THE SMUGGLER. 147 



in his whole career had he found it either necessary to take 

 such a resolution, or pleasant to enter into such a speculation. 

 If he had, perhaps he might have begun to tremble for him- 

 self. Nor did he take into the calculation the very important 

 fact that Zara Croyland was both beautiful and pretty; two 

 very different things, reader, as you will find, if you examine. 

 A person may be very pretty without being the least beautiful, 

 or very beautiful without being in the least pretty ; but when 

 those two qualities are both combined, and when, in one girl, 

 the beauty of features and of form that excites admiration, is 

 joined with that prettiness of expression, and colouring, and 

 arrangement, that awakens tenderness and wins affection, Lord 

 have mercy upon the man who rides along with her through 

 fair scenes, under a bright sky! 



Digby did not at all find out that he was in the most dan- 

 gerous situation in the world; or, if some fancy ever came 

 upon him, that he was not quite safe, it was but as one of 

 those vague impressions of peril that float for a single instant 

 over the mind when we are engaged in any very bold and ex- 

 citing undertaking, and pass away again as fast. 



Far from guarding himself at all, Sir Edward Digby went 

 on in his unconsciousness, laying himself more and more open 

 to the enemy. In pursuit of his scheme of investigation, he 

 proceeded as they rode along, to try the mind of his fair com- 

 panion in a thousand different ways ; and every instant he 

 brought forth some new and dangerous quality. He found 

 that, in the comparative solitude in which she lived, she had 

 had time for study as well as thought, and had acquired far 

 more, and far more varied stores of information, than was 

 common with the young women of her day. It was not alone 

 that she could read and spell, which a great many could not 

 in those times, but she had read a number of different works 

 upon a number of different subjects; knew as much of other 

 lands, and of the habits of other people, as books could give, 

 and was tastefully proficient in the arts that brighten life, even 

 where their cultivation is not its object. 



Thus her conversation had always something new about it. 

 The very images that suggested themselves to her mind were 

 derived from such numerous sources, that it kept the fancy on 

 the stretch to follow her in her flights, and made their whole 

 talk a sort of playful chase, like that of one bird after another 



