Sometimes, indeed, he would take a fastidious fit, and murmur a little in his heart against fate, for compelling him to be the one to receive, and denying him the pride and pleasure of bestowing; but so absorbing was his passion for Caroline, that he soon closed his eyes against this objection, almost as absolutely as he would have done against the contrary had it existed. He was incapable, in short, at the time, of weighing any subject deliberately: a look, a smile, or the unbidden brightening of Caroline's countenance when they met, would have been sufficient to have upset the firmest resolves, had he even been visited by a lucid interval in which to have formed them; but on the contrary, from the first morning he had been so unexpectedly invited home by Lady Palliser, his head had become giddy with rapture; the pulsations of his heart had never settled down to their steady original pace, nor had any one thought or feeling ever once been summoned before the bar of reason. That it must be a fairy tale--a dream--too much happiness to be true, would sometimes cross his imagination for a moment, and strike his heart with a sort of panic; but such thoughts not being agreeable enough to meet with a welcome within, were therefore quickly dismissed. Whenever he was neither at Lady Palliser's nor at his old post at the window, he was wandering in some unfrequented walk, or reclining listlessly on a remote sofa in a deep reverie, calling to mind looks, smiles, or half uttered replies, from which, while they said nothing, every thing might be inferred. He studied and learned to comprehend as a language hitherto unknown, the timid, shrinking, as yet undeveloped character of Caroline. To him her very silence now conveyed more than the eloquence of others; and however long he watched the downcast lid, if it was raised at last but for a second, he was amply rewarded. And when he repaired to Jessamine Bower, to pay his now daily morning visit, and on entering addressed Lady Palliser first, as he made a point of doing, he literally trembled with concealed emotion as he noted the slight tinge, faint as the reflection from a rose leaf, steal over Caroline's delicate cheek, while she continued to bend over her employment, whatever it might be, and acting her part unnecessarily well, endeavoured to betray no consciousness of his presence, till her attention was absolutely claimed by some such formal address as--