est excesses of the great city,
where Gold reigns alike over Toil and Pleasure. Through all he carried
with him a certain power and heat of soul. In all society he aspired
to command,--in all pursuits to excel. Yet whatever the passion of the
moment, the reaction was terrible in its gloom. He sank, at times, into
the most profound and the darkest reveries. His fever was that of a mind
that would escape memory,--his repose, that of a mind which the memory
seizes again, and devours as a prey. Mervale now saw little of him; they
shunned each other. Glyndon had no confidant, and no friend.

CHAPTER 5.IV.

Ich fuhle Dich mir nahe;
Die Einsamkeit belebt;
Wie uber seinen Welten
Der Unsichtbare schwebt.
Uhland.

(I feel thee near to me,
The loneliness takes life,--As over its world
The Invisible hovers.)

From this state of restlessness and agitation rather than continuous
action, Glyndon was aroused by a visitor who seemed to exercise the most
salutary influence over him. His sister, an orphan with himself, had
resided in the country with her aunt. In the early years of hope and
home he had loved this girl, much younger than himself, with all a
brother's tenderness. On his return to England, he had seemed to forget
her existence. She recalled herself to him on her aunt's death by
a touching and melancholy letter: she had now no home but his,--no
dependence save on his affection; he wept when he read it, and was
impatient till Adela arrived.

This girl, then about eighteen, concerned beneath a gentle and calm
exterior much of the romance or enthusiasm that had, at her own age,
characterised her brother. But her enthusiasm was of a far purer order,
and was restrained within proper bounds, partly by the sweetness of a
very feminine nature, and partly by a strict and methodical education.
She differed from him especially in a timidity of character which
exceeded that usual at her age, but which the habit of self-command
concealed no less carefully than that timidity itself concealed the
romance I have ascribed to her.

Adela was not handsome: she had the complexion and the form of delicate
health; and too fine an organisation of the nerves rendered her
susceptible to every impression that could influence the health of the
frame through the sympathy of the mind. But as she never complained, and
as the singular serenity of her manners seemed to betoken an
equanimity of temperame