It is absolutely indispensable that every visitor at Harrowgate shall go through a course, not merely of its waters, but of all the castles, ruins, rocks, lakes, gardens, and houses in the neighborhood, and especially that, bon gre, mal gre, he shall spend one entire day in rhapsodizing among the splendid fragments of Fountain Abbey. The leading question asked of every visitor at the Granby, at least nine times a day is, whether he has seen the Abbey, followed by exclamations of dismay and astonishment, if he have not. A shower of inquiries then follows, how soon he intends to go there, after which no one forgets the exact day and hour named, while every good-natured friend fills up occasional gaps in the conversation by hoping he may be favored with a fine morning for his excursion.

No stranger, unmarried and marriageable, at the Granby, has any right or title to the squandering of his own time, as the whole race of chaperons have assumed the privilege of knowing how he spends it, as well as of dictating the various ways in which he should and must dispose of himself; and, accordingly, Sir Patrick and Captain De Crespigny found themselves one day ensnared into a soi-disant party of pleasure to Studley, from which they had no more chance of escape than a brace of partridges at a battu.

As Madame De Stael remarks, "English weather does better to rail at, than if it were finer; and if Britain had a settled climate and a despotic government, there would be an end of all conversation." After a long succession of good-for-nothing days, during which the rain seemed to pour from a thousand water-spouts, till the world was in a perfect dropsy, and it was feared the sun must have met with an accident, as he seemed unable to appear, he at last, contrary to custom, when a pic-nic is in the case, blazed out with unprecedented splendor, and became quite a spendthrift of his rays. September had evidently borrowed a day from June for the occasion; and yet Sir Patrick, who would much rather have encountered any danger than the smallest discomfort, staid an hour in bed to consider whether there was anything that might happen in the whole course of that day, sufficiently agreeable to reward him for the effort of rising. Except a fox-chase, however, nothing could have done so; and he secretly detested the very thoughts of walking five mortal miles, and spending five mortal hours in "doing the rural" among the dismal cloisters of a roofless ruin, or bush-ranging through damp shrubberies, with a committee of enraptured young ladies.

His fellow-sufferer, Captain De Crespigny, stood yawning and humming a tune beside him, waiting for the carriage, and expressing a hope, that though he had almost fallen out of acquaintance with nature, and wished pic-nics had never been invented, yet perhaps, with the assistance of sandwiches, champagne, chicken pies, porter, music, and young ladies, the expedition might be endurable, when the noise of wheels grinding along the gravel, attracted their attention, and Mr. Crawford's carriage passed on its way to Studley, with the two tall footmen of the evening before, mounted behind. A moment afterwards, Sir Patrick perceived the excited looking stranger, whom he had already remarked, leading his horse out of the stable, with a degree of haste and impatience quite unaccountable, while the animal seemed resolute to postpone the evil hour of being mounted, though his master lashed and swore at him with an extreme of cruel violence, which raised Sir Patrick's utmost indignation. He was rather strangely attired for so sultry a morning, being equipped in a large, rough greatcoat, a thick neckcloth, a riding whip, and a broad brimmed, melo-dramatic looking hat. Having at length mastered his refractory charger, he rode straight up to Sir Patrick, with a contracted brow, saying, in tones of high irritation, while riveting his fierce eyes on the young baronet with an expression that strongly betokened insanity:

"You are disposed to be observant this morning! We shall certainly know each other again! In which direction did Mr. Crawford's carriage drive off?"

"I observe only for my own amusement!" replied Sir Patrick, haughtily turning away, and humming a tune.

"Allow me to remind you that those who whistle before breakfast, may weep before night," said the stranger, with a malignant scowl, drawing back his lips, and breathing through his clenched teeth, as he glanced at Captain De Crespigny, and galloped rapidly away, followed at a more moderate pace by the two gentlemen.

"I am in the humor to knock every body down!" said Sir Patrick; "and there was an admirable opportunity lost! I dislike the looks of that man! He is evidently cracked! Depend upon it, his skull will never ring again! Do you observe, De Crespigny, he has nearly overtaken the carriage, and pulls up now, apparently anxious not to be seen by the servants. In days of yore, we might have been certain he was a highwayman, going to rob that barouche; but such things are done in a pocket-picking, pettifogging way now, without an atom of spirit or adventure. Why, my good friend, what a very particularly brown study you are in! What is the matter?"

"Nothing! nothing! I am solving an enigma! I must get another look of this man! Dunbar, years have passed since that voice rang in my ears, but it must be Ernest Anstruther's! Though shrill from excitement, and every fibre of his body seems dilated with madness, it can be no other, and we must have him seized this day. I actually shivered before the fierce glare of his eye; but let us forget it. I cannot speak upon the subject at present, for it involves all the deepest interests of my life. Now, then, for Fountain Abbey! I feel in the humor that I could strike the air for breathing in my face. It would be dangerous for any body to ask me how I do!"

