"The children of the Hall," thought she "what can bring them down the haunted lane of the Hollow, the lane which not the strongest man in Oakenden would pass through after nightfall, and which the gentry never venture down at any time?"

Those bright young heads turned as they passed the thick privet-hedge of Maud's garden: and Eva, laughing like a merry bird trilling in the sky, when she saw the dusky face peering out among the shining leaves, checked her bay-mare, and asked how all her relations had been behaving lately? "For you know, Maud," she added, "that you are something more or less than human, and that all the goblins and imps, and witches, and bad spirits, which are so plentiful in the Hollow, come there at your bidding."

"Then how dare you, Miss Eva, come here?" asked Maud: "you are not very famous for courage, nor your brother there, great and strong as you both are." "We are protected, Maud, by our own innocence," said Horace roughly. "Witches have no power over Christians, so that is why we defy you, Maud, and laugh you to scorn ;" and he shook his whip at the elfin face among the leaves, more boyishly than brutally, though brutality was not wanting either-at no time wanting, for it made up the very fundamental element of Horace Gray's character.

through the shrubbery-path down to the privet-hedge | one blow of his great hand; and Eva pretends not to below, her small dark face, with raven hair, and glitter- see me when she passes me like a queen, and looks ing eyes, showed itself to Horace and Eva Gray, gallop-down on the ground as if looking for a grasshopper, ing in the sunlight. when she hears my voice; and other impertinences they are always offering me, with even more malice and cruelty in them. And I sometimes get angry, though often it is only a pretence. But I should not be angry with these two foolish prattling children; they have been warped by the fatal education of prejudice-so far warped, as to forget the claims of a common humanity, because of a shade more or less of brown on the cheek, or an inch more or less of height to the figure. No, I do not blame them! They repeat, parrot-like, what they have been taught, and the responsibility of this sin of theirs rests with older heads. And it is a sin to pour unmerited sorrow into the cup of any human life! No, I do not blame them! A curse is laid on me, which I must bear, and of which they work out one small portion; the form and features of a gnome, with the feelings of a passionate humanity; the blinding strength of love, the warm idolatry of beauty, with the impossibility to be loved, and the consciousness of deformity! I, who could love these two young things in all their glorious youth and beauty, must feel myself shut out from them, as from all others, because of this fearful curse of outward unloveliness!" And then she turned her face to the ground, and her tears fell like heavy rain among the dry leaves of the fallen evergreens. "And yet it is not a fault that I am dark and small," she said, drying her tears; "born no one knows where, of an outcast mother, whose gipsy-home was of all countries, whom no nation claimed, and no kinsman owned. It is not a sin that I am not fair and queenly, like Eva; nor like Horace, strong and beautiful. But it is made a fault, and I suffer the penalties of a sin all the same. She is like a princess-she is so grand and noble in her beauty; while I creep along the earth, like a forgotten reptile at the foot of the golden throne whereon she sits like a queen. But yet, I would not change my stunted form and swarthy skin for Eva's glorious beauty, if I must take Eva's mindless brain as well. I can feel; I can love; while Eva-the bright morning star in the sky, knows as little of human sympathies as she! Yet, oh, she is so beautiful that one forgives all her sins and short-comings, and almost could love her solely for the sake of that beauty! And Horace, too, rough, rude, uncultivated as he is; for beauty is so divine a gift from God, that we must needs worship it; and ah!" added Maud with a sigh, “. we always prize so much the good we have not." And Maud thrust herself into the sunlight, pleasing herself with a sad pleasure, by exaggerating in the slanting rays the slight deformity indicated rather than developed in her person.

"Well done, Master Horace !" retorted Maud, contemptuously. "It is a fine amusement for you to insult Maud of the Hollow; a manly pastime for a great boy of nineteen to annoy a weak girl. If I had a brother as big as you, Master Horace, I wonder if you would call me bad names then!" And Maud's large, black eyes rained out contempt and anger like fire from beneath their lids: for though she tried hard to subdue her natural impetuosity, and her keenness to take offence, it was not always possible to hold such check and string over herself as to make her patient and forgiving all at once; and there was something in the tone of Horace's insults which roused her blood more than anything else.

