he puts those he addresses out of countenance.

There was, therefore, much in the simplicity of Lester's manners, and
those of his nieces, which rendered the family at the manor-house,
especial favourites with Lord--; and the wealthier but less honoured
squirearchs of the county, stiff in awkward pride, and bustling with
yet more awkward veneration, heard with astonishment and anger of the
numerous visits which his Lordship, in his brief sojourn at the castle,
always contrived to pay to the Lesters, and the constant invitations,
which they received to his most familiar festivities.

Lord--was no sportsman, and one morning, when all his guests were
engaged among the stubbles of September, he mounted his quiet palfrey,
and gladly took his way to the Manor-house.

It was towards the latter end of the month, and one of the earliest
of the autumnal fogs hung thinly over the landscape. As the Earl wound
along the sides of the hill on which his castle was built, the scene on
which he gazed below received from the grey mists capriciously hovering
over it, a dim and melancholy wildness. A broader and whiter vapour,
that streaked the lower part of the valley, betrayed the course of the
rivulet; and beyond, to the left, rose wan and spectral, the spire
of the little church adjoining Lester's abode. As the horseman's eye
wandered to this spot, the sun suddenly broke forth, and lit up as
by enchantment, the quiet and lovely hamlet embedded, as it were,
beneath,--the cottages, with their gay gardens and jasmined porches, the
streamlet half in mist, half in light, while here and there columns of
vapour rose above its surface like the chariots of the water genii, and
broke into a thousand hues beneath the smiles of the unexpected sun: But
far to the right, the mists around it yet unbroken, and the outline of
its form only visible, rose the lone house of the Student, as if there
the sadder spirits of the air yet rallied their broken armament of mist
and shadow.

The Earl was not a man peculiarly alive to scenery, but he now
involuntarily checked his horse, and gazed for a few moments on the
beautiful and singular aspect which the landscape had so suddenly
assumed. As he so gazed, he observed in a field at some little distance,
three or four persons gathered around a bank, and among them he thought
he recognised the comely form of Rowland Lester. A second inspection
convinced him that he was right in his conjecture, and, turning from