thout having the effect of changing that of her lover, or of
opening the eyes of her father and mother to the true fact, that she
could not love the man they intended as her husband. A gallant,
high-spirited youth, one of the Flemings of Kirkpatrick, had followed a
doe up to within a very short space of Kirconnel House. The timid
creature had taken to the water, and, springing on the opposite bank,
fled past a bower in which Helen was at the time sitting reading "Sir
Tristam," then in the hands of every young lady in Scotland and England.
She started as the creature shot past her, and, putting her head timidly
forward, to get a better view of the fleet inhabitant of the forest, saw
before her, with cap in hand, bowing, in knightly guise, Adam Fleming of
Kirkpatrick. Neither of the two had before seen the other; but the fame
of the one's noble mien, high mind, and martial virtues, and of the
other's incomparable beauty and elevation of sentiment, had reached
reciprocally their willing ears.

"That a Fleming of Kirkpatrick," said the youth, still bowing humbly,
and smiling, "should have had the boldness to interpose the image of his
worthless person between the fancy and the heaven of the meditations of
fair Helen of Kirconnel, doth, by my sword, require an apology. Shall I
be still bolder in asking a pardon?"

The effect produced on Helen's mind by the noble figure of the youth,
and the romantic and playful turn he had given to his intrusion, was
quick and heartfelt. It was, besides, simultaneous with the memory of
his spread fame; and in an instant her face was in a glow of mixed shame
and confusion, the causes of which, perhaps, lay deeper than the
influence of a mere feeling of surprise or interruption.

"You have my full forgiveness, sir," she replied, while her face glowed
deeper, in spite of her efforts to appear unaffected.

Her soft musical voice fell on the ear of the youth; but his keen, dark
eye was busy with the examination of charms with which his ear had been
long familiar. The blush of a woman is a man's triumph; whatever may be
its secret cause, the man will construe it favourably to himself, in the
face of a denial of his power; and so far at least he has the right,
that nature herself evidences in his favour, by an acknowledgment that
he has touched the fountains of the heart. Fleming was not different
from other men; and, though he might have been wrong in his construction
of the secret moving impul