Perhaps if two individuals had been chosen from amongst that large assembly, by those who knew them best--who on the score of incompatibility were least calculated to blend harmoniously together--it would have been that pure-hearted, single-minded, high-souled girl, whose ideal standard of the good and beautiful was of so refined and elevated a nature, a standard hitherto kept intact by the peculiar circumstances of her youthful existence--from whose very outward aspect seemed to breathe the undisturbed harmony of her lovely character;--she and that man, of a corrupted and corrupting world, upon whose brow was set the mark of many a contracting aim, many a darkening thought, a debasing pursuit, upon whose soul lay perhaps as dark a stain of actual crime as any in that company;--yet it seemed that this mysterious unaccountable power, did from the very first draw their hearts with sympathetic unison one towards another. Well it showed at least that Trevor's soul was not as yet "all evil," that it could still bow before an image of purity and goodness, such as was enshrined in Mary's breast, and _she_-- "Why did she love him?-- Curious fool be still-- Is human love the growth of human will?" Absorbed in her happy dreams, Mary drove home that evening with her cousins, too happy, even, to be much disturbed by that generally most fruitful source of disturbance, the bitter words passing between her companions. They seemed now to have been provoked by some imprudence of Mrs. de Burgh's during that day; her husband's animadversions thereupon exciting the lady's scornful resentment; but its exact nature, Mary had too little observed Mrs. de Burgh during the day, to be able fully to understand. Mrs. de Burgh, on her part, had been too much occupied with her own pleasure and interests to attend much to Mary and her concerns; but she told her, as they parted for the night, that she expected Eugene the next day to dinner. Mary also had received information to the same effect, communicated in her ear, as she was being handed to the carriage. Expectation on this point was, however, doomed to disappointment; the next evening, about the time that Eugene Trevor generally arrived, when he was to dine and sleep at the house, a horseman was seen approaching across the park, which proved to be a servant from Montrevor, mounted on his master's beautiful chesnut. He was the bearer of a note to Mrs. de Burgh. Eugene Trevor wrote word that in returning home the preceding night, with a friend, he had received a kick from his companion's horse, and was now a prisoner to his bed. It was to him a most provoking accident, on many accounts, but he supposed he must submit to at least a week's confinement, as the medical man considered it his only chance of a speedy recovery. Mary looked a little pale at dinner after this intelligence, but was otherwise as cheerful, as calmly happy, as she had been since the _fête_.