events, immensely exaggerated.

I may

have drawn partially from my own feelings -most persons who attempt to pourtray feeling, do, I believe, more or less—but, in everything else, I know but too well where the difference lies-and how wide, alas !— how very wide it is! Would it were not so!-Would it were not so-both for your sake and mine!"

As she said these last words, her countenance became thoughtful and overcast; and her mind seemed abstracted.

In vain Walter contradicted her in earnest, passionate language, and spoke the fondest, warmest things. They were all grateful to her ear, but they did not succeed in chasing that seriousness away.

Others now approached, and Walter had to leave her side; but he watched her

tenderly, from afar, all the evening; and saw, that, though she smiled gently and kindly as she always did, and looked ever and anon affectionately towards him, there remained a weight on her spirits which had not for a minute been really lifted off.

CHAPTER XVII.

FROM that day, the depression that had crept over Agnes, seemed-Walter thought -to linger about her.

Then, the uneasy sensations he had before experienced-the restless, shapeless fear of losing her after all-took hold of him again, however he tried to chase them away. Each day they grew-and pained him more and more. He became, thence, more watchful-more alive to a thousand things-than he had been previously.

One of the consequences of this more observant, susceptible, state of mind, was that he began to perceive now-what hitherto he had been quite blind tonamely that Lord Charles was attached to Agnes. This discovery was like a bolt of iron through his heart. From the moment it dawned upon him, he had no rest: he had no other thought but it—no occupation but marking the evidences of this attachment, which daily, hourly, grew plainer and more frequent. When he observed Agnes at such times, he saw at first, indubitably, that she was unconscious of the truth-perfectly unconscious. This was a relief-he breathed. But still there was something in the attachment of such a man as Lord Charles Tremorne even though as yet she was ignorant of it -which disturbed him far more than the

acknowledged homage of any other—or of

any number of others.

It is not to be supposed that a woman circumstanced as was Lady Valmar, would remain without aspirants to her hand. They offered themselves, on the contrary, by shoals; and Walter knew it, for she had had no secrets from him on such points. All these proposals had given him no anxiety: they had only made her merry, and made him feel lighter and fonder than ever. But the love of such a man as Lord Charles; one, too, near whom Agnes had lived for so long on terms of the most friendly intimacy; whom she honoured and regarded so highly; this was a very different thing- a very different thing indeed! Not all his deep conviction of her love for himself-not the evident absence from her mind of any thought of