man,

an almost necessary consequence. No one, indeed, however cold and selfish, could have witnessed the virtues and misfortunes, the artlessness and unassuming gentleness of manners, which so remarkably characterized this amiable girl, without giving them, in some degree, the homage of his purest thoughts. What, then, must not Edward have felt, whose sympathies had been cherished by every motive which precept and example could afford, and whose heart, from the very complection of his own unhappy fate, was peculiarly alive to every impulse of piety, and every throb of tenderness? Is it requisite to add, that his affection, though intense, and coloured by those tintings which a youthful fancy loves to spread, and which in fact, the incidents attending the introduction of Adeline might naturally have occasioned, was mingled with every hallowed feeling which the innocence and confiding simplicity of her character could inspire.

He never, indeed, directly pleaded his passion, for he knew not how far he should be able to redeem his pledge; but there needed not the medium of language to make known emotions

which absorbed almost every faculty of his being; they were more eloquently and effectively told by those nameless tendernesses and attentions which sprung from every glance of his eye, from every tone of his voice, from every word, and look, and deed. Their influence was such as could not be eluded; and their result, precisely what might be expected to take place in a heart so kind, so guileless, and so pure, as was that which beat within the bosom of Adeline. She loved him, in fact, almost unconsciously; and, without pausing to analyse her sensations, or estimate their probable consequences, she only felt, and that without any admixture of suspicion or alarm, that happiness dwelt in his society; and that, when he was absent, listlessness and abstraction were but too often the companions of her solitude.

They were, however, not often liable to separation; for Mr. Walsingham, who had perceived and watched the growth of their attachment, was not solicitous to throw many obstacles in its way. He admired the characters, both of Lluellyn and his daughter; and he was anxious, on many accounts, that Edward should be

settled, not only early in life, but that his happiness should be almost exclusively built on the gratification flowing from retired and domestic occupation. It is true, that the parties with whom it was probable he might be connected, were in reduced circumstances; but then, it was known to him, that property on the part of Edward, sufficient for all the purposes of the way of life in which he hoped to see him placed, would not be wanting; and he was well persuaded, that neither the education, nor the habits, nor the modes of thinking, either of his pupil or of Adeline, were in the least degree calculated for protection against the selfishness and duplicity of the world. The former had been for some time past the prey of disappointment and sorrow; and was moreover, notwithstanding all the efforts of his guardian to counteract such a tendency, in a very great measure the child of an illusive, though splendid imagination; whilst the latter, though possessing a large portion of good sense, and a heart pure and unsullied as the breath of heaven, had been brought up as the favourite of one, who, even in the routine employment of the farmer, had not forgotten a particle of the an

cestral independency, natural fervor, and poetic spirit of the Cambrian bard.

Three beings more apart from those which usually constitute the mass of society, could not easily be found; they were such, however, as highly interested the feelings of Mr. Walsingham. One, indeed, he loved as if he were his own child; another had been his first, and was now his oldest friend, an object alike of compassion and veneration; and the third exhibited the very model of all that was lovely, and gentle, and romantic, in the character of woman. Convinced, that if ever happiness should be the lot of Edward, if ever he could forget the destination from which he had suffered so severely, it would be with a partner thus assimilated to his wants and wishes, and in a situation far from a prying and censorious world; he left them in a great measure, free and unshackled in their opportunities of intercourse; relying firmly and entirely on the principles of virtue which he knew had been instilled into the minds of both.

If ever on this earth, constituted as it now is, there can exist a state which may merit the designation of paradisaical, it is when love first

springing in a youthful and guileless heart, meets in the object of its attachment a reciprocity in taste, in feeling, and in purity of intention. And such was the happy lot of Edward and of Adeline. They wandered together through the green lanes and quiet woods of Rivaulx, or were seen at eve amid the ruins of its venerable abbey, or tracing, with unwearied steps, the windings of its mountain stream. In nature, and in nature's God, and in the breathings of their own desires and wishes, holy and innocent as the scenes which smiled around them, they found an inexhaustible source of delight; and when the approach of winter deprived them in a great measure of these out-door pleasures, the witcheries of music and of poetry were called in as their best and noblest substitute.

It was then that Adeline, who played skilfully on the harp, and who had been early taught to accompany it with the music of her voice, interested them by the simplicity and pathetic sweetness of her Welsh ditties, the favourites of her father, and of which she had a large and varied store. Nor was it seldom, that Lluellyn himself, his breast still glowing