Hazlehurst was all but deceived into believing himself unjust towards Mrs. Creighton, so charmingly piquant, so gracefully flattering was her manner; but he owed his eventual escape to the only talisman which can ever save a young man, or an old one either, from the wiles of a pretty, artful coquette; he carried about with him the reflection of a purer model of womanly virtue, one gradually formed from boyhood upon Elinor's mould, and which at last had entirely filled his mind and his heart. Since the commencement of the Stanley suit, Hazlehurst had become quite disgusted with Mrs. Creighton's conduct; art may reach a great way, but it can never cover the whole ground, and the pretty widow involuntarily betrayed too many variations of manner, graduated by Harry's varying prospects; his eyes were completely opened; he was ashamed of himself for having been half-persuaded that she was attached to him. How different had been Elinor's conduct! she had shown throughout a warm, unwavering interest in his difficulties, always more frankly expressed in his least encouraging moments; indeed she had sometimes blushed, from the fear that her sympathy might he mistaken for something more than friendly regard for her kinsman. Harry saw it all; he understood the conduct of both, and he felt Elinor's kindness deeply; he was no longer ungrateful, and he longed to tell her so. True, she would ere long become his friend's wife, but might he not, under the circumstances, be permitted first to declare his feelings? It would, perhaps, be only a just atonement for the past--only what was due to Elinor. Harry tried to persuade himself into this view of the case, as he looked up towards her window, invoking a blessing on her gentle head. Hazlehurst's reflections, while on the piazza, had commenced with his pecuniary difficulties, and the consequences of his late defeat, but they gradually centered on Elinor in a very lover-like manner, much in the shape we have given them. But at length the moon went down behind the wood, and those whose rooms were on that side of the house found that the sound of his footsteps had ceased; and nothing farther disturbed the stillness of the night. "Did you see the Petrel this morning, grandpapa?" said Elinor, as she was pouring out the coffee at the breakfast-table. "No, I did not, my child; I took it for granted they were off before sun-rise, and did not look for them." "They were behind their time; they were in sight from my window about an hour since." "Some of the youngsters have been lazy, I suppose; I hope Harry was not the delinquent." "I heard him pass my door quite early," observed Miss Agnes. "When I saw them," said Elinor, "they had drawn off from the wharf, and were lying in the river, as if they were waiting for something that had been forgotten; the boat looked beautifully, for there was very little air, and she lay motionless on the water, with her sails half-furled."