I thought of painting her picture as she sat embroidering at the window, and sending it as a present to the mother; but I lacked as yet, sufficient confidence in my talent for the art, in which I was but a student, and the terror of her condemnation, both of the artist and the lover, was too formidable to be encountered. A dread of her cold penetration prevented me also from putting in execution a cherished project; that of offering my services to teach the beautiful Gertrude Italian, which I knew she wished to acquire. The very day I had mustered up courage to resolve on the experiment, I heard that Mrs. Elwyn had hired a teacher—a dark-visaged, whiskered fellow, whom, from that moment, I wished in the dungeons of Spielberg. Was there ever a more hopeless case of love; yet I was not unhappy, for I had the privilege of seeing her, unawed by fear of interruption; and my passion was not yet so encrusted with selfishness that it demanded more. I lived in the present, and hope colored the future with rosy light; even the feeling of disappointment was but momentary. I almost dreaded a change, though I knew this could not satisfy me long, and that a wilder, more impetuous, and less amiable stage was to follow. Already the first sweet, sparkling foam of the cup had been quaffed; beneath was that which bewilders the brain and steals away the senses. I had been reading one night till past midnight—for strangely enough, I had a taste for novels after the beginning of the romance of my life—when my attention was arrested by hearing a carriage stop in the street before the door. Presently the bell rang, not very gently. A short pause, and it was again rung; while I was conscious of a twinge of sympathy for the late comer; for the night was piercing cold, and the wind came in hoarse blasts, rattling the window-panes, and sending a chill through the bones. The contrast offered by my snug apartment, with its crimson curtains and chintz-covered sofa, and the dying glow of the embers thrown on the Venetian rug, was peculiarly suggestive of ideas of comfort. I thought how hard it must be for the porter to be summoned out of his warm bed in the little chamber at the back of the court, and judged the applicant for admission at such an hour justly punished by delay. Again, and again, and yet again sounded the bell, each time with a more prolonged and angry pull, as if the person at the door, with patience exhausted, was resolved to take the house by storm. A thought darted like lightning through my brain. I had seen Miss Elwyn that evening, in full dress, passing with her mother through the hall. They had gone to a party—they had returned late. I sprung to the window—threw it open; and sure enough, though it was too dark to distinguish any object, I heard with sufficient distinctness the shrill, complaining tones of the mother.