"I wish all gaunt skeletons of deceased houses were buried out of sight! The very idea of those damp, mouldy walls would give me the rheumatism. Had we not better return?" said Sir Patrick, looking anxiously at his companion.

"No!" replied Captain De Crespigny, who seemed resolute to conquer his agitation, or to conceal it. "I say like Luther, 'if it rained madmen, let us go on!'"

"Then, my good fellow, you deserve to be put in a straight waistcoat yourself!"

"Well, if you will buy and pay for one, I have not the slightest objection to wear it."

"If we could get up a good old-fashioned belief in ghosts, for this occasion, and go to Fountain Abbey some other day by moonlight, there would be some sense in it," persisted Sir Patrick; but seeing that his friend was not to be dissuaded, he changed the subject, adding: "Our existence now is detestably matter-of-fact. I should like to have lived in the days of giants, fairies, witchcraft, and the philosopher's stone!"

"You would have required the last, Dunbar, certainly. For an excursion, commend me to Harwood House. It is like a fashionable residence in Park Lane. Such Brussels carpets, rosewood sofas, and damask curtains, that I felt quite at home; but here we have a bad road; and worse dinner. A refrectory with no refreshments, and a kitchen fire, where a whole herd of oxen might be roasted whole, and not so much as a beefsteak to be had. Visitors may not even take, like the horses, a nose-bag with provisions."

"We might at least air the ruins with a segar. Well, here are the ladies; and now that I have brought you here, and you have brought me, let us make the best of it. We must honor the old Abbey with a glance, though I am sure, before we are done, I shall be walked off my legs."

"I knew a gentleman, once," said Agnes, "who walked till nothing was left of him but his hat."

"It seems as if all the birds and butterflies in Britain had an appointment here to-day," said Marion. "How their twittering and mad spirits enliven me. That thrush is a perfect Orpheus! Few can ever sing like these simple, self-taught musicians."

"Anybody can. Grisi, Pasta, you, or I, could," replied Captain De Crespigny. "It is pleasant, however, to be received with so lively a serenade. These little creatures are happy without being able to say why or wherefore; and how often we ourselves are miserable, though unable to tell the cause, or perhaps, Miss Dunbar, to excite the pity we deserve."

"There is evidently a much greater proportion of happiness than of misery in the animal world, as they do not make unnecessary annoyances for themselves or others," said Marion, wishing to talk on indifferent topics, as she observed her brother watching, to see how she received his friend. "What bird in all the world would you like best to be?"

"A canary, or a piping bullfinch, because you would keep me in a cage, and treat me kindly. I should wish to borrow the language of any living creature that pleases you! I am born to succeed in everything but in gaining your approbation, which I would rather never have been born than live without. I could willingly go step by step round the world, to find out the secret of pleasing you; and I am falling rapidly into a Byron-like, misanthropic melancholy, because of your cruel indifference. How I wish emotions were communicated like electricity, without the slow, vulgar use of language, for I always feel so much more than I can express, especially in your society."

"Why do you not take to writing verses; for you know poets all work themselves up into fictitious emotions, which they pour out upon paper, without troubling any one individual more than another, to believe or disbelieve them. Your poems might be lithographed for private circulation, and one of each sent to Agnes and me, to the five Miss Ogilvies, and to all Lady Towercliffe's daughters. You would require eight eyes, like a spider, to look after so many!"

"But," replied he, in his most sentimental tone, "there is a want of which one might die in the midst of plenty. If all ladies were like you, one might be surrounded by a hundred, and yet die of a broken heart!"

"Any one may break his own heart, if he pleases, but he has no right to break other people's," replied Marion, jestingly; "and there are some who have no more scruple, I am told, in doing so, than in breaking stones on the road."

"Perhaps the hearts are as hard as the stones, if we may take yours as a specimen; but you really are becoming severe! Take care you do not hurt my feelings!"

"Your feelings!" exclaimed Marion, with a gay, half-reproachful laugh, as she caught the eye of Agnes. "I thought you only played upon the feelings of others, because you really had none of your own."

Near the gate leading into the superb grounds of Studley, no less than two-and-thirty carriages were assembled, from the low elderly gig and graceful pony carriage, to the aristocratic barouche and four, not to mention tax-carts, phaetons, curricles, and coronetted chariots, filled with joyous groups and laughing faces. The landscape around seemed as if colored in the rich, deep tints of some ancient painter pre-eminent in his art, so bright, so distinct, and so immoveable in its rare and singular beauty, serene and lovely, like a mind at peace. The pencil of Poussin or of Watteau could scarcely have done justice to such a scene. The air was literally raining sunshine, and a light cloud here and there sailed across the blue sky from the foreground to the distant horizon, while the rich canopy of massy trees over head, tinted with the many-colored hues of autumn, and the carpet of velvet turf beneath, were enlivened by a thousand birds, hopping sportively from bough to bough, like feathered arrows, and by the gay insect world fluttering in rapid career from flower to flower, humming aloud their ceaseless sounds of joyful activity.

