“Emily Melville—the only daughter of the proud Lord Melville, who was well known in the time of the wars—as the representative of the long line of illustrious Scottish nobles of that name, was the pride of the Lowland nobility, and the belle of every assembly. She was as fair as a white fawn, and scarcely less wild. Her mother being dead, few restraints were placed upon the young beauty by the old house-keeper, who, in the main, filled the place. Emily, therefore, held in proud disdain the restraints which would have been imposed by the prudes of her sex, and thought that the great art of living was to be happy. Laughter was always on her lips, and sunlight forever on her brow. She was beautiful, and you knew it, yet you could not tell the secret of it, nor, for their restlessness and brilliancy, whether her eyes were blue or gray, yet you knew that they were pretty, and felt that they were bright. Her voice was like the warble of a bird in spring, its notes were so full of joyousness; and her motion was like that of a fairy, so light and graceful, that, had you seen her tripping over the smoothly shaved lawn in front of the mansion—her auburn hair drooping in long ringlets over her snowy and finely rounded shoulders—and heard her gay glad voice, swelling out in song and happiness, you would have fancied her an angel from the upper sphere.” “I doubt that last part, my good fellow”—interrupted a bluff old soldier—“until I had tried an arm around her, to see if she wasn’t flesh and blood, I wouldn’t a’ trusted fancy.” “An interruption, gentlemen. You see if the story is told right, a man must _feel_ what he says, and you’ll find out before it’s done, that I”— “What, young man! You didn’t begin to make love to _her_ did you?” “Gentlemen, I must persist”— “Well, was _she_ in love—tell us that.” “Love!—She laughed at it—and said, ‘she loved nothing but her pet fawn—her canary—the flowers, both wild and tame—the blue sky—the sunshine—the heather—the forest—the mountains—and it might be—she did not know—she _might_ love her cousin Harry Hardwick, if he was as pleasant as he was when her playmate a few years ago—but he was now at his father’s castle on the mountain, and perhaps had grown coarse, boorish, or ill-mannered. She did not know therefore whether she should love him or not—rather thought she should not—but then she had her father, and enough around her to love and cherish, and why should she trouble herself about the matter.’ “You will not wonder, gentlemen, that such a creature should inspire me with love—a deep, devoted, heart-absorbing, deathless passion. I loved her as man never loved woman before. Every pulsation, every energy of my being seemed for her”— “Of course, _you’d_ love her!—never heard you tell of a pretty girl that you didn’t love—but give us the pith and marrow of the matter; did she return the compliment?”