hich had fallen earlier than themselves to the
sward below. It was a very lover-like walk indeed--one where nature
speaks to the heart, wakening sweet influences, and charming the spirit
up from hard and cold indifference. Mrs. Hazleton felt sure that Mr.
Marlow would not forget that walk, and she took care to impress it as
deeply as possible upon his memory. Nor did she want any of the means to
do so. Her mind was highly cultivated for the age in which she lived,
her taste fine, her information extensive. She could discourse of
foreign lands, of objects and scenes of deep interest, great beauty, and
rich associations,--of courts and cities far away, of music, painting,
flowers in other lands, of climates rich in sunshine and of genial
warmth; and through the whole she had the art to throw a sort of magic
glow from her own mind which brightened all she spoke of.

She was very charming that day, indeed, and Mr. Marlow felt the spell,
but he did not fall in love.

Now what was the object of using all these powers upon him? Was Mrs.
Hazleton a person very susceptible, or very covetous of the tender
passion? Since her return to England she had refused some half-dozen
very eligible offers from handsome, agreeable, estimable men, and the
world in general had set her down for a person as cold as a stone. It
might be so, but there are some stones which, when you heat them,
acquire intense fervor, and retain it longer than any other substance.
Every body in the world has his peculiarities, his whims, caprices,
crochets if you will. Mrs. Hazleton had gazed over the handsome, the
glittering and the gay, with the most perfect indifference. She had
listened to professions of love with a tranquil, easy balance power,
which weighed to a grain the advantages of matrimony and widowhood,
without suffering the dust of passion to give even a shake to the scale.
Before the preceding night she had only seen Mr. Marlow once, but the
moment she set eyes upon him--the moment she heard his voice, she had
said to herself, "If ever I marry again, that is the man." There is no
explaining these sympathetic attractions, impulses, or whatever they may
be called; but I think, from some observation of human nature, it will
be found that in those persons where they are the least frequent, they
are the most powerful and persevering when they do exist.

Not long after their first meeting, some intimation occurred of a claim
on the part of Mr. Marlow to a