'Or whether by the bags of Plutus, emptied, furtively, from your strong box? In the first case,--little as my bosom is snowy!--I should but too well know how to pity; in the second, I should be proud and honoured to serve you. Tell me, then, who you are, resistless paragon! and you shall wander no more in the nameless state, an exquisite, but nearly visionary being! Tell me but who you are, and I will protect you, myself, with my life and fortune!' Alarmed by this warmth, and doubtful whether it demanded gratitude or resentment, Juliet was silent. 'If you will not reveal to me your history,' he resumed, 'you will, at least, not refuse to let me divine it? I am a famous star-gazer; and, if once I can discover your ruling planet, I shall prognosticate your destiny in a second. Let me, then, read the lines of your face. Nay! you must not hide it! You must give me fair play. Or, shall I examine the palm of your hand?' Juliet laughed, but drew on her gloves. 'O you little Tyrant! I must only, then, catch, as I can, a glimpse of your countenance; A nauseous task, enough, to dwell on any thing so ugly! All I can make out from it, just now, is the figure of a coronet.' 'A coronet?' 'Yes; under which I perceive the cypher D. Do you know any thing of any nobleman whose name begins with a D? I cannot decipher the rest of the letters, except that the last is--I think, an h.' Juliet started. 'My art, I must, however, own, is at a stand, to discover whether this nobleman may be a lover or a kinsman. To discern that, the general lines of the face are inadequate. I must investigate the eyes.' Juliet pertinaciously looked down. 'How now, my dainty, Ariel? Will you give me no answer? neither verbal nor visual? Will you not even tell me whether I must try to make the old peer my advocate, or whether I must run him through the body? Surely you won't let me court him as of kin if he be a rival? nor pink him as a rival if he be of kin? 'He is neither, I can assure you, Sir: he is nothing to me whatsoever.' 'You know, at least, then, it seems, whom I mean?' 'Sir?' 'My tiny elves have not here deluded me? I am always afraid lest those merry little wags should be playing me some prank. But it is you who are the wicked Will o' the Wisp, that lures all others, yet never can be lured yourself! Lord Denmeath has really, then, and in sober truth, the happiness of some way belonging to you?' 'No, Sir;--you mistake me;--I never--' She left her phrase unfinished. 'Shall I relate what the prattling tell-tales have blabbed to me further? They pretend that Lord Denmeath ought himself to be your protector; but that he is so void of taste, so empty of sentiment, that he seeks to disguise, if not disown, an affinity that, with more liberal ideas, he would exult in as an honour.' 'Who talked of affinity, Sir?' cried Juliet, with quickness irrepressible.-- 'Was it Lord Denmeath?--Did he name me to you?'