"Nothing could be so faultless as his character appeared; the passions of youth--(ah! I was a wild fellow at his age,) never seemed to venture near one. 'Quem casto erudit docta Minerva sinu.' Well, I am surprised he has not married. We scholars, Sir, fall in love with abstractions, and fancy the first woman we see is--Sir, let us drink the ladies." The next day Walter, having resolved to set out for Knaresborough, directed his course towards that town; he thought it yet possible that he might, by strict personal inquiry, continue the clue that Elmore's account had, to present appearance, broken. The pursuit in which he was engaged, combined, perhaps, with the early disappointment to his affections, had given a grave and solemn tone to a mind naturally ardent and elastic. His character acquired an earnestness and a dignity from late events; and all that once had been hope within him, deepened into thought. As now, on a gloomy and clouded day he pursued his course along a bleak and melancholy road, his mind was filled with that dark presentiment--that shadow from the coming event, which superstition believes the herald of the more tragic discoveries, or the more fearful incidents of life; he felt steeled, and prepared for some dread denouement,--to a journey to which the hand of Providence seemed to conduct his steps; and he looked on the shroud that Time casts over all beyond the present moment with the same intense and painful resolve with which, in the tragic representations of life, we await the drawing up of the curtain before the last act, which contains the catastrophe--that while we long, we half shudder to behold. Meanwhile, in following the adventures of Walter Lester, we have greatly outstript the progress of events of Grassdale, and thither we now return. CHAPTER IV. ARAM'S DEPARTURE.--MADELINE.--EXAGGERATION OF SENTIMENT NATURAL IN LOVE.--MADELINE'S LETTER.--WALTER'S.--THE WALK.-- TWO VERY DIFFERENT PERSONS, YET BOTH INMATES OF THE SAME COUNTRY VILLAGE.--THE HUMOURS OF LIFE, AND ITS DARK PASSIONS, ARE FOUND IN JUXTA-POSITION EVERYWHERE. Her thoughts as pure as the chaste morning's breath, When from the Night's cold arms it creeps away, Were clothed in words. --Sir J. Suckling--Detraction Execrated "You positively leave us then to-day, Eugene?" said the Squire. "Indeed," answered Aram, "I hear from my creditor, (now no longer so, thanks to you,) that my relation is so dangerously ill, that if I have any wish to see her alive, I have not an hour to lose. It is the last surviving relative I have in the world." "I can say no more, then," rejoined the Squire shrugging his shoulders: "When do you expect to return?" "At least, ere the day fixed for the wedding," answered Aram, with a grave and melancholy smile.