"Pooh!" exclaimed Frank, coloring. "You know, Randal, that there is but
one woman in the world I can ever think of, and I love her so devotedly,
that, though I was as gay as most men before, I really feel as if the
rest of her sex had lost every charm. I was passing through the street
now,--merely to look up at her windows--"

"You speak of Madame di Negra? I have just left her. Certainly she is
two or three years older than you; but if you can get over that
misfortune, why not marry her?"

"Marry her!" cried Frank in amaze, and all his color fled from his
cheeks. "Marry her!--are you serious?"

"Why not?"

"But even if she, who is so accomplished, so admired--even if she would
accept me, she is, you know, poorer than myself. She has told me so
frankly. That woman has such a noble heart! and--and--my father would
never consent, nor my mother either. I know they would not."

"Because she is a foreigner?"

"Yes--partly."

"Yet the Squire suffered his cousin to marry a foreigner."

"That was different. He had no control over Jemima; and a
daughter-in-law is so different; and my father is so English in his
notions; and Madame di Negra, you see, is altogether so foreign. Her
very graces would be against her in his eyes."

"I think you do both your parents injustice. A foreigner of low
birth--an actress or singer, for instance--of course would be highly
objectionable; but a woman, like Madame di Negra, of such high birth and
connections--"

Frank shook his head. "I don't think the governor would care a straw
about her connections, if she were a king's daughter. He considers all
foreigners pretty much alike. And then, you know"--Frank's voice sank
into a whisper--"you know that one of the very reasons why she is so
dear to me would be an insuperable objection to the old-fashioned folks
at home."

"I don't understand you, Frank."

"I love her the more," said young Hazeldean, raising his front with a
noble pride, that seemed to speak of his descent from a race of
cavaliers and gentlemen. "I love her the more because the world has
slandered her name--because I believe her to be pure and wronged. But
would they at the hall--they who do not see with a lover's eyes--they
who have all the stubborn English notions about the indecorum and
license of Continental manners, and will so readily credit the
worst?--O, no--I love--I cannot help it--but I have no hope."

"It is very possible that you may be right," exclaime