young beauty would not rather gaze on him than on those poor debilitated companions in learning? Thus, at the youthful age of eighteen, after having won golden opinions from every one he was connected with, young Ravensworth, with a light heart, bade farewell to the south, and started by coach for the Highlands, in order to spend a couple of months with his father before sailing for India, as the regiment to which he was gazetted was on service at Delhi. The third, and last month of his leave was promised to his sister at the Towers, and we must say that in the young soldier's breast an inmate of those towers claimed a large part. It was now more than two years since he had seen his sister or Lady Florence, whose fair face and sunny tresses had made so deep an impression on his youthful fancy. The two months passed away swiftly but pleasantly among the hills, the valleys, and dark rolling burns of the North. In rambles with Maude, or riding excursions with his father over the romantic county of Perth, the days were fleeting away, and he was able to have a week's slamming at the grouse ere he bade adieu to his home. The pangs of parting with his father and his sister, who was now growing into girlhood verging on her fourteenth year, were alleviated by two thoughts,--the first that he had high hopes of a future meeting ere long, when he came back with laurels to be welcomed by his friends and relations as a hero; the second, that his parting was only the prelude of his meeting with Ellen, and one, still dearer, of whom he thought morn, noon, and even; and it was that uncertainty if he should find her still the same Florence he had left two years ago--if he dwelt in her heart as she did in his--that made his pulses beat higher. That very uncertainty which like clouds on a sunny day lend their beauty to the sky, for without the shades of doubt love would often lose half its charms. It would be difficult to depict his feelings as his post-chaise entered the gates, and drove up the park towards the Towers. The past and the dim future so possessed his mind he could not but lose sight of the present. The two years seemed but so many hours; it was but yesterday he had scampered across that park, but yet how had those years altered him, and all his ideas. He was then a careless boy, he was now a young soldier just entering on the campaign of life. Burning hopes of high renown, lawful ambition that pointed on to glory, were his now. In one thing he was unchanged, in one matter his heart was the same as then--in love to Lady Florence. It was then a boyish flame--time and absence had deepened it into real attachment. He had seen much beauty, he had been courted by fashion, but he had never altered in sentiments to her! Now he was about to see her again--would she be the same to him?--had time altered her sentiments? No letter, no message had passed between them all that time; it would have been