rave man who has fallen, and I trust" (she continued, more
timidly) "that he who lives will accept my grateful thanks."

As Quentin turned his face towards her, to return the fitting
acknowledgments, she saw the blood which streamed down on one side of
his face, and exclaimed, in a tone of deep feeling, "Holy Virgin, he is
wounded! he bleeds!--Dismount, sir, and let your wound be bound!"

In spite of all that Durward could say of the slightness of his hurt he
was compelled to dismount, and to seat himself on a bank, and unhelmet
himself, while the Ladies of Croye, who, according to a fashion not
as yet antiquated, pretended some knowledge of leech craft, washed the
wound, stanched the blood, and bound it with the kerchief of the younger
Countess in order to exclude the air, for so their practice prescribed.

In modern times, gallants seldom or never take wounds for ladies' sake,
and damsels on their side never meddle with the cure of wounds. Each
has a danger the less. That which the men escape will be generally
acknowledged, but the peril of dressing such a slight wound as that of
Quentin's, which involved nothing formidable or dangerous, was perhaps
as real in its way as the risk of encountering it.

We have already said the patient was eminently handsome, and the removal
of his helmet, or more properly, of his morion, had suffered his fair
locks to escape in profusion, around a countenance in which the hilarity
of youth was qualified by a blush of modesty at once and pleasure. And
then the feelings of the younger Countess, when compelled to hold the
kerchief to the wound, while her aunt sought in their baggage for some
vulnerary remedy, were mingled at once with a sense of delicacy and
embarrassment, a thrill of pity for the patient, and of gratitude for
his services, which exaggerated, in her eyes, his good mien and handsome
features. In short, this incident seemed intended by Fate to complete
the mysterious communication which she had, by many petty and apparently
accidental circumstances, established betwixt two persons, who, though
far different in rank and fortune, strongly resembled each other
in youth, beauty, and the romantic tenderness of an affectionate
disposition. It was no wonder, therefore, that from this moment
the thoughts of the Countess Isabelle, already so familiar to his
imagination, should become paramount in Quentin's bosom, nor that if the
maiden's feelings were of a less decided character, a