manners to Regina were marked by a freezing respect, somewhat similar to that she had shown the O'Blemmises, and that this slightly discomposed the air of elegant ease that ever distinguished Miss Fairfield.

On our return home that evening, Wallraven retired early to his chamber, which he likewise kept during the greater part of the next day, excusing himself upon the plea of having letters to write home. This gave me the first opportunity I had had since my return of being alone with my sister.

We talked of family matters first. She informed me that our uncle's young wife had a fine son, which fact, though it cut us off from an immense fortune, did not afflict us much. Our mercenary years had not come.

Then we talked of Wallraven. Regina acknowledged then, what I am sure she would not have confessed a month later, that she had found Wallraven exceedingly interesting.

"Yes, Ferdinand, the most absorbing person that ever engaged my thoughts! What an air he has too dark, far too dark and tragic for society; yet one sees that it has its cause in some sternest, hardest truth. His face is so full of expression,

and so deep in interest. His countenance affects me with a creeping terror such as one feels in looking down at night into a profound abyss. And then his moods are so opposite and contradictory at one time he has the majestic air of a monarch in full sway of his power; at another, almost that of a slave. And in the most favorable mood he has that air of passive defiance, of proud humility, such as might become a dethroned prince as he bows his royal neck, and lays his uncrowned head upon the block! And in every action there is such earnest such profound truth!"

"He is a strange being, full of discord. Yes, his soul is the profound abyss' to which you have likened his expression of countenance, with the night of a deep sorrow darkening it forever!" "This is really so?"

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Really and truly so; and has been so ever since first I knew him when he was a boy!"

"And the nature of his sorrow?"

"I do not know-cannot even conjecture. I have been his bosom friend for years, and he has never confided it to me. I have exhausted every honorable means of discovering, and cannot find the slightest clue. Of one thing, however, I am positively certain, that guilt has nothing to do

with his calamity. I feel that in a thousand instincts! And when I say that, I mean neither his guilt, the idea of which would be preposterous, nor that of his parents."

"I believe you! The name of the Wallravens has for centuries been the synonym for an almost chivalric virtue, for an almost romantic standard of honor. Upon account of their absolute purity they have been twitted with knight errantry.' This Wolfgang, how he occupies me! Oh! Ferdinand, after all, you have not been a friend, or you would have disburdened his heart of this secret before now!”

"That is all you know of the matter, my dear Regina! I have exposed myself to insult more than once in trying to serve him; but never since we met at Harvard."

Reginia did not reply to this, but fell into deep thought, which lasted some moments; then, with a profound but involuntary sigh, she rose and left the room to dress for the evening.

Wallraven joined us in the drawing-room in the evening; and I, with a view of making the next day pass more gaily than this had done, proposed various projects of amusement. Among other plans, I suggested that we should ride to

town the next morning, and spend the day, and go in the evening to the theatre, to see Booth play Othello. Regina at once and most decisively vetoed this proposition.

"It must necessarily be the most loathsome of all conceivable exhibitions!" she said, "and I wonder how its representation upon any stage should be tolerated for a single hour."

The plan was of course abandoned, and another substituted in its place. Soon after that we separated for the night.

One discovery in physics and metaphysics, I had made in the course of this week, to wit: that love at first sight was a fact, and no poetic fiction. Regina, with all her cold hauteur, could not, to save her soul alive, raise her eyes to meet Wolfgang's; and Wallraven's deep bass tones trembled when he spoke to her. I was pleased. Regina's first passion was aristocracy, her second, Old Virginia. Here, then, was a young gentleman that she herself had placed among the oldest and most aristocratic in the state, he himself the most distinguished-looking of his distinguished race, and his large patrimonial estate lying in the richest and most beautiful region of country, and in the midst of the most wealthy and aristocratic

neighborhood in the Old Dominion-among those who had been the friends and relatives of her proud family for centuries past. Could I have chosen a destiny for my fair, proud sister, it would have been this. Could Regina have chosen a fate for herself, it would have been this. And Wallraven—to adore, or not to adore Regina, was now no matter of volition with him!

Let me hurry on.

We remained at Willow Hill six weeks. During this time I could not fail to observe the deep and ever deepening interest with which my friend and my sister regarded each other, nor the anxiety with which each constantly sought to conceal these sentiments from the other. Regina's manner was cold and haughty; Wallraven's, distant and reserved. Yet Wallraven would grow pale as death, if her hand but chanced to touch him; and Regina would tremble if he suddenly came in her sight.

Every week Wallraven's gloom deepened, while Regina's delicate color faded.

I was provoked with both. Why should Regina act the empress and exaggerate the part so abominably; and why should Wallraven be so easily