her David's detested rival! The embers of a large fire, decayed, cast red twilight, which made it appear already dark without; and there he stood, at the long room's extreme end, between her and the hearth. To Winifred, the personal attributes of the man, whom in her awful resolve she regarded merely as the instrument of that filial good work, were utterly indifferent; yet she stopped--she shuddered--and trembled all over, as she caught the mere outline of his figure by the fire-light. There he was! to her idea, the embodied evil genius of her family! the sullen apostate from the finer part of love--the victim of satiety, (as rumour said,) the selfish contemner of women's better feelings!--indifferent to all but person in his election of a wife; willing to unite himself with one whose heart and mind were stranger to him, on bare report of her health and beauty, and some slight recollections of her childhood! Seeing her stop, and even totter, he advanced a few steps; but she, with the instinctive recoil and antipathy of some feeble creature from its natural enemy, retreated at his first movement--and, shocked by this betrayed repugnance, he again stood irresolute. Then rushed back upon her heart, with all the horror of novelty, the renunciation of poor David, now it was on the point of being sealed for ever. Now father, mother, all beside, was forgotten--the ghastliness of a terrible struggle within, the stern horror of confirmed despair, began to disguise her beauty as with a death-pale mask--the features grew rigid, her heart beat audibly, her ears rang and tingled, and sight grew dim. She was fainting, falling. Mr Fitzarthur sprang to support her, but putting his arms too boldly round her waist, that detested freedom at once startled her into temporary self-possession, back into life. She gasped, struggled against him, as if she had rather have fallen than have been supported by _him_; and turned to him that white face, white even to the lips, imploringly, where was still depicted her unconquerable aversion. Some astonishment seemed to rivet that look upon his face, but half-visible by the dusky light--astonishment no longer painful, when the Nabob, emboldened, renewed his now permitted clasp, and only uttering "My _dear_! don't you know me?" in the tenderest tone to which ever manly voice was modulated, increased his grasp to a passionate embrace, advanced his face--his mouth to hers, advanced and pressed unresisted--and before her bewildered eyes closed in that fainting fit which had been but suspended, stood revealed to them (as proved by one delighted smile, flashed out of all the settled gloom of that countenance,) as her heart's own David--no longer the night--wandering poor _Telynwr_, but David Fitzarthur of Talylynn, Esq.