"Come away, Horace," whispered Eva; "Maud is angry, and I am afraid of her when she is angry. She looks so dreadful, I am sure she will do us some harm if we tease her any longer." And the two young creatures started off without another word-Horace vainly endeavoring to look heroic and indifferent, and Eva showing more terror than might have been expected from anything so grand and queenly.

Maud stood by the hedge, listening to their voices for a long time; and when they had died away, she crept back to her lair among the laurels, feeling very sad and lonely.

"They call me dwarf, witch, elf, imp," said Maud; "they laugh at me for my swarthy skin-and it is swarthy by the side of theirs, fair as flowers, and bright as morning clouds; they ridicule me for being small and deformed; and Horace threatens to crush me with

While standing thus, her deformity hidden now in the long, black hair which she often allowed to fall loose from a scarlet cincture round her head, she heard again the the tramp of hoofs careering boisterously down the hill; and a moment after, a furious plunge, a woman's shrill scream, and Horace's voice calling loudly for help, woke up the still evening.

One bound, like the spring of a gazelle, cleared the hedge, and Maud, her long hair streaming behind her, ran breathless to where Eva lay fainting on the ground, Horace vainly endeavoring to arouse her by a clumsy succession of boyish restoratives. Paul Desprez, pale and agitated, was holding the horses; Eva's kicking and plunging violently, bathed in foam and trembling, while the heavy chestnut ridden by Horace, fed tranquilly by the wayside.

แ

loves, to her life from the hands of Maud the gipsy ?” said the girl quietly, speaking with an unruffled voice, though running by the young man's side.

"It is not you, Maud," cried Paul, his words coming in a series of convulsive gasps, "but that vagabond boy. Oh, Maud, if you have woman's heart in you, rescue her from his arms! He will love her if he sees her face and bewitch her to love him, if he breathes on her. Oh! Maud, Maud, give her to me!"

Nonsense, Paul. What madness you are talking! Lemuel is not a god; he is nothing miraculous. Let him carry her; you are not strong enough."

"No, no," sobbed Paul, throwing up his hands. At this moment Lemuel stopped to open the little wicket-gate leading through Maud's garden. "Here, Lemuel, let the young gentleman take Miss Eva," said Maud quietly.

66 Oh, Maud, perhaps you may be of some use," said Horace, in his off-hand, lordly way. "Eva has been thrown by this cursed brute, you see. Just as we passed the Hollow Lane, it took to kicking like a mad thing; and look at her now-one would think she was bewitched." The word struck his own ear. He cast a sudden glance on Maud, and turned very pale. "Who knows?" he thought to himself. "We vexed Maud this morning; perhaps she has bewitched the bay mare out of revenge." He placed himself between the gipsy-girl and his sister. "On second thoughts, Maud," he said, "you cannot be of any use here in the middle of the road; you may go home. Paul, give me Eva's horse to hold; and do you ride off to the Hall for help; I will wait here for you. And you, Maud, pray don't stay here. I must insist on your not staying with me-and Eva."

"Don't be a baby, Horace," retorted Maud, sharply; "and don't go to the Hall, Mr. Paul, till I tell you to do so. Help me to take your sister into my cottage, Horace-Master Horace, I mean-and don't carry her home like a corpse, when nothing is really the matter with her. Come! do as you are bid, and don't stand there like a frightened school-boy. Carry her in your arms, and I will soon make her well again."

"I carry my sister into your cottage, Maud !" cried Horace, petrified with amazement.

"Yes, into my cottage, Master Horace."

"That I certainly will not do," he cried, tossing his beautiful bright head, and looking very willful and very handsome.

"I always knew you were a coward, Horace, in spito of your six feet," cried Maud, disdainfully. "A great boy-baby, and nothing more. But your cowardice must not be allowed to harm your sister. You may think me a witch if you like, but I must show her that I am a nurse and sister."

The lad looked astonished, but, without speaking, placed his burden in Paul's arms.

A fainting woman of Eva's height and development is no light burden; besides, Paul, never very strong at any time, at this moment was overpowered with emotion, and exhausted with his rapid pursuit: he staggered beneath Eva's weight, could not move a step, and finally would have fallen, if Horace had not come up at that moment-and, both together, they carried her into Maud's cottage.

Horace shuddered as they crossed the threshold. The evening had come, and the last rays of the sun made a kind of mournful glory round the outer world, while all within Maud's house looked dark and gloomy as the grave.

