eagerly canvassing the chances of the day’s sport. At length the cavalcade set forth, and leaving the castle to the right, diverged towards the hills that skirt the neighborhood of Torbay, with the object of gaining the little river Wyse, a small stream that runs through that delightful vicinity, and is bordered by high overhanging banks. We have said that the younger gallants each sought his lady’s bridle rein, but it might have been noticed as a little singular that perhaps the two handsomest knights rode by themselves, keeping in the rear of the “goodly companie,” and seemingly engaged in earnest conversation. It might also have been noticed that the Lady Isabel rode unattended, except by her father, and that now and then, she cast a sly and perhaps uneasy glance back at the two cavaliers. She did this so often, that at length it attracted their attention, and the shorter of the two companions said to the other, “There, Herbert, take heart, man—do you not see that my fair coz is not indifferent to you—there, as I am a knight, she is looking back again.” “It is but to chide you for deserting her,” said the other. “I may not be so happy as to think she cares for me. Did you mark how chilling a reception she gave me this morning?” “Faith, man, and you deserved it,” answered his more mercurial companion, “after your strange humor last evening. Do your beauties and heiresses endure all the whim of jealous suitors without resentment? Will you never take heart of grace, leave off this diffidence, and come boldly out and woo my cousin in your own true and frank character? You may depend on it she has not forgotten you since you were playmates together, and though ten years of absence have elapsed since then, and she has been sought and is now sought by a score of gentlemen, yet has she not heard of your valor continually through my letters, and does she not blush and turn pale whenever you come suddenly on her? What more would you want? Tut, man, you are as blind in love as a bat. If you had to charge a battery you would do it without winking an eye-lid, but here you cannot attack a fair lady’s heart without quaking like a friar, and being in a dozen humors a day, according as your mistress chances to smile on you or not. Take my word for it, Isabel cares very little whether her madcap cousin is at her bridle rein or away from it; but she does care whether Sir Herbert Glendower is there or not, especially just now, when her conscience is twitching her, I dare swear, for having looked coldly on him a half hour since, and thus driven the poor knight almost into the notion of hanging himself. But this jesting I see you do not like—so let us push on and join the group, or we shall be suspected of talking treason,” and with a gay laugh the mercurial young man pricked his steed and pushed forward. His companion hesitated but an instant and then followed.