d to the adulation that supports her pride; but the Maid of Kirconnel,
who had no pride to gratify, acted as many a single-hearted female has
done and will do, who receives without a frown that her nature detests,
but without a satisfaction that her honesty will not allow her to
assume, the fond speeches of an old friend, couched in terms of an
admiration which is only her due. The native sensibility of her soul
shrank at the thought of first construing harshly her relative's
professions of affection, and then telling him that he was not the
individual who was qualified to win her heart. Yet, in justice to her,
it requires to be stated, that she often communed with herself, in her
solitary walks, on the necessity of checking her cousin's fond and
unfortunate delusion, lest evil might come out of gentleness so nearly
allied to good.

This unfortunate connection between Blacket House and his fair cousin,
fated as it was to continue, assumed daily a more critical aspect. The
young man, overwhelmed by a passion that was daily and hourly fed by the
contemplation of a beauty and qualities seldom before witnessed in a
Scottish maiden, was not only intoxicated by the violence of his love,
but satisfied that his cousin, in return loved him with an affection
only more chastely expressed, though, of course, not less powerful than
his own. Her parents, too, who had lent a fond and willing ear to his
statements of their daughter's love for him, had made up their minds
upon a point which presented all the appearances of being sealed and
settled by her who had the greatest interest in its truth. She was
always to be found by him in her solitary walks among Kirconnel woods.
Their meetings were favoured by their parents; their walks were
uninterrupted; the current of his passion flowed without check, and his
expressions only varied in becoming more animated. The absence of a
_harsh denial_ filled the measure of a deluding, blending hope; and
while the courses of their two minds were in directions entirely
opposite--his along the rose-strewed valley of a requited affection;
hers in a channel that led to objects too brilliant for his dull eye to
scan, and too sublime for his unfledged fancy to reach--he conceived
that a mutual sympathy of congenial feeling animated both their hearts.

It was at this extraordinary state of the domestic affairs of Kirconnel
that an extraneous cause gave a new current to the feelings of the young
maiden, wi