right over me, nor ever shall have.' 'Yet I did not hear you resist the claim,' returned De Courcy. 'Because,' answered Laura, 'I feared to draw your attention. His violence terrifies me, and I feared that--that you might'--She hesitated, stopped, and blushed very deeply. She felt the awkwardness of appearing to expect that De Courcy should engage in a quarrel on her account, but the simple truth ever rose so naturally to her lips, that she could not even qualify it without confusion. 'Might what?' cried De Courcy eagerly; 'Speak frankly I beseech you.' 'I feared,' replied Laura, recovering herself, 'that the interest you take in the daughter of your friend might expose you to the rudeness of this overbearing man.' 'And did you upon my account, dearest Laura, submit to this insolence?' cried De Courcy, his eyes sparkling with exultation. 'Is my honour, my safety then dear to you? Could you think of me even while Hargrave spoke!' With surprise and displeasure Laura read the triumphant glance which accompanied his words. 'Is it possible,' thought she, 'that, well as he knows me, he can thus mistake the nature of my regard! or can he, attached to another, find pleasure in the idle dream. Oh man! thou art altogether vanity!' Snatching away the hand which he was pressing to his lips, she coldly replied, 'I should have been equally attentive to the safety of any common stranger had I expected his interference, and Colonel Hargrave's speeches cannot divert my attention even from the most trivial object in nature.' Poor De Courcy, his towering hopes suddenly levelled with the dust, shrunk from the frozen steadiness of her eye. 'Pardon me, Miss Montreville,' said he in a tone of mingled sorrow and reproach, 'pardon me for the hope that you would make any distinction between me and the most indifferent. I shall soon be cured of my presumption.' Grieved at the pain she saw she had occasioned, Laura would fain have said something to mitigate the repulse which she had given: but a new light began to dawn upon her, and she feared to conciliate the friend lest she should encourage the lover. Fortunately for the relief of her embarrassment the carriage stopped. De Courcy gravely and in silence handed her from it; and, hurrying to her chamber, she sat down to reconsider the dialogue she had just ended.