But Blanche will not think so for many a long day yet. Though the minims and crotchets and flats and sharps were mixed up in sadly puzzling confusion, not a frown of impatience crossed that pure, open brow. Blanche’s own thoughts were a panacea for all the provocations that the stiffest piece of musico-mechanism, or mechanical music, could inflict. It is a task beyond our powers to detail the vague ideas and shadowy dreams that chased each other through that glossy little head; nor have we any business to try. A young girl’s brain is a page of poetry, without rhyme certainly, probably without much reason, but poetry notwithstanding. Before the world has lost its gloss of novelty, that gloss which is like the charm that dazzled the eyes of their mortal visitors, and made the fairies’ straws and withered leaves and cobwebs look like purple hangings, and tapestry, and ivory, and gold--before life has borne away much to regret, and sin brought much to repent of--before the fruit has been plucked which still hangs from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, there is a positive pleasure in the mere act of thinking; and that intellectual luxury Blanche enjoyed to the utmost, whilst her fingers were tripping over the pianoforte keys, and Mrs. Kettering was snoring comfortably on the sofa. Now, Frank Hardingstone was prime favourite and _beau idéal_ with “Cousin Charlie,” who, like all boys, had selected an idol a few years older than himself, and clothed him with those imaginary attributes which youth considers essential to constitute a hero. Frank was a country gentleman, in possession of his property at the early age of five-and-twenty, and, truth to tell, somewhat bored with his position. If we were to describe him, we should say he was “a man of action” rather than “a man of feeling,” or “a man of business,” or “a man of refinement,” or “a man of pleasure,” or a man of anything else. He looked energetic too, and vigorous, with his brown healthy complexion, his open forehead, clear penetrating eye, and short clustering hair and whiskers. Had he been the least thing of a coxcomb in dress or manner, the ladies would have voted him very handsome; but he was plain to simplicity in his attire, and rather abrupt in his address, so they abused him amongst themselves, but were very civil to him notwithstanding. The men, particularly the sporting ones, who are always ready with their judgments and opinions, pronounced that he “looked a good one all over,” alluding, as we understand the phrase, not so much to his virtue as his corporeal powers, and capability of resisting fatigue. We are not so far removed from a state of barbarism in the present day as we are prone to flatter ourselves. When young King James called the grim old Douglas “his Graysteil,” that royal heart was attached to Earl Angus for his magnificent frame, skill in feats of arms and efforts of strength, not for the giant’s wisdom,