Her face was half averted, but he bent down his that she might catch the low, soft, earnest accents, in which he breathed forth expressions of his joy at beholding her again--how that she alone had filled his thoughts during the period of his confinement--how impatiently he had awaited the moment of liberation--and how, though unavoidably prevented from leaving home as he had intended, in time for dinner, he could not bear to delay one night longer after receiving his release, and had therefore set out even at this eleventh hour--finally, he alluded to the unexpected delight of finding her thus alone, the circumstance affording him, as it did, the joyful opportunity of at once expressing in words, what she must long ere this have inwardly discerned, the admiration, the respect, the far deeper, tenderer feelings, with which she, almost from the first moment he beheld her, had inspired him. He knew he was unworthy to possess so inestimable a treasure, but if any strength or measure of affection could atone for other imperfections, his surely might be sufficient to plead in his behalf, did she not disdain the compensation. Poor Mary! Her head sank lower, lower, on her heaving bosom, as one by one these thrilling words--these fond assurances--came falling on her ear, or rather sinking into her heart, "Like the sweet South That breathes upon a bank of violets Stealing and giving odour," overpowering it with emotions of only too exquisite a nature. Was not her's a happiness rare and almost unexampled, to find the hero of her maiden meditations thus prove in truth the master and magician of her fate? Yet even in that moment of joyful agitation, was there no swift under current of thought, and recollection mingling strangely with her immediate sensations; bringing with it, a certain confusion of feeling and idea, similar to the one which had broken her slumbers the first night of her arrival at Silverton? Alas! if it was the remembrance of the Welsh hill-side which again suggested itself, if the image of her rejected lover standing by her with that suppressed, yet deep and manly grief and disappointment, expressed upon his noble countenance--might there not have been too a voice to whisper in her ear, "And what then is there in this man by your side, that he has thus found favour in your eyes; what superiority and excellence have you fancied in him, that he is thus chosen when the other was rejected?" But no such voice it seems did speak, or if so, it made itself not heard. The charmed ear is deaf to whom it whispers--the fascinated eye is blind to whom it would suggest such comparison. Yes, blind! Blind as the aged patriarch of old. Jacob is blessed: the blessing and the birthright is taken from the rightful claimant. "I have blessed him, yea, and he shall be blessed."