aware of all that was passing in the mind of Cuthbert, might have been truly serviceable in disabusing him of some strong prejudices, yet, as he presumed him to be a true son of the church, the subject was seldom named. He came to cheer and amuse him if he could; and the very atmosphere of Milverton Hall was that of purity and delight to George Juxon. His summer months presented a strange contrast to those of Cuthbert. He gave up his buck-hunting in the afternoons: he could not abide the rude and noisy companions of that sport of which he had been always so fond; and now he might be seen, day after day, in the guise of an angler, on the grassy margin of a silver stream, or, not unfrequently, stretched at his length beneath a shady tree near the bank, or sitting under a high honeysuckle hedge; and if he were not chewing his own sweet fancies, some book in his hand, of good old-fashioned poetry, to aid his pleasant meditations. George Juxon was now a lover--without melancholy, I do not say,--but only with so much of it as is ever welcome to a lover’s mood, and gives a dignity to his passion. Nevertheless, his hope was unavowed; nor was he in haste: a long courtship was the fashion of those days; and a mistress seemed raised in the fancy of her admirer, by the thought that she must be slowly approached, and would be slowly won. His family, his private fortune, his present provision in the church, and his future prospects from the favour of the bishop, were such, that Sir Oliver could not object to him as a suitor for his daughter, though he might give the preference to another; and certainly, with her father, the title of a baronet would have outweighed that of a dean. However, these circumstances could only encourage him in his more sanguine moments, for Juxon was a modest man; and when he called up the image of Katharine in his walks, and thought upon a certain majesty in her countenance, and how serene and unmoved she was, how unsuspicious of the admiration which she excited, he could not but fear that she might prove indifferent to the suit of one so plain and unvarnished as himself, and that she would never entertain his addresses. Therefore it was that he nursed his love in secret, and patiently restrained all expression of particular regard for Mistress Katharine in his present visits to Milverton. How pleasant, in the mean time, were all those visits; how swiftly he rode through lane and wood, across field or common, as he went from home on those permitted errands of friendship; and at what a slow and lingering pace would he return from the gracious presence of this lady of his love!