The cavalier by her side was in the first flush of manhood, and one whose personal appearance rendered him a prize which any fair girl might be proud to win. Grahame Vaux had been the ward of Isabel’s father, and was but four years her senior. In childhood they had played together, and though subsequently separated by the departure of Vaux to the university, they had been again thrown into each other’s society at that critical period of life when the heart is most keenly alive to the influences of love. To Grahame this daily companionship was peculiarly dangerous. Isabel was just the being to dazzle a romantic character like his; for he regarded the sex with all the high, chivalrous feelings which actuated the Paladins of old, whom indeed he resembled in other respects. A second Sir Philip Sidney, he excelled in every graceful accomplishment. At Oxford he had won the first prize. In every manly sport he was pre-eminent. We will not trace the progress of his passion—how it sprung from a single word, fed on smiles, and finally devoured, as it were, his very being. Suffice it to say, he soon came to love Isabel with all the ardor of a first affection, worshiping her as an idolator adores his divinity, and evincing his passion in every look, word and gesture. Perhaps this was not the surest road to the affections of a wilful creature like Isabel—perhaps the alternation of doubt and fear, of admiration and indifference, would more effectually have enlisted her feelings; but be this as it may, her new lover met at her hands the same capricious treatment which her other suitors received. In Grahame’s case this wilfulness was more than usually apparent, though there were not wanting those who said that this demeanor was only a veil worn to hide a growing preference for her noble-hearted lover. At any rate her conduct toward him was caprice itself. Now she would smile on him so sweetly that he could not help but hope, and now a word or gesture would plunge him into the deepest despair. “I can endure it no longer,” at length he said, “I love Isabel!—Oh! how deeply and fervently God only knows. I will terminate my suspense. I will learn my fate. Better know the worst than live on in this agony.” He rose and sought out the lady. She was at her favorite seat in the garden; and as she perceived him approaching, her color deepened, as if she divined, in Grahame’s excited air, the purpose of his visit. With that instinctive desire, so natural to the sex, to avoid the subject, she herself opened the conversation in a gay and trifling tone. Grahame, who could have stood the shock of battle undaunted, felt his heart fail him when he saw her sportive mood, but, firm in his resolve, he said, at length, at a suitable pause, “Do you believe in love, Isabel?”