Every walk was sprinkled over with gaily-dressed loungers, sunning themselves in the bright atmosphere, and no flower in the field looked more fresh, more natural, or more lovely than Marion, whose beauty had never appeared more attractive than now, amidst all the sumptuous magnificence of nature, which seemed on the present occasion to be adorned in her full dress regalia.

"This is a very tolerable imitation of a fine day!" said Captain De Crespigny, shading his eyes to gaze around, and looking as if the landscape were made on purpose for him. "I see determined admiration in your countenance, Miss Dunbar, but I mean to out-ecstacy you altogether in my expressions of rapture! Ye hills and dales, ye rivers, woods, and plains."

"Charming!" said Marion, absently, and looking round for Sir Arthur. "I am glad you are pleased."

"To be sure! you are pleased, I am pleased, everybody is pleased! This was called a party of pleasure, and nothing could be a party of pleasure to me, unless you were included; but now all the world is here! at least those who are all the world to me, and I expect a day of perfect happiness."

"That is as much certainly as any reasonable person can reckon upon, and I believe it is more likely to be enjoyed in the simple rural pleasures of the country than anywhere! Some persons whom we might almost envy, think it pleasure enough for a whole day to find a tom-tit's nest, containing, for a wonder, five eggs instead of four, or follow the flight of a king-fisher during six whole hours, at full speed, in a morning, to see where he feeds, and can talk for half a day about some new combination of colors in pansy or chrysanthemum."

"And yet they would be reckoned silly and vulgar, to speak half as long about a new combination of color in a ribbon, which is in my estimation quite as interesting! If all those who detest the country, had courage to confess it, as I do, how the shades of rural life would be deserted, and volumes of rural poetry cast into the fire! I am not one to 'hang a thought on ev'ry thorn,' and indeed my thoughts have thorns enough already!"

"There is too much still water at Studley, and the grounds are altogether too artificial for my taste," said Marion. "Those little ponds, like globes for gold-fish, are dull and uninteresting."

"They resemble china bowls, and should be filled with iced punch!" observed Sir Patrick. "Anything so like the basin of the Serpentine reminds me of old women committing suicide! This is not a good sporting country, so crowded with laurels, temples, statues, cascades, and that sort of trash! I wish we had all staid at home, and looked over Turner's views of Studley, for they are beautifully done!"

"Yes!" said Agnes, yawning, "I like the works of art better than nature, pictures, statues, books, or pianofortes; and" added she, with a withering look at Captain De Crespigny, "I like human nature least of all."

"What has set you off Childe-Haroldizing this morning, Agnes?" asked Sir Patrick, with angry surprise. "Strike me poetical, but I like Marion's style of admiring, exclaiming, and wondering the best, for it is not either overdone or underdone!"

"You shall have a most intelligent guide, Sir, immediately," said the superintendent of the lodge, civilly touching his hat to Sir Patrick.

"Let him be deaf and dumb, if you have any compassion for me. It is trouble enough to come here, without listening to an endless rigmarole about ancient abbots, clustered pillars, and stone coffins. The fellow will not abate a single tomb or tree! I could invent a story quite as good as his, and equally true! 'built nobody knows when, and destroyed nobody knows how.'"

"I like to hear all, and believe all," said Marion; "but you remind me, Patrick, of the French lady, who said she wished to be taught everything in two words. Now let us summon up any little poetry that may be lurking in our composition, to admire those noble, pillar-like elms, with branches so thickly clustered that the wind can scarcely elbow its way through the leaves. Those shadows are magnificent, flickering across the road."

"Give me an old post-horse instead of an old tree, and I shall call up much finer associations!" said Sir Patrick. "My sole idea of enjoying the country is connected with hunting, shooting, and fishing; but as to living for ruins, flowers, green trees, fat cows, rocky mountains, and all that sort of trash, excuse me. They do for poets and painters, professionally, to rave about, but I care no more to look at that prodigiously aged tree before me, than at old Lord Doncaster, tottering behind us with Agnes."

"That tree, Sir, is a Spanish chesnut, 112 feet high, and 22 feet in girth," said the guide, in his usual business-like tone. "It has seen a hundred summers."

"Then it has certainly not lived in this country!" replied Sir Patrick, affecting to shiver. "There's a thing they call summer in England, made up of east wind and fog, with a half-extinguished sun, trees trying to put a good face on the matter, a few leaves and flowers born apparently in a consumption, and one or two misguided birds mistaking the imitation for a reality, while chirping their notes all out of tune."

