Valancourt sighed deeply, and was unable to reply; but as he pressed her hand to his lips, the tears that fell over it spoke a language which could not be mistaken, and to which words were inadequate.

Emily, somewhat tranquillized, proposed returning to the chateau; and then, for the first time, recollected that the count had invited Valancourt thither to explain his conduct, and that no explanation had yet been given. But while she acknowledged this, her heart would not allow her to dwell for a moment on the possibility of his unworthiness: his look, his voice, his manner, all spoke the noble sincerity which had formerly distinguished him; and she again permitted herself to indulge the emotions of a joy more surprising and powerful than she had ever before experienced.

Neither Emily nor Valancourt were conscious how they reached the chateau, whether they might have been transferred by the spell of a fairy, for anything they could remember; and it was not till they had reached the great hall that either of them recollected there were other persons in the world besides themselves.

The count then came forth with surprise and with the joyfulness of pure benevolence to welcome Valancourt, and to entreat his forgiveness of the injustice he had done him; soon after which Mons. Bonnac1 joined this happy group, in which he and Valancourt were mutually rejoiced to meet.

When the first congratulations were over, and the general joy became somewhat more tranquil, the count withdrew with Valancourt to the library, where a long conversation passed between them; in which the latter so clearly justified himself of the criminal parts of the conduct imputed to him, and so candidly confessed and so feelingly lamented the follies which he had committed, that the count was confirmed in his belief of all he had hoped; and while he perceived so many noble virtues in Valancourt, and that experience had taught him to detest the follies which before he had only not admired, he did not scruple to believe that he would pass through life with the dignity of a wise and good man, or to intrust to his care the future happiness 1 A friend of Valancourt's who has succeeded in clearing the latter's character.

of Emily St. Aubert, for whom he felt the solicitude of a parent. Of this he soon informed her, in a short conversation, when Valancourt had left him. While Emily listened to a relation of the services that Valancourt had rendered Mons. Bonnac, her eyes overflowed with tears of pleasure; and the further conversation of Count de Villefort perfectly dissipated every doubt, as to the past and future conduct of him, to whom she now restored, without fear, the esteem and affection with which she had formerly received him.

*

THE MAN OF FEELING

HENRY MACKENZIE

INTRODUCTION

My dog had made a point on a piece of fallow-ground, and led the curate and me two or three hundred yards over that and some stubble adjoining, in a breathless state of expectation, on a burning first of September.

It was a false point, and our labour was vain: yet, to do Rover justice (for he's an excellent dog, though I have lost his pedigree), the fault was none of his, the birds were gone: the curate showed me the spot where they had lain basking, at the root of an old hedge.

I stopped and cried Hem! The curate is fatter than I; he wiped the sweat from his brow.

we

There is no state where one is apter to pause and look round one, than after such a disappointment. It is even so in life. When we have been hurrying on, impelled by some warm wish or other, looking neither to the right hand nor to the left find of a sudden that all our gay hopes are flown; and the only slender consolation that some friend can give us, is to point where they were once to be found. And if we are not of that combustible race, who will rather beat their heads in spite, than wipe their brows with the curate, we look round and say, with the nauseated listlessness of the king of Israel, "All is vanity and vexation of spirit."

I looked round with some such grave apophthegm in my mind. when I discovered, for the first time, a venerable pile, to which the enclosure belonged. An air of melancholy hung about it. There was a languid stillness in the day, and a single crow, that perched on an old tree by the side of the gate, seemed to delight in the echo of its own croaking.

I leaned on my gun and looked; but I had not breath enough to ask the curate a question. I observed carving on the bark of some of the trees: 'twas indeed the only mark of human art about the place, except that some branches appeared to have been lopped, to give a view of the cascade, which was formed by a little rill at some distance.

Just at that instant I saw pass between the trees a young lady with a book in her hand. I stood upon a stone to observe her but the curate sat him down on the grass, and leaning his back where I stood, told me, "That was the daughter of a neighbouring gentleman of the name of WALTON, whom he had seen walking there more than once.

"Some time ago," he said, "one HARLEY lived there, a whimsical sort of a man I am told, but I was not then in the cure; though, if I had a turn for such things, I might know a good deal of his history, for the greatest part of it is still in my possession."

"His history!" said I. "Nay, you may call it what you please," said the curate; "for indeed it is no more a history than it is a sermon. The way I came by it was this: some time ago, a grave, oddish kind of a man boarded at a farmer's in this parish the country people called him The Ghost; and he was known by the slouch in his gait, and the length of his stride. I was but little acquainted with him, for he never frequented any of the clubs hereabouts. Yet for all he used to walk a-nights, he was as gentle as a lamb at times; for I have seen him playing at teetotum with the children, on the great stone at the door of our churchyard.

"Soon after I was made curate, he left the parish, and went nobody knows whither; and in his room was found a bundle of papers, which was brought to me by his landlord. I began to read them, but I soon grew weary of the task; for, besides that the hand is intolerably bad, I could never find the author in one strain for two chapters together; and I don't believe there's a single syllogism from beginning to end."

"I should be glad to see this medley," said I. "You shall see it now," answered the curate, "for I always take it along with me a-shooting." "How came it so torn?" ""Tis excellent wadding," said the curate.-This was a plea of expediency

I was not in a condition to answer; for I had actually in my pocket great part of an edition of one of the German Illustrissimi, for the very same purpose. We exchanged books; and by that means (for the curate is a strenuous logician) we probably saved both.

When I returned to town, I had leisure to peruse the acquisition I had made: I found it a bundle of little episodes, put together without art, and of no importance on the whole, with something of nature, and little else in them. I was a good deal affected with some very trifling passages in it; and had the name of Marmontel, or a Richardson, been on the title-page odds that I should have wept: But

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One is ashamed to be pleased with the works of one knows not whom.

CHAPTER XI1

OF BASHFULNESS- -A CHARACTER HIS OPINION ON THAT SUBJECT

THERE is some rust about every man at the beginning; though in some nations (among the French for instance) the ideas of the inhabitants, from climate, or what other cause you will, are so vivacious, so eternally on the wing, that they must, even in small societies, have a frequent collision; the rust therefore will wear off sooner: but in Britain it often goes with a man to his grave, nay, he dares not even pen a hic jacet to speak out for him after his death.

"Let them rub it off by travel," said the baronet's brother, who was a striking instance of excellent metal, shamefully rusted. I had drawn my chair near his. Let me paint the honest old man: 'tis but one passing sentence to preserve his image in my mind.

He sat in his usual attitude, with his elbow rested on his knee, and his fingers pressed to his cheek. His face was shaded by his hand; yet it was a face that might once have been well accounted handsome; its features were manly and striking, and

1 The reader will remember that the Editor is accountable only for scattered chapters and fragments of chapters; the curate must answer for the rest. The number at the top, when the chapter was entire, he has given as it originally stood, with the title which its author had affixed to it. [Author's note.]