Nevertheless, there was in the bosom of Lord Ashborough at least so much consciousness that all this was but a pageant, that he found it necessary to redouble the careful guard he had put upon his feelings towards Captain Delaware; and though he came back to dinner meditating the destruction of his race and family, he showered on the young sailors head civilities which might have raised doubts had he dealt with one of the suspicious. Captain Delaware, however, was not one of the suspicious. He had not acquired the quality of suspiciousness in any of the three ways by which it reaches the human heart--neither by the consciousness of evil designs in his own breast, by experience of the world's baseness, or by the exhortations of others. He was susceptible indeed, and easily perceived when a slight was intended, or when the least approach to scorn was felt towards him or his; but deeper and blacker feelings escaped his observation, if covered by even a slight disguise. In the present instance he was completely deceived. His drive out with his fair cousin in the morning had proved so delightful, that he began to doubt the efficacy of the water of the prior's fountain, and to feel that many such drives might make him either very happy, or very much the contrary. But the kind attention of Lord Ashborough, his changed demeanour, and the hopes to which it gave rise, were all sources of unmixed pleasure. The evening passed away in delight; and when, on visiting Mr. Tims next morning, he found that he was prepared to concede every thing that he desired, on the simple formality of his father giving a bill at a few days' date for the money, his satisfaction was complete. Nor was it the less so, that the necessity of awaiting an answer to his letter, communicating these tidings, and of obtaining his father's signature to the bill, obliged him, whether he would or not, to enjoy the society of Maria Beauchamp for at least two days longer. On the part of that young lady herself, no dislike was felt to her cousin's society--every one else was out of town--she had no one with whom she could dance, or flirt, or talk, and still less any one to whom she could communicate any of the deeper and better feelings which formed the warp of her character, and across which the threads of a sparkling sort of levity were intimately woven. With Captain Delaware she did all but the first, and probably she would have danced too, had minuets still been in vogue. She laughed, she talked, she jested; and there was a sort of simple candour about his nature, together with fine feelings and gentlemanly habits, preserved, fresh and unadulterated, by a life spent either on the green waters or in the green fields--which altogether wooed forth those points in her own character, which as things most estimable, lay hid in the deeper casket of her heart.