We may go further still, and look a little deeper into her heart. Her acquaintance with Langford, short as it had been, had proved most disadvantageous to the hopes and wishes of Lord Harold; but in saying this, we mean no more than we do say. She was not--hers was not a nature to become in so short a time--in love with Henry Langford; nor, indeed, so rapidly to become in love with any one on the face of the earth. She was capable of deep, and intense, and ardent feeling; and the depths of her heart were full of warm affections. But the waves of profound waters are not easily stirred up by light winds; a ripple may curl the surface, but the bosom of the deep is still. She was not in love with Langford; but had she not known him, it is possible--barely possible, that though she would not have accepted Lord Harold at once, she might, as many a woman does, have suffered him to pursue his suit till she felt herself bound in honour to give him her hand, without feeling any ardent attachment towards him even at last, and trusting for happiness to esteem and regard. Her acquaintance with Langford, however, had given her feelings a more decided character, had taught her that she could not marry any one whom she did not absolutely love. It went no further; but as far as that, the sort of surprise and pleasure which his conversation had given her certainly did go; and now, on their second meeting, there might be a kind of thrilling satisfaction at her heart in finding that her society had an influence over him, that his eye sparkled with irrepressible light, that his thoughts, and manner, and feelings seemed to take a deeper tone as soon as she appeared. So went on the conversation for some time; both feeling, while it proceeded, that though they might be talking of indifferent subjects, they were thinking a good deal of each other; and thus they established between themselves, all unwittingly, a secret sympathy, which but too often throws wide the doors of the heart, to admit a strange guest, who soon takes possession of the place. The course of the conversation speedily brought Sir Walter to remark, "You must have visited many foreign countries, Captain Langford, and apparently not as our young men usually do, in a hurried and rapid expedition, to see without seeing, and to hear without understanding. I must confess it was the case with myself, in my young days; but the habit of travel was not then so much upon the nation as at present, and it was something for a country gentleman to have been abroad at all."