"This oak, Sir, is 500 years old," continued the guide, pertinaciously bent on executing his task; "it contains 300 feet of solid timber."

"And how many leaves are there on it? You never heard! Do you pretend to be a guide, and not know that? The timber will cut up for a tolerable sum, which will suit the next heir."

"Have you the barbarity, even in imagination, to prostrate that kingly tree! look at its gigantic shadow on the grass!" exclaimed Mrs. O'Donoghoe. "I really had, even upon our very short acquaintance, conceived a better opinion of you."

"Then be not rash in altering it! I am all you ever thought me, and more! At the same time I cannot but think, in looking at this immense, overgrown prodigy among trees, how fortunate it is that they stop growing at last, or one such monster might at last overshadow the whole world. Now, it is a hundred years at least since the ground beneath that tree has been enlivened by a single sunbeam! Spare me all the exclamations of delight I see impending! Ladies are taught a taste for the picturesque as part of their full-dress manners, but the truth is, that you care no more for scenery than for a painted sign-post."

"I have no eye to spare for the landscape," said Captain De Crespigny, glancing towards Marion. "Therefore pray let us, like 'Puff in the Critic, omit all about gilding the Eastern hemisphere; or about the setting sun pillowing his chin upon an orient wave.' Nothing gives me so mournful an estimate of people's general happiness, as to join what they call a party of pleasure! Such rising before daylight, such climbing of inaccessible hills, such scrambling on slippery rocks, and such eating of trash, which no one in an ordinary rational state of mind would ever dream of tasting! In short, it begins with the total sacrifice of all comfort, bonnets and dresses in jeopardy, as well as every limb of your body in danger, a great deal of forced vivacity, a number of old, worn-out jests, a seat upon the damp grass, and returning home after sunset in a fog! If these are people's pleasures, what must their miseries be?"

"Certainly the most toilsome of all vocations is that of an idle man," said Marion. "I often think, when observing the extraordinary plans of life on which people set out in search of happiness, that if during one day in every year, we were all obliged to exchange the modes of life we voluntarily adopt, it would produce universal misery. If Mr. Granville were obliged to play sixteen hits at backgammon every forenoon instead of Lord Doncaster; if Patrick had to visit and condole with the sick all morning; if you had to blow the flute five hours a day for Lord Wigton; if he had to hunt eight hours in your place; and if I must lounge all morning in the public room, like Mrs. O'Donoghoe, how wretched each individual would be!"

"Very true," replied Captain De Crespigny. "The various species of men are as different from each other, and as little calculated to associate, as the various species of animals. Sportsmen have a natural antipathy to literary men, politicians to jockeys, and infidels to Christians. Life is to each of these a perfectly different affair. Their feelings, desires, habits, occupations, and pleasures, are entirely opposite, their conversation quite unsuitable, and they all hate each other."

While Sir Patrick, with ceaseless vivacity, teazed the guide by asking a thousand unanswerable questions, the replies to which should have occupied several hours, he amused himself with making premeditated blunders and lively questions, enough to bewilder the brain of their matter-of-fact conductor, who hurried forward with a velocity of body disproportioned to the slowness of his understanding, pointing to an arbor elevated high upon the ridge of a hill, from whence he intimated that the finest view was to be obtained. With a rueful grimace, Sir Patrick prepared to make a forced march in that direction, measuring the height with his eye, and protesting that the fellow certainly had an ill-will at him, for imposing such a task, when he was falling to pieces already with fatigue.

Marion, in the mean time, looked as happy as she felt; having now achieved two very great pleasures, as, in the first place, Captain De Crespigny had been called away by his uncle, and, in the second, he was succeeded by Sir Arthur leaning on the arm of Mr. Granville. The smile of confidence and interest with which Marion now listened and talked, when contrasted with the constrained attention she had bestowed on Captain De Crespigny, was like the difference between the glowing warmth of a summer morning and the icy brightness of winter. While loitering along their beautiful path, picking up here and there a wild flower, or pausing to enjoy the verdant beauties of nature in her holiday garb, cold would have been the heart, and vacant the imagination, not crowded with thoughts and feelings of poetical interest, when, thus surrounded by memorials of many romantic incidents in the national history. To Mr. Granville, all the charms of the place and season seemed familiar. He pointed out to Marion a thousand beauties overlooked by ordinary eyes, while many a refined allusion to his own attachment arose spontaneously out of the subject, and was listened to by her with modest but heartfelt interest. They conversed with glowing delight and perfect communion of thought, on the various interesting subjects which abound in the rich stores of a cultivated mind. Throughout the remarks of Mr. Granville on music, science, and every elevating enjoyment of the human intellect, the poetry of literature, as well as the poetry of nature might be traced. Even the most indifferent subjects were no longer indifferent to Richard and Marion when thus viewed with mutual interest, and when affording a deeper insight into each other's heart and mind; while the gorgeous scenery around inspired them with feelings of enjoyment beyond any that could be attained in gaudy festivity and artificial amusement.

