rought on
Lucy's nature by communication with one so prodigally endowed, scarcely
could her parents believe it was their same child, except that she was
dutiful as before, as affectionate, and as fond of all the familiar
objects, dead or living, round and about her birthplace. She had now
grown to woman's stature--tall, though she scarcely seemed so except
when among her playmates; and in her maturing loveliness, fulfilling,
and far more than fulfilling, the fair promise of her childhood. Never
once had the young stranger--stranger no more--spoken to daughter,
father, or mother, of his love. Indeed, for all that he felt towards
Lucy there must have been some other word than love. Tenderness, which
was almost pity--an affection that was often sad--wonder at her
surpassing beauty, nor less at her unconsciousness of its
power--admiration of her spiritual qualities