An early opportunity of doing this was offered to L'Estrange by his exchange into a regiment ordered home, and he hastened to Edinburgh to fulfil his errand. When he presented himself at Seaview only Ellen Ravensworth was at home, and to her the young officer confided the sad relics of her brother, and his dear and lamented friend. It was the most natural thing in the world that L'Estrange's affections should be transferred to the sister of one so dear. She was young and attractive, and long after his first interview did the vision of the fair girl in the garb of woe which so well becomes that style of beauty, cling to his memory. An acquaintance so romantically begun soon ripened into affection, and deep love not only to Ellen, but the whole family. They were all much interested in his strange early history, and as it suited Ellen's turn of mind she allowed her lover to engross her affections. Edward L'Estrange was possessed of an ample fortune, and Mr. Ravensworth saw nothing to hinder their union when Ellen was a year or two older, and time had robbed their grief at George's death of its first poignancy. During the next year or more from the circumstance of his regiment being quartered at Piershill he had full opportunity of seeing his sweetheart, in fact had grown like one of the family; and strange to say was regarded rather in this light by Ellen than as a lover--for to do the girl justice she loved him really as a brother only. Being considerably older than Ellen she looked up to him rather than mingled her mind with his; there was something too about him which, while it forced admiration, ay, and even love, repelled it too. That love was mingled with fear, with restraint, and became a duty rather than a pleasure, and while she told him with her lips she loved, her heart within denied it. Long engagements are known to be the worst things in the world,--hope deferred sickens the heart, the flame of love burns lower and lower, and then let some rival appear, and the last spark is extinguished! It would be vain, and useless as vain, to strive to trace back to its source the first declination--the earliest seeds of that fatal upas tree which strengthened and grew, till its baneful shadow destroyed the very vitality of love! "A word unkind or wrongly taken" the poet has averred to be often the first symptom of decline, and he then adds-- "Ruder words will yet rush in To spread the breach that words begin!" Perhaps such were the germs of the hatred--shall we say the word, but it is true?--that had now sprung up between the lovers. L'Estrange swore eternal hatred to whom? Ellen! He swore vengeance on whom? Lord Wentworth!