some French poet writes, but _rencontres_ of this description admit of no such refined and delicate subterfuges. The truth must out in glance, or tone, or countenance, "And then if silence does not speak, Or faltering tongue, or changing cheek-- There's nothing told." And these tell-tale signs were unmistakeably revealed in this unprepared moment upon poor Mary's countenance, when her lover, for so she had lately dared to deem him, so unexpectedly appeared before her sight after three weeks separation. She knew him during that time to have been ill, and suffering from a dangerous and painful accident. She saw him paler, thinner, than she had ever yet beheld him. They were alone together at this uncommon time and under these unexpected circumstances, and her heart beat fast with feelings she had never before experienced. And there she sat; the colour fast mounting over cheek and brow, then leaving them very pale. Her eyes half filled with tears, her half parted lips unable to falter forth, but incoherently, the words of welcome, of congratulation, of pleasure at his recovery; which to any other individual under the same circumstances, nay to himself, but a few weeks ago, would have flowed so calmly and naturally from her kind warm heart. "Eugene Aram" fell unheeded from her hands. To Mary, indeed, at that moment, "there was but one Eugene in the world." Fortunately for her, he in whose presence she now found herself, however culpable he might be in other points of conduct and of character, was not one, in this instance, to take a vain and heartless pleasure in the discovery he thus made. "To trifle in cold vanity with all The warm soul's precious throbs, to whom it is A triumph that a fond devoted heart Is breaking for them--who can bear to call Young flowers into beauty--and then to crush them." Nay, still more fortunately for Mary, he was as much in love himself at this time--perhaps, even still more so--different, totally, in kind, as that love might be; and that he was loved, unsuspectingly, undeservedly loved, by one, in his idea, as far above himself in purity and goodness, as an angel is above a being of this fallen earth--loved even with that excellence with which "angels love good men," filled his soul, at that moment, with emotions of a softer, holier nature, than any which, perhaps, for a long time, it had been his happiness to experience; and a grateful, almost humbled, exultation, if any such feeling was excited by the conviction, lit up with a sudden flash of animation, his keen dark eve. He did not wait for Mary to finish what she had attempted to express on his account. A moment's earnest abstracted pause ensued, then moving quickly from his position on the hearth-rug, as if impelled by a sudden irresistible impulse, he drew a chair close to her's, and sitting down by her side, at once began.