What! He was beneath her? She would never have looked at him, still less spoken to him? Oh, my dear incredulous sir, or madam, how much or how little do you who pronounce thus know of human nature? Have you ever felt what it is to have an eye, blue or grey or what not, a mute, appealing, impassioned eye, flashing into yours its secret?--and have you cared to reckon coldly its owner's claims to your notice? You bearded widower, with your family of big girls and boys, what about that little lodging-house keeper at the sea-side, who welcomes your most trivial order reverentially, who hardly ever speaks, but gives you one long look as she leaves the room? The humble soul has no idea of betraying herself, and as for you--you are resolved that if you marry again, it shall be well and prudently--but you can't forget that look. And you, great lady of the manor, what takes you so often to the hot, stuffy, little village school-house, where the master, with awe upon his brow, in silence hands you copy-books and samplers? He hardly emits a syllable, but his soul flames beneath those weary eyelids--poor wretch, poor wretch! Leonore having uttered a few commonplaces to a companion delayed like herself, chanced to glance directly at him. To her he was virtually a stranger, and, to do her justice, she would have talked to any stranger, obeying the sociable instincts which she alone of her family possessed--but to find a pair of fine, dark, luminous orbs fastened eagerly, almost ravenously, upon hers was?--her first emotion was one of great surprise. It was weeks since young Andrews had secretly elected her to be the lady of his dreams--(when and where he had first beheld her, it boots not here to say)--but he had been content to adore from afar, and had never thrust himself upon her notice,--so that all the concentrated fire of brooding, hopeless passion was not only visible, but almost offensive--and yet it was not quite offensive. The _lady_ within her stiffened, but the _woman_? At least she need not be uncivil; to be haughty and supercilious, as Maud would have been under like circumstances, went against the grain; she could keep the young man at a distance without hurting his feelings; she--essayed a remark. Afterwards she laughed to think how that remark was leaped at; how it was turned and twisted and stammered over. For very pity of his hopeless confusion she had to rejoin kindly, and again the words were caught out of her lips, and so on, and so on--and still the postmistress was invisible behind the scenes. Eventually, as we know, Leonore accepted an escort back to the Abbey when the two errands were accomplished, and a message extracted from her sister threw a properly respectable air over the whole proceeding.