“I beg your pardon,” said I, recovering from the spell of this magic glance--“you made some observation, Madam?” “Not that I recollect,” she replied, with a slight confusion of manner, and running her finger carelessly over the chords of the harp, till it came in contact with my own, which hung over it. The touch circulated like electricity through every vein. I impulsively arose, and walked to the window from whence I had first heard the tones of that instrument which had been the innocent accessory to my present unaccountable emotion. As if I were measuring the altitude of my fall, I hung half my body out of the window, thinking, Heaven knows, of nothing less than _that_ fall, of nothing more than its fair cause, until abruptly drawing in my dizzy head, I perceived her’s (such a cherub head you never beheld!) leaning against her harp, and her eye directed towards me. I know not why, yet I felt at once confused and gratified by this observation. “My fall,” said I, glad of something to say, to relieve my school-boy bashfulness, “was greater than I suspected.” “It was dreadful!” she replied shuddering “What could have led you to so perilous a situation?”------ “That,” I returned, “which has led to more certain destruction, senses more strongly fortified than mine--the voice of a syren!” I then briefly related to her the rise, decline, and fall of my physical empire; obliged, however, to qualify the gallantry of my _debut_ by the subsequent plainness of my narration, for the delicate reserve of her air made me tremble, lest I had gone too far. By heavens I cannot divest myself of a feeling of inferiority in her presence, as though I were actually that poor, wandering, unconnected being I have feigned myself. My compliment was received with a smile and a blush; and to the eulogium which rounded my detail on the benevolence and hospitality of the family of Inismore, she replied, that “had the accident been of less material consequence to myself, the family of Inismore must have rejoiced at the event which enriched its social circle with so desirable an acquisition.” The _matter_ of this little _politesse_ was nothing; but the _manner_, the air, with which it was delivered! Where can she have acquired this elegance of manner?--reared amidst rocks, and woods, and mountains! deprived of all those graceful advantages which society confers--a manner too that is at perpetual variance with her looks, which are so _naif_---I had almost said so wildly simple--that while she speaks in the language of a court, she looks like the artless inhabitant of a cottage:--a smile, and a blush, rushing to her cheek, and her lip, as the impulse of fancy or feeling directs, even when smiles and blushes are irrevalent to the etiquette of the moment.