the house, a horseman was seen approaching across the park, which proved to be a servant from Montrevor, mounted on his master's beautiful chesnut. He was the bearer of a note to Mrs. de Burgh.

Eugene Trevor wrote word that in returning home the preceding night, with a friend, he had received a kick from his companion's horse, and was now a prisoner to his bed. It was to him a most provoking accident, on many accounts, but he supposed he must submit to at least a week's confinement, as the medical man considered it his only chance of a speedy recovery. Mary looked a little pale at dinner after this intelligence, but was otherwise as cheerful, as calmly happy, as she had been since the fÊte.

Mrs. de Burgh afterwards sent over to inquire after her cousin, and once Mr. de Burgh, having occasion to ride into the neighbourhood, called to see Trevor, and brought back word of his progress towards recovery.

The injury proved, however more tedious than it had at first been anticipated. October had set in before he was allowed to walk; but still Mary's spirits did not fail her.

If "love could live upon one smile for years," much more throughout a few weeks of such unavoidable and accidental contingency.

---