“What news, Adam?” cried Sir Edgar. “Captain Clifford, and another cavalier, named Don Rafaele, are in the hall, your worship,” answered Adam. Both Sir Edgar and Evaline sprang to their feet directly. Evaline, however, was so much agitated, though purely with her excessive joy, that she was obliged to sit down again, and endeavour to compose herself. Fortunately, neither Sir Edgar nor Adam noticed her discomposure. Having communicated his intelligence, Adam disappeared immediately, and Sir Edgar, without looking round, passed on after him, and hastened to meet his visiter in the hall. Several minutes elapsed before Evaline could any way quell the deep and exquisite emotion into which she had been so unexpectedly betrayed. Even when her feelings were somewhat subdued, her fair bosom, for all her efforts to restrain it, still heaved slightly, and her face retained its glow of unmingled joy. Before she could quite recover herself, she heard the tread of feet approaching, and, as she hastened to gain her feet, the chamber-door was opened, and Sir Edgar and his two visiters passed in. Evaline saw no one but Hildebrand. It would have been vain, if she had striven ever so, to seek to keep her feelings under perfect restraint when Hildebrand had once appeared. But, to record the plain fact, she did not seek such an object--indeed, she did not even give it a thought. Hildebrand stepped hastily up to her directly he had opened the door, and, as his purpose became apparent, she advanced to meet him. In a moment, they had clasped hands, and greeted each other with undisguised cordiality. Scarcely had the two young friends (for in that relation we must still view them) thus interchanged their greetings, when Sir Edgar stepped forward with Don Rafaele. “I’faith, Eve,” he cried, in Spanish, “thou hast so overlooked me in the instance of Captain Clifford, that I am half minded to play the chamberlain no further. Howbeit, out of regard for thy maiden estate, I will even pursue mine office, and here commend to thee Captain Clifford’s friend, and henceforth ours--Don Rafaele.” “I give you welcome to England, fair Senhor,” said Evaline, to Don Rafaele. The young Spaniard, who now seemed to have discarded his light and graceful bearing, and to have assumed all the rigid stateliness of a Castilian grandee, returned a formal answer, and showed no desire to speak further. But, well aware of the reserved manners that prevailed in his native country, Evaline was not surprised at his demeanour, but supposed it to be no other than he maintained usually. His apparent coldness, therefore, no way embarrassed her, and, in the excitement of the moment, it was unnoticed by Hildebrand and Sir Edgar. The latter person, indeed, soon drew Don Rafaele a little on one side, and engaged him in conversation with himself. Hildebrand and Evaline were thus left to discourse apart.