"This place is quite a morsel of Arcadia!" exclaimed Marion, while her eyes were beaming with delight. "I could fancy it some undiscovered country of our own, with not a living being in it but ourselves."

"Excuse me there," said Sir Arthur, smiling. "I shall by no means vote for having my world made so small and select! I am the most sociable of created beings, having fully convinced myself that nothing renders people more utterly selfish than solitude; all your strollings alone in forests and reclining beside rivers, what do they lead to? a prodigious opinion of ourselves, and an extreme indifference or contempt for others!"

"Most undeniably true," replied Mr. Granville. "If we had no happiness to seek but our own, I should not have far to search for mine; yet, as a matter of duty, I am for association and for cultivating the kinder feeling produced by mingling with others. Man could not be happy alone, even in Paradise, and the sternest misanthropes can do nothing worse against society than to become solitary hermits."

"The injury is inflicted on themselves also, as Providence has ordained for wise purposes that, bad as men are, they should love one another," observed Sir Arthur. "My Marion here brings the joys of spring to cheer the winter of my life, and I give her in return the gathered experience of many a long year; while, with you both beside me, the withering leaves of autumn look almost green and almost gay."

"Yet this is certainly the most melancholy of all seasons," replied Mr. Granville. "It has been called the time of fulfilment, when hope is realized,—but it can be an emblem only of Christian hope realized in death. Every hue and every sound reminds me of decay. The howling winds, the fleeting clouds, and the rustling leaves all speak of change and mortality; but permanent hopes and feelings belong only to our religion, which become the charm of existence when they arise, and which neither time nor death can alter. Our earthly affections when founded on such ennobling prospects, entitle us to believe that we shall advance, hand in hand with those we love, along the journey of life, and even at the end, be only separated for a very short period, to be reunited in a world of which even hours so bright as these are but a faint representation. When a Christian dies, he dies into another world. He is then born into a scene more beautiful, more joyous, and more lasting than this."

"How surprising it seems, that so little real admiration is felt for the wonders of nature, though so much is pretended!" observed Marion. "If anything could vulgarize so glorious a scene, it would be that tawdry crowd of many-colored visitors, rending the air with exclamations of delight, which seem chiefly addressed to the crows and jackdaws."

"We should have a band of fairies here, to give suitable music," added Sir Arthur; "and you ought to rob the poets of a few verses to celebrate the shades of Studley. I observe, Marion, that though in actual conversation, a single line of poetry sounds pedantic, yet young ladies in all novels have the whole British poets by heart, and spout entire pages by the yard measure, for every emergency, taken from Cowper, Milton, Byron and Co."

An interesting discussion now ensued, respecting the effect produced on the mind by sacred poetry, which diverged to the subject of sacred music, when Mr. Granville spoke with enthusiasm of the exalting, touching, and saddening influence of Handel's choruses, and of the affecting thoughts they occasionally create. In every remark referring to the heart or imagination, he expressed himself with a depth and fervor, felt and appreciated by the fresh young mind of Marion, who now experienced, under the happiest auspices, how much the mental faculties are enlivened by studying nature. Amidst surrounding peace, the soul exercises its brightest powers of thought, undivided by the shifting scenes of human life, with its thousand fluctuating objects and cares; while the fancy, liberated and unoccupied, is thrown back upon itself, and discovers once more the visions of other days, the stores of memory, experience, and hope.

From the point of view to which their guide now left the party, all the finest characteristics of Fountain Abbey became visible, and Marion found Miss Smythe finishing a masterly sketch of the landscape, which she blushingly yielded up for examination, while Sir Patrick confessed that he had been standing in his most picturesque attitude during five minutes, in hopes of obtaining a place in the foreground. Nothing could be more strikingly beautiful than her spirited representation of the large eastern window, like a light triumphal arch, the patches of ivy clinging round those mouldering walls, and the high, stately tower, nearly transparent with its many windows, all yet in perfect preservation.

"What a fatigue!" exclaimed Sir Patrick, throwing himself in a graceful attitude full-length on the sloping turf. "This day is like the famous Peter Schlemihl, without a shadow!"

"Well done art and nature both!" added Captain De Crespigny; "we have not existed in vain after seeing that matchless view! I shall give bail to live contented and happy during the rest of my life, if you will only endow me with all I see, and let it be shared with the person in this company whom I like best, though perhaps she might tire of me."

