For dreams are perverse—honest—and will not be persuaded into the service of this wandering fancy. Spring up, Katie Stewart, thankfully out of those soft, deep, dreamless slumbers, into the glorious morning air, which fills the street between those lofty houses like some golden fluid in an antique well;—spring up joyously to the fresh lifetime of undiscovered hours which lie in this new day. Grieve not that only tardily, slowly, the remembrance of the last night’s gallant returns to your untroubled mind; soon enough will come this fate of yours, which yet has neither darkened nor brightened your happy skies of youth. Up with your free thoughts, Katie, and bide your time! A visitor of quite a different class appeared in Lady Colville’s drawing-room that day. It was the Honourable Andrew, whose magnificent manners had awakened Katie’s admiration at his brother’s marriage. Not a youth, but a mature man, this Colville was heir to the lordship; for the good Lady Betty had no children; and while the elder brother spent his prime in the toils of his profession, fighting and enduring upon the sea, the younger indolently dwelt at home, acquiring, by right of a natural inclination towards the beautiful, the character of a refined and elegant patron of the arts. Such art as there was within his reach, he did patronise a little; but his love of the beautiful was by no means the elevating sentiment which we generally conclude it to be. He liked to have fine shapes and colours ministering to his gratification—liked to appropriate and collect around himself, his divinity, the delicate works of genius—liked to have the world observe how fine his eye was, and how correct his taste; and, lounging in his sister-in-law’s drawing-room, surveyed the dark portraits on the walls, and the tall erect Lady Anne in the corner, with the same supercilious polished smile. Lady Betty sits in a great chair, in a rich dress of black silk, with a lace cap over her tower of elaborate hair. She is just entering the autumnal years; placid, gentle, full of the sunshine of kindness has been her tranquil summer, and it has mellowed and brightened her very face. Less harsh than in her youth are those pale lines—softened, rounded by that kind hand of Time, which deals with her gently, she uses him so well. The Honourable Andrew, with his keen eyes, does not fail to notice this, and now he begins to compliment his sister on her benign looks; but Lady Anne is not old enough to be benign, and her movements become constrained and awkward—her voice harsh and unmanageable, in presence of the critic. He scans her pale face as if it were a picture—listens when she speaks like one who endures some uncouth sounds—is a Whig. Lady Anne could almost find it in her heart, gentle though that heart be, to hate this supercilious Andrew Colville.