In vain did Bernard, with his soft and winning voice, point out these beauties to Virginia. In vain, with all the rich stores of his gifted mind, did he seek to alienate her thoughts from the one subject that engrossed them. She scarcely heard what he said, and when at length urged by the impatient nudges of her mother to answer, she showed by her absence of mind how faint had been the impression which he made. A thousand fears for the safety of her lover mingled with her thoughts. Travelling alone in that wild country, with hostile Indians infesting the colony, what, alas! might be his fate! Or even if he should escape these dangers, still, in open arms against his government, proclaimed a rebel by the Governor, a more horrible destiny might await him. And then the overwhelming thought came upon her, that be his fate in other respects what it might—whether he should fall by the cruelty of the savage, the sword of the enemy, or, worst of all, by the vengeance of his indignant country—to her at least he was lost forever. Avoiding carefully any reference to the subject of her grief, and bending his whole mind to the one object of securing her attention, Alfred Bernard endeavored to beguile her with graphic descriptions of the scenes he had left in England. He spoke—and on such subjects none could speak more charmingly—of the brilliant society of wits, and statesmen, and beauties, which clustered together in the metropolis and the palace of the restored Stuart. Passing lightly over the vices of the court, he dwelt upon its pageantry, its wit, its philosophy, its poetry. The talents of the gay and accomplished, but vicious Rochester, were no more seen dimmed in their lustre by his faithlessness to his wife, or his unprincipled vices in the _beau monde_ of London. Anecdote after anecdote, of Waller, of Cowley, of Dryden, flowed readily from his lips. The coffee-houses were described, where wit and poetry, science and art, politics and religion, were discussed by the first intellects of the age, and allured the aspiring youth of England from the vices of dissipation, that they might drink in rich draughts of knowledge from these Pierian springs. The theatre, the masque, the revels, which the genial rays of the Restoration had once more warmed into life, next formed the subjects of his conversation. Then passing from this picture of gay society, he referred to the religious discussions of the day. His eye sparkled and his cheek glowed as he spoke of the triumphs of the established Church over puritanical heresy; and his lip curled, and he laughed satirically, as he described the heroic sufferings of some conscientious Baptist, dragged at the tail of a cart, and whipped from his cell in Newgate to Tyburn hill. Gradually did Virginia's thoughts wander from the one sad topic which had engrossed them, and by imperceptible degrees, even unconsciously to herself, she became deeply interested in his discourse. Her mother, whom the wily Bernard took