Agnes bit her scarlet lip with scorn at words which would once have thrilled to her very heart, but she turned away with an insufferably haughty air on perceiving that her ci-devant admirer had turned his most irresistible looks towards Marion, who was earnestly talking in an undertone to Miss Smythe, while a look of anxious alarm had become depicted on the countenances of both.

"Such moments as these are like the colors of a rainbow, very bright and very fleeting," observed Sir Arthur. "If I had a place magnificent as this, even with the power of choosing my own society, yet, as Dr. Johnson says, 'such possessions make men unwilling to die!'"

"Allow me to differ, then, from Dr. Johnson," replied Mr. Granville. "It is not our possessions, but our affections that could ever make me grieve to forsake this bright green earth. I would rather be loved by one than envied by thousands. I can imagine no happiness that does not spring from the heart, and the most splendid mansion that ever adorned the earth, would be a desert without the smile of those who loved me to welcome my entrance there."

"Who that knows the worth of friendship would not say the same," added Marion, in a deep, low tone. "My wishes never grasp at great possessions, as their very vastness appears disproportioned to our nature and powers. The most superb houses are those most generally deserted by their owners, but I scarcely ever see a retired and peaceful cottage without whispering to myself, 'There I could be happy.'"

"Take my word for it, the whole thing would be odious in a week," said Captain De Crespigny. "I have been a great observer of life from the windows of the New Club, and my serious opinion is, that poetry is all written to mislead our unsuspecting youth into an effervescence of empty enthusiasm about rural felicity on an income of nothing per annum; but I drew the cork out of that bottle long ago, and found it all froth. Once upon a time I was betrayed into living a month at one of those little bird's nests, a gaudy, stuccoed gimcrack, all plaster and green paint, surrounded with roses, hollyhocks, and the flaring trash people call flowers. There were within the walls, three noisy dogs, four ditto children, a roasting-jack and a mangle, all screeching at once! It was distracting! No! no! I hate money myself, but that cured me of ever making a mere bread-and-butter match."

"Yet I could live on the bread without the butter, for any one I really liked, or even the butter without the bread," said Mr. Granville, smiling. "Money is only the raw material of enjoyment, which must be raised into a fabric of solid strength, and embellished with taste, to suit my wishes and hopes. The hook and eye will never be of gold that attaches me, and nothing has ever been so difficult to my comprehension as that any one can possibly form the nearest ties of life upon a mere calculation of profit and loss!"

"Well," exclaimed Sir Patrick, who always assumed an air of bravado before Mr. Granville, to conceal his real feelings, "I am above all the follies of inferior mortals, but I do say, that to me, the most interesting object in nature is a young lady of large, independent fortune, ready to throw herself away on the first man who asks her!"

At this moment, Miss Smythe's sketch-book fell to the ground, while, with a sudden exclamation of affright, she started up, but instantly endeavored to recover herself, and when Sir Patrick had gathered up her pencils, she received them back with blush of double-dyed carnation, as if she could never unblush again, and making an apology for having been startled by the sudden apparition of a hare, she silently resumed her occupation, and Sir Patrick continued to rattle on at his full pitch of nonsense, as if nothing had occurred.

"I wonder Lady Sarah Marchmont did not wait another season for me! I was hastening rapidly to my last shilling, and might possibly have been driven, by stress of weather, to propose, if she had not accepted the Duke of Middlesex, in despair; yet had she possessed a thousand pounds for every shilling, I am not certain that the most golden of her gold could have gilded her.——"

"My dear fellow!" interrupted Captain De Crespigny, in his most sagacious tone, "L'amour fait beaucoup, mais l'argent fait tout; it is easy to say 'fortune,' but where will you ever find one weigh in the scale against Lady Sarah?"

"Easily, any day! As the Spaniards say, 'a man of straw is worth a woman of gold.' Last season, in London, all the heiresses were dying for me."

"Except three who never saw you."

"And at balls, when a chaperon asked any young lady who she would prefer for a partner, the invariable answer was, in the sweetest voice imaginable, 'Sir Patrick Dunbar!'"

"Or the Duke of Tunbridge, and he never dances!"

"Indeed, next season I have serious thoughts of lending; myself out to parties, at so much an hour. It is all nonsense about fortune being blind! The goddess has one eye left, which has been fixed upon me during the last five years, if I would only accept her favors."

"Well, Dunbar! We all know that you are like the elephant in an Irish menagerie, who was the greatest elephant in the world except himself. But be warned in time! They say every man has one opportunity given him of succeeding in life, and if he lose that, he never has a second! Positively, old fellow, now is your time! Do not think me malicious, but even I, your best friend, must allow that you are growing fat."

"Yes!" observed Agnes, in the same rallying tone. "Pat is scarcely such a 'look-and-die' person as he was. I remember him younger, once!"

