you. What on earth could make you so
inhospitable to your uncle's guest? You eyed the poor student, as if you
wished him among the books of Alexandria!"

"I would he were burnt with them!" answered Walter, sharply. "He seems
to have added the black art to his other accomplishments, and bewitched
my fair cousins here into a forgetfulness of all but himself."

"Not me!" said Ellinor eagerly, and looking up.

"No, not you, that's true enough; you are too just, too kind;--it is a
pity that Madeline is not more like you."

"My dear Walter," said Madeline, "what is the matter? You accuse me of
what? being attentive to a man whom it is impossible to hear without
attention!"

"There!" cried Walter passionately; "you confess it; and so for a
stranger,--a cold, vain, pedantic egotist, you can shut your ears and
heart to those who have known and loved you all your life; and--and--"

"Vain!" interrupted Madeline, unheeding the latter part of Walter's
address.

"Pedantic!" repeated her father.

"Yes! I say vain, pedantic!" cried Walter, working himself into a
passion. What on earth but the love of display could make him monopolize
the whole conversation?--What but pedantry could make him bring out
those anecdotes and allusions, and descriptions, or whatever you call
them, respecting every old wall or stupid plant in the country?

"I never thought you guilty of meanness before," said Lester gravely.

"Meanness!"

"Yes! for is it not mean to be jealous of superior acquirements, instead
of admiring them?"

"What has been the use of those acquirements? Has he benefited mankind
by them? Shew me the poet--the historian--the orator, and I will yield
to none of you; no, not to Madeline herself in homage of their genius:
but the mere creature of books--the dry and sterile collector of other
men's learning--no--no. What should I admire in such a machine of
literature, except a waste of perseverance?--And Madeline calls him
handsome too!"

At this sudden turn from declamation to reproach, Lester laughed
outright; and his nephew, in high anger, rose and left the room.

"Who could have thought Walter so foolish?" said Madeline.

"Nay," observed Ellinor gently, "it is the folly of a kind heart, after
all. He feels sore at our seeming to prefer another--I mean another's
conversation--to his!"

Lester turned round in his chair, and regarded with a serious look, the
faces of both sisters.

"My dear Ellinor," said he, when he ha