Surprised and flurried by an intrusion so unexpected and unwelcome, Hilary’s pale cheeks flushed, and her hand trembled, as she endeavored to rise from her easy chair to meet her host. Somehow she hardly understood how, she was gently put back into it, and in another moment she found Charles, placing one knee on the ground, was really and very warmly kissing the hand she had held out, as he pressed it in both of his. She endeavored to draw it away; she tried to express by a glance, that whatever gratitude might inspire, love for him did not exist; but although words may define differences, and draw lines of distinction, it is often difficult for looks to express nice shades of feeling, and to mark accurately all the gazer would wish. At least, she feared her looks were incomprehensible; for though Charles’s tongue was mute, his eyes declared so plainly and unequivocally the ruling passion of his life at that time, that it was perfectly impossible for her actually to misunderstand him. She saw that Victoria was nothing, and that she was all to him. The color flitted from her cheeks, and they became white, whiter than her illness had left them――deadly pale; her hand turned cold in his grasp, and after feebly trying to draw it away, she sank back against the pillows behind her, and, for the second time in her life, she fainted. When she recovered, she found herself lying on the sofa; and as sense and perception gradually returned, she discovered that Charles was supporting her head on his arm, while Victoria was plentifully bedewing her face with eau-de-Cologne. She moved her head, and whispered, “I should like to lie down,” which compelled Mr. Huyton to resign her to the pillows, where common sense would have taught him, she had better have been all the time. “Are you better?” said he, softly and anxiously. “Yes, thank you; please leave me, and send Sybil;” and she fixed her eyes for one moment on him so decidedly, that disobedience was out of his power. He was forced to withdraw, and went to find Sybil, with no other advantage from his visit, than the idea that if she was so very weak, it would be impossible for her to leave “the Ferns” next day.