"Very true! I am getting quite uneasy about you," added Captain De Crespigny, in an admonitory voice. "A young lady's reign lasts from seventeen till twenty, and our best days are over at forty! Dunbar, shall I give you a line of recommendation to Miss Howard?"

"A million of thanks; but as you never succeeded in recommending yourself, De Crespigny, I shall be better, in case of extremity, standing on my own merits."

"Then you will stand as precariously as my old uncle Doncaster, toiling up the bank there, whose legs look so thin, that I often wonder he has courage to venture upon them at all. He is most unfit to come up hill, when actually going down the hill of life so very fast, that he might as well be setting his worldly affairs in order."

"Worldly affairs! He has no other affairs, I suppose," replied Agnes, with a supercilious smile on her haughty lip. "And I think Lord Doncaster will be able to manage his own affairs for many years to come! He intends to live as long as Great Britain is an island. Nobody is old, till he feels old!"

Captain De Crespigny looked at Agnes with a penetrating air of astonishment, which gradually changed to an expression of satirical indifference, while he added, "This is an odd world, Miss Dunbar!"

"So it is! When did that idea first occur to you? It seems so very new!" replied Agnes, in a tone of biting satire. "Patrick has often told me that the De Crespignys are reckoned a sagacious family; and perhaps, after so bright a remark, you may turn out by no means the sort of every-day person people expected."

"Probably not! I shall, perhaps, be like Cimon, awakened from stupidity by the charms of a second Iphigenia," said Captain De Crespigny, with an air as if he had surpassed himself; but the smile with which Agnes listened to this characteristic reply was cold and transient as a gleam of sunshine on a frozen lake; yet while her features remained immoveable as those of a beautiful statue, a strange, unnatural fire sparkled in her splendid eyes, and with a look of withering indignation she turned haughtily away to address Lord Doncaster; while Captain De Crespigny, humming the last opera tune, and switching with his cane the heads off all the flowers along his path, quickened his pace, and resumed his not very welcome assiduities to Marion, who felt insufferably annoyed at being obliged always to hear the same nonsense talked, and to play her part in what she considered a mere hack flirtation on the part of Captain De Crespigny; while she greatly wondered that he had not long since tired of always, in her company, drawing up an empty bucket.

Sir Patrick was preparing to follow, when he observed the young sketcher hastily adding a last touch to her beautiful drawing; and before she could assemble all her scattered implements and materials, which he had assisted her to do, the whole joyous party had nearly vanished out of sight; while the young Baronet's eyes flashed with amazement, on giving a clandestine glance into the sketch-book, to find there an extremely clever caricature of Captain De Crespigny, as he stood a few minutes before, endeavoring to divide his attentions among the whole group of ladies. On examining another leaf, he found, to his yet greater surprise, a beautiful likeness of Clara Granville; and turning instantly to his young companion, with sudden emotion, he entreated permission to have it copied. While he was yet speaking, the young lady, with crimsoned cheeks, though a lurking smile played about her mouth, continued hastily to follow the guide, tracing his footsteps with an accuracy worthy of a Mohican, impatient, evidently, to overtake their companions, as she hastily threaded her way through the forest glades, and beneath the arching branches of many a lofty tree, towards a dark, gloomy-looking plantation, to which their guide seemed now impatiently hurrying them. He was dressed in a smock frock, and had become singularly silent, his replies being all so short and so grudgingly given, that Sir Patrick had angrily yielded up the point, determined to give the man nothing, and not to ask him another question, when suddenly his arm was tremblingly grasped by the young lady beside him; while in a low, strange, unearthly whisper, and with a look of mortal terror, she said, "I do not like this! What can it mean? Has he escaped from confinement? Are you sure that man is our guide?"

"I scarcely looked, but of course he is! It can be no one else!" replied Sir Patrick, in a soothing tone; for he thought she must certainly be deranged. "There he waits for us! We shall overtake our friends immediately."

"Look at this tree!—pretend to be admiring the landscape!" continued the young lady, in a deep, concentrated voice; "but tell me,—can we make our escape unobserved by that man? My life, probably, depends upon your answer!"

Sir Patrick now became confirmed in his opinion respecting the insanity of his young companion, and fixing his eyes on her countenance, he perceived with amazement that every tinge of color had been drained from her cheek—that her lip quivered with fright, and that terror spoke in her eyes, and trembled in every limb; while her words poured out with a rushing vehemence of tone and manner which startled and alarmed him.

"I caught a momentary glance of his countenance! Where could I ever see these eyes and be mistaken? There is madness yet in their expression. He has sworn to destroy me. The whole purpose of his being is revenge!"

"Revenge on you—impossible! Who could be so unmanly—so——"

"You forget that my cousin is insane—that he thinks I drove him into madness—that he pursued me day and night till we shut him up! Can nothing be done?"

"Miss Howard! I might have guessed this! Can it be? When I am here, you need apprehend nothing! He dare not harm you."

