With these little sketches of his cotemporaries, the good Squire endeavoured to while the time; taking, it is true, some pleasure in the youthful reminiscences they excited, but chiefly designing to enliven the melancholy of his nephew. When, however, Madeline had retired, and they were alone, he drew his chair closer to Walter’s, and changed the conversation into a more serious and anxious strain. The guardian and the ward sate up late that night; and when Walter retired to rest, it was with a heart more touched by his uncle’s kindness, than his own sorrows. But we are not about to close the day without a glance at the chamber which the two sisters held in common. The night was serene and starlit, and Madeline sate by the open window, leaning her face upon her hand, and gazing on the lone house of her lover, which might be seen afar across the landscape, the trees sleeping around it, and one pale and steady light gleaming from its lofty casement like a star. “He has broken faith,” said Madeline: “I shall chide him for this to-morrow. He promised me the light should be ever quenched before this hour.” “Nay,” said Ellinor in a tone somewhat sharpened from its native sweetness, and who now sate up in the bed, the curtain of which was half-drawn aside, and the soft light of the skies rested full upon her rounded neck and youthful countenance--“nay, Madeline, do not loiter there any longer; the air grows sharp and cold, and the clock struck one several minutes since. Come, sister, come!” “I cannot sleep,” replied Madeline, sighing, “and think that yon light streams upon those studies which steal the healthful hues from his cheek, and the very life from his heart.” “You are infatuated--you are bewitched by that man,” said Ellinor, peevishly. “And have I not cause--ample cause?” returned Madeline, with all a girl’s beautiful enthusiasm, as the colour mantled her cheek, and gave it the only additional loveliness it could receive. “When he speaks, is it not like music?--or rather, what music so arrests and touches the heart? Methinks it is Heaven only to gaze upon him--to note the changes of that majestic countenance--to set down as food for memory every look and every movement. But when the look turns to me--when the voice utters my name, ah! Ellinor, then it is not a wonder that I love him thus much: but that any others should think they have known love, and yet not loved him! And, indeed, I feel assured that what the world calls love is not my love. Are there more Eugenes in the world than one? Who but Eugene could be loved as I love?” “What! are there none as worthy?” said Ellinor, half smiling. “Can you ask it?” answered Madeline, with a simple wonder in her voice; “Whom would you compare--compare! nay, place within a hundred grades of the height which Eugene Aram holds in this little world?”