se which called up the mantling adornment of
beauty that was almost beyond the power of increase, he felt the full
influence of the effect he thought he had produced, and, conceiving
himself favourably received, laid in his heart the germs of an affection
that was to govern his destiny. The forms of breeding, more punctilious
in those days of chivalry than even now, forbade farther communication
at that time, and, bowing gracefully as he drank up the rays of her
blushing beauty, he bounded away after his dogs, that had kept their
course in pursuit of the flying doe.

This was the first time that ever Helen had seen a stranger huntsman
cross Kirconnel Lee in pursuit of his game; but it was soon to appear
that roes and does, when pursued by the gallant Fleming, seemed to think
that in the recesses of Kirconnel they might find that safety which was
denied them in other coverts; at least it became certain that more of
that kind of game fled before the hunter over Kirconnel Lee, after the
meeting we have described, than ever were seen before by man or maiden.
Meanwhile the image of the noble youth, with his clear, intelligent eye,
his rising and expanded forehead, from which his black hair was shaded
to a side, and mixed with the long flowing locks that reached down to
his shoulders; his intellectual expression of countenance, where beauty
sat enshrined among the virtues, his breeding, his modesty, his voice
and general bearing--were all busy with the fancy of the Maid of
Kirconnel. Nature's talisman had been applied, and the charm had wrought
in its highest and most mysterious power. Nor less had been the effect
of that first meeting on the mind of the youthful heir of Kirkpatrick.
They loved; and the does which afterwards brushed over Kirconnel Lee
were only the scouts of the hunting lover, who, while he could not help
the choice of the flying wilding in taking that direction, could not, of
a consequence, avoid a repeated _intrusion_ on the wood-bower privacy of
her who longed to see him with a heart that palpitated at his coming as
strongly as did that of the flying deer. The rules of breeding direct
all their force against a first interview; against a second, though
brought about in the same way as the first, they have no efficacy; and
love, which defies the whole code, soon reconciled differences which he
despised. A few meetings revealed to each other the fact--which, somehow
or other, is discovered by nobody but lovers