"Oh! how little you know him! In his present state, he has the strength of ten men," replied she, with wild and hurried glances. "Once I saw him struggle in their grasp. Why must I forever remember that scene? His cries, his imprecations; but see, he returns! Let us appear still to advance, but concert some plan for my escape, or believe me, my moments are numbered."

The tone of intense agony in which these words were uttered, filled Sir Patrick with pity, while knowing the fearful and mysterious power communicated by madness, even to the feeblest frame, he felt a well-grounded apprehension for the terrified girl's safety, on observing the strong, muscular figure of the maniac; therefore, after walking on some steps, he whispered to her, almost inaudibly:

"The guide seldom looks back. Let me ask him a question, and immediately afterwards drop down the side of this hill, and conceal yourself. I shall continue to follow him, that the sound of your footsteps may not be missed. Whatever the danger is, be firm, and you will certainly escape. Guide!" continued he, elevating his voice in an authoritative tone, yet, even at this crisis, unable to resist a joke; "tell me the exact age of this tree, and how many stones it took to build the Abbey?"

The man threw back some inaudible reply, in a surly, dogged voice, and quickened his pace towards a dark group of fir trees, while again the almost fainting girl gave an agitated glance at Sir Patrick, who silently pointed towards the turf edging along the gravel-walk, making her a sign to take flight upon it as noiselessly as possible, while he proceeded forward himself with no fairy tread, making the sound of his footsteps as loud as if there had still been two behind.

After the terrified girl had hastily slid down a steep bank and disappeared amidst a mass of evergreens, Sir Patrick was beginning to contemplate the expediency of adopting a similar plan, seeing that in conflict with a madman he could gain neither honor or advantage, and might be seriously injured, when the maniac suddenly burst into a thrilling, fearful laugh, and, snatching a pistol from his breast, turned fiercely round, when Sir Patrick instantly recognised, as he had begun to expect, the countenance of that excited stranger, whom Captain De Crespigny had in the morning named to him as Ernest Anstruther.

Astonishment and unimaginable fury glittered in the madman's wild and haggard countenance, when he missed the object of his pursuit, and he looked for the moment like a wild beast at bay, till, springing upon Sir Patrick with a cry of hideous rage, he seized hold of his arm with a delirious grasp, and clenched his fist, shouting in accents of frenzied rage, while the white foam was on his lips:

"Where! where is she? Tell me, or you shall die! Have I tracked her through earth and air, through sky and ocean, to be disappointed now? With sleepless care have I dodged her steps! Demons drove me on! Fiends and serpents have beset me! Coals of fire are on my brain! Cold hands are on my heart! All is horror! Every human soul shall shudder for the deeds I do! A brand of shame shall be on my head! The dogs shall howl when I pass! Even now, the sun never shines on me! Show me, then, where she is, or I will tear you limb from limb."

Sir Patrick stood firm as a rock before this whirlwind of passion, though filled with horrible amazement, as he beheld the burning glare of the madman's eye, and heard the sharp, shrill, shrieking voice in which he spoke; but if he appeared terrible in his fierce excitement, he seemed more terrible still, when a moment afterwards, with a cold, livid look, as if turned into stone, he added:

"She shall be mine, or she shall never be given to another. I would not spare her for ten thousand lives. If she refuse me, her lips shall be closed forever and ever. I shall destroy and be destroyed. My love or my vengeance must be gratified; and mark my words. You are the friend of Louis De Crespigny. I would it had been himself, and one of us should never have left this spot alive. There is a dark and dreary account to be settled between him and me. My first warning shall be my last," added he, in a hollow whisper, while a look of dangerous meaning gleamed in his eye. "He deserves death at my hands. He wrenched my sister from her home, trampled on her affections, and is born in all things to injure and supplant me! He must die!" added the maniac, with a strange glare in his eye-balls. "It is, perhaps, for his sake that I am rejected! Wild voices are whispering in my ear! Unnameable horrors beset me! Fierce phantoms are hissing and shouting behind me!"

The unfortunate being uttered these words with preternatural fury, while his countenance wore an expression of deadly malignity. He then paused, ground his teeth, and with the frightful levity of a maniac, uttering a howling, fiendish laugh, and rushing away, disappeared into the thickest part of the forest, leaving Sir Patrick horror-struck at the awful spectacle of a shattered intellect, the fragments of which were of so deadly a nature; while, at the same time, amidst a torrent of other thoughts and feelings, chiefly directed to secure the safety of Captain De Crespigny, he could not but smile at his present discovery, that the plainly dressed, shy, reserved, but rather satirical young lady, whom he had been of late patronising and bringing forward, was no other than the superbly endowed heiress, Miss Howard Smytheson, respecting whom he had so often rallied himself.