from some incitement stronger than advantage to the sufferer. His fine eyes had been seen to fill with tears at a tale of _elegant_ distress; he could even compassionate the more vulgar sorrows of cold and hunger to the extent of relieving them, provided always that the relief cost nothing but money. Some casual instances of his feeling, and of his charity, had fallen under the observation of Laura; and upon these, upon the fascination of his manners, and the expression of his countenance, her fervid imagination had grafted every virtue that can exalt or adorn humanity. Gentle reader, excuse the delusion. Laura was only seventeen--Hargrave was the first handsome man of fashion she had ever known, the first who had ever poured into her ear the soothing voice of love. Unprepared to find, in an obscure village in Scotland, the most perfect model of dignified loveliness, Hargrave became the sudden captive of her charms; and her manner, so void of all design,--the energy--the sometimes wild poetic grace of her language--the shrewdness with which she detected, and the simplicity with which she unveiled, the latent motives of action, whether in herself or in others, struck him with all the force of contrast, as he compared them with the moulded artificial standard of the day. His interest in her was the strongest he had ever felt, even before it was heightened by a reserve that came too late to repress or conceal the tenderness with which she repaid his passion. Yet Hargrave was not less insensible to the real charms of Laura's mind, than she was unconscious of the defects in his. Her benevolence pleased him; for bright eyes look brighter through tears of sympathy, and no smile is so lovely as that which shines on the joys of others. Her modesty charmed him; for every voluptuary can tell what allurements blushes add to beauty. But of her self-denial and humility he made no account. Her piety, never obtruded on his notice, had at first escaped his observation altogether; and, now that it thwarted his favourite pursuit, he considered it merely as a troublesome prejudice. Of all her valuable qualities, her unfailing sweetness of temper was perhaps the only one that he valued for its own sake. But her person he idolized. To obtain her no exertion would have appeared too formidable; and, remembering the conditions of their future reconciliation, he began, for the first time in his life, to consider his conduct with a view to its moral fitness.