"There!" said Maud majestically, pointing to a deep couch covered with a tiger's skin. The young men obeyed her gesture, and laid Eva on the couch. Horace looked undignifiedly frightened; and Paul, divided between his artist's appreciation of the arrangements of that cottage-room, and his lover's agony at Eva's prolonged faint, was distressed, excited, and bewildered; while Maud was mysterious and important, doing her best to convince Horace of her supernatural powers, and to make him believe her a witch-or worse.

Yet Paul noticed that she was prompt and careful about Eva, and that the most matter-of-fact nurse in an hospital could not have been more quick and clever than this strange-looking dwarf of the Hollow. She

“Maud—sister—impertinent-house-witch-Eva!" loosened the ribbon round the girl's-throat, and felt the

stammered Horace, fairly aghast at the tone of command assumed by Maud.

Maud turned her back on him, and gave a peculiar cry. A wild-looking foreign lad, known far and near as the Hobgoblin, rushed out of the shrubbery, as suddenly as a stage-imp. Maud said a few words, in a strange language, and Lemuel caught up poor Eva in his long, sinewy, ape-like arms, and bounded off with her like a leopard with his prey. The whole passed so quickly, that neither Horace nor Paul could interfere. Paul flung the reins of the bay-mare to Horace, and rushed after the lad, calling to him loudly to stop.

"What! is Paul Desprez so far infected with Oakenden folly, as to prefer perhaps the death of a girl he

blue veins carefully; she passed her hand rapidly through the golden flood of hair falling on the tiger's skin, to see if there was any wound on the head; and then she took a small bottle of some powerful essence, and shook a few drops over the fainting face. Eva sighed, opened her eyes, moved restlessly, smiled softly, and a few gentle pencillings of color came into her cheeks like the first small rays of morning. Maud stood by her, her clasping fingers of dusky brown holding that long pearlcolored hand, and her falling hair of jet dropping on the golden tresses spread all abroad. Her eyes were fixed intently on Eva, who seemed, as if under a spell, constrained to become gentle and loving against her nature.

"Your hand is sprained," then said Maud caressingly, | you may all go home," she said quietly. "The ointchafing that delicate member carefully.

Tears were on her cheek and a strange light lay in her eyes when she entered; and then she knelt down, and a prayer burst from her quivering lips: "God give me to be loved also."

It had long been a custom with Paul Desprez to keep a journal. Since he had lived in Oakenden, this journal, in the beginning a mere pleasure, had now become a necessity; it was his only friend, his only confidant. To it he confided all his highest thoughts and purest aspirations, his secret sorrows, and the grief of genius unsatisfied with itself; and from it he drew consolation, as if from the living words of a friend. He had also a fancy connected with this journal, which made it doubly precious to him. He had created an Ideal for himself, which he called his Egeria, and with which he used to hold long conversations, he said, in the mornings when the stars were fading out of the sky, and when all nature was fresh with youth and strength. All that he had of good in him came from this Egeria; all his best thoughts and highest endeavors were from that hidden voice; those sweet, low whispers heard by the soul alone, which seemed to teach and guide him, and by which he struggled with the evil of his nature, up to greater good and purity. He devoutly believed in this spirit, thinking it a foreshadowing of what life would give him in the future, and regarding it more as a prophecy than a fancy. And as all men are mad more or less on one point, if not on more, in their lives, this Egeria may be considered as the stationary madness of Paul Desprez.

bodily before me the features I have dreamed of so long? Those features, what will they be like? Long masses of golden hair falling in a heavy curtain over a calm smooth brow; eyes blue as summer skies, like Eva's; hands long, white, and slender; a figure made up of grace and dignity together; manners arch and playful, serene and thoughtful by turns; a voice soft, not powerful, and exquisitely true-such as Eva's. Yes, my Egeria will be like Eva, as beautiful-for she could not be more beautiful-and as good!"

6.

