THK pukitan's uaughter. 251 



such a secluded situation, a being so lovely ; and it occurred to liira at 

 once, that it could be no othei^ than the person he had so often heard 

 called by his friends, " the pretty Puritan." He had been so long ac- 

 customed to the dark-eyed languishing beauties of a foreign court, who 

 sought every aid to enhance their charms which fashion or art could 

 invent, that his fair countrywoman, in all her native loveliness, seemed 

 to him the most beautiful object he had ever beheld. He could not help 

 gazing at her with more steadfastness, perhaps, than true politeness would 

 have warranted, but Grace gave no signs of anger, for she was wonder- 

 ing who the stranger could be ; she knew by report the names and fami- 

 lies of the cavaliers in the neighbourhood, for such the stranger evidently 

 was by the style in which he wore his hair, and the colour and fashion 

 of his dress, yet to the description of none of these did he seem to 

 answer. There was in his manners every thing that would have be- 

 tokened a person of good family, and one accustomed to the best society 

 of the cavaliers, but it was in vain she conjectured who it could be. 

 The stranger, however, raised his hat, and bowing to Grace, passed on, 

 whilst she returned the courtesy. 



Was it chance that led Grace to take the same path beside the Wye 

 on the following day, at the same hour as she had done on the preced- 

 ing day .'' It might be so. But was it chance again that led Mark 

 Eveleigh at the same hour to the same spot ? It was not : he had seen, 

 in the glance bestowed upon him by the pretty Puritan, that he had ex- 

 cited an interest in his favour not quickly to be forgotten, and his know- 

 ledge of the world told him, what Grace herself kiiew not. 



She had wandered there listlessly and without analysing the motives 

 which induced her to do so, and perhaps was not disappointed in per- 

 ceiving the stranger trying to put his dogs upon the scent of some lair, 

 the existence of which they most pertinaciously denied. She might for 

 a moment have thought it strange he should be there, but she did not 

 consider long, for the stranger, bowing, said, " he was afraid his dogs 

 would annoy her, as they had followed up a scent and obstinately per- 

 sisted in its pursuit." 



Grace did not, though she might easily have seen that they were 

 wholly innocent of the accusation ; but she replied that the annoyance 

 was imaginary on the stranger's part. 



The conversation once begun, was not wanting in spirit to render its 

 continuance interesting to both. Grace listened with the deepest atten- 

 tion to all the wonders the stranger had to relate, and he in his turn 

 wondered that one evidently of superior education, should know so little 

 of the world and its actions ; but he knew not that with her it extended 

 little beyond Broomsgrove, and like the wild fawn, she had wantoned 

 and sported about it without thinking or caring for aught beyond. It 

 was her little world, and contained all she desired ; she never sought to 

 know if there were pleasures not to be found within its ci cle. 



This interview was but the first of many that followed, and from that 

 time did Grace learn that life was not the bright picture he had 

 painted it. Mark Eveleigh soon saw the open unsuspecting nature of her 

 disposition, and that, wanting the counsel and assistance of her own sex, 

 her resources were wholly within herself, and he was not long in decid- 

 ing what course to pursue. Honour in love and war, he argued, there 



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