ved to feed my eyes upon her pale and
downcast cheek; to note the abstraction that came over her at moments,
even when her glance seemed brightest, and her lip most fluent; and to
know, that while a fearful mystery might for ever forbid the union of
our hands, there was an invisible, but electric chain, which connected
the sympathies of our hearts.

Ah! why is it, that the noblest of our passions should be also the most
selfish?--that while we would make all earthly sacrifice for the one
we love, we are perpetually demanding a sacrifice in return; that if we
cannot have the rapture of blessing, we find a consolation in the power
to afflict; and that we acknowledge, while we reprobate, the maxim
of the sage: "L'on veut faire tout le bonheur, ou, si cela ne se peut
ainsi, tout le malheur de ce qu'on aime."

The beauty of Ellen was not of that nature, which rests solely upon
the freshness of youth, nor even the magic of expression; it was as
faultless as it was dazzling; no one could deny its excess or its
perfection; her praises came constantly to my ear into whatever society
I went. Say what we will of the power of love, it borrows greatly from
opinion; pride, above all things, sanctions and strengthens affection.
When all voices were united to panegyrize her beauty--when I knew, that
the powers of her wit--the charms of her conversation--the accurate
judgment, united to the sparkling imagination, were even more remarkable
characteristics of her mind, than loveliness of her person, I could not
but feel my ambition, as well as my tenderness, excited; I dwelt with
a double intensity on my choice, and with a tenfold bitterness on the
obstacles which forbade me to indulge it.

Yet there was one circumstance, to which, in spite of all the evidence
against Reginald, my mind still fondly and eagerly clung. In searching
the pockets of the unfortunate Tyrrell, the money he had mentioned to me
as being in his possession, could not be discovered. Had Glanville been
the murderer, at all events he could not have been the robber; it was
true that in the death scuffle, which in all probability took place, the
money might have fallen from the person of the deceased, either among
the long grass which grew rankly and luxuriantly around, or in the
sullen and slimy pool, close to which the murder was perpetrated; it was
also possible, that Thornton, knowing the deceased had so large a
sum about him, and not being aware that the circumstan