Gazing up into the face of the maiden as he sang, the youth appeared to have forgotten that aught else existed on earth besides the object of his adoration,—while the caresses lavished upon his greyhound, but more than all the occasional smiles which Isabel bestowed upon himself, filled his whole soul with a delicious emotion, such as is known only to us when we fancy our first love is returned. But had he not been misled by his own blind admiration, he might have seen much in her conduct to dissipate his delusion; for scarcely a minute would elapse, without Isabel casting an anxious glance, down the avenue of the park, and once her lips moved unconsciously, and even the page might have heard her murmur, had he listened, “I wonder where he can be?” But appearing to awake to her indiscretion, the maiden suddenly ceased gazing, and turning to Henry, said, “A thousand, thousand thanks, sweet coz. You sing, to-night, sweeter than ever. But there if Wyn—the saucy fellow—has not run off with my shawl.” The eyes of the youth lighted up with pleasure, and the blood mounted even to his brow, at this encomium,—and exclaiming, “Stay—I will win back the truant,” he bounded gaily down the terrace after the playful hound. The maiden followed him with her eyes, and sighed, “Poor Henry.” In those two words what a volume of hopeless love and years of anguish for the youth were spoken. Chapter II. _The Page: The Lovers._ Henry De Lorraine was the only son of a once proud, but now decayed lineage, and, being left an orphan at an early age, had been reared in the house of his cousin, Lord Deraine. His life there had been that of most noble youths of his day, who, either through necessity, or for the purposes of advancement, were brought up as pages in the establishments of the wealthier nobility. Lorraine, however, possessed one advantage over the other pages of his cousin: he had from the first been the companion of the Lady Isabel, the only child of his patron. Although a year or two older than himself, the want of either brother or sister, had induced Isabel to confide in him all her little difficulties; and they had grown up thus, more on the footing of children of the same parent, than as a wealthy heiress, and a poor dependant.