July 19. Another fortnight; but an age in my soul-a generation in my life. Still nothing is done, but all is felt and understood. Eva knows that I love her, and Eva loves me. I see it in her blush when I speak to her, in her upturned eye so suddenly downcast with that sweet look of modesty which fits her so well. I see it in her pretended surprise at seeing me, when I have known that she has been watching for me on the terrace hours long, for I can see the terrace of the Hall across the fields from Oakenden; I see it in her playful smile, malicious with a child's maliciousness, as she half hints at her affection for me, and pouts out her belief that I find her uninteresting and tiresome; I see it in her favorite flowers, which are always those that I prefer, or that I have gathered; and in her favorite airs, which are those that I have praised: in every manner by which a girl's feelings can be expressed unconsc ously to herself, have I fathomed the truth of her affection for me; and I have never known such intensity of joy as I have felt since I believed that Eva Gray loved Yet I dread to break the sweet spell of silent acknowledgement now between us; I dread to reduce to words the vague bliss on which I am living. It seems as if speech, while it will consolidate, yet will also roughen; as if the delicate hues of this rainbow love will be tarnished by the material breath of words. Will Eva prove the real embodiment of my Egeria? Will the impersonation equal the ideal? In a few days, I shall be able to answer these questions, when I shall have probed her mind to its depths, and unrolled her character like a rare golden fabric before me. I shall then know in Eva the attributes I have dreamed of in Egeria, and shall be loving, trustful, and happy.

This preface was necessary for the right understand-me. ing of the following extracts from the journal :—

"July 5. This summer-life of mine is sadly enervating. I look back on the severe discipline of my student life as on another existence. I am too happy in this idleness; though I cannot entirely get rid of certain stings of conscience, which tell me I am highly reprehensible for neglecting my work in the lethargy of pleasure. I came here originally for leisure; thinking that I could work better out in the free country than if pent up in a town; but a spell, nameless and irresistible, has fallen on me, which has destroyed all my intentions and shipwrecked my resolution. Nature herself has conspired against me. In such glorious weather, what can one do but live-dream out one's days on the grass under the lime-trees, and pass one's nights in prayer beneath the stars? I have lately felt very vividly the influence of my guardian angel, Egeria. I was lying in the shade of the beech-trees by the river, when a hand of light seemed to sketch a glorious portrait on my canvas. I swear it was but a copy that I made. I followed those gleaming lines like a schoolboy; and lo! there came out, all unknown to myself, the exact portrait of Eva Gray! I heard a low voice at my side whisper Egeria,' and then I think I must have fainted, for the evening had begun when I roused myself up from my stupor. My Egeria, my attendant spirit, shall it indeed be that I shall ever see thee embodied in human form? Shall I ever sit at the feet of the being who, as woman, will receive my love; as angel, my adoration? With what ecstasy shall I see

"July 20. This has been a day of sorrow and evil to me. I walked over to the Hall, intending to tell Eva all that I had in my heart for her, when I met her coming from the shrubbery with young Mr. Rollestone, the squire of Oakenden West. He remained close to us the whole of my stay, and I could not find one solitary moment wherein to speak to Eva alone. I wonder how Eva can like that young man! He could never love her as well as he loves his dogs and horses. Yet if she does not like him, why does she suffer him to be so much with her? Perhaps her parents would like to bring about a marriage between them. Her mother, I remember, did once hint to me something about the two properties of Oakenden Vale becoming one. was when I first came, and did not understand what she meant. But of course I feel quite at ease on that head. Eva loves me; she almost said so yesterday;

That

and of course she could not commit such a crime as to steals over me when I listen to her, with her low trifle with my heart, leave and break it. Yet how con- voice and gleaming eyes, pouring forth such deep fused she looked to-day when I met her leaving the thoughts and exquisite feelings. She seems like a reveshrubbery; perhaps he had been forcing his pretentions | lation from the unseen world; and I never feel so holy on her, and she had been rejecting them out of greater or so good as when I return from one of our long, long 'love for me. She would naturally look confused if she conversations in the woods, or by the river-side. She met me then. Yesterday she pressed my hand when I seems to strengthen all the manly part of my mind; put that white moss-rose into hers: I felt the press dis- while Eva, dear, womanly, lovely Eva, fascinates me to tinctly; besides, she blushed as she did so. Armidan indolence. What a difference between those | two beings! The one, all poetry; the other, all intellect; the one, Life; the other, Thought! A strange contrast; but very beautiful too. For I confess that I, too, was like the rest, and at one time despised Maud of the Hollow with the unruffled equanimity of superiority. I have learned my mistake, and now acknowledge Maud's rare artistic powers, her grand soul, her powerful brain, and am proud to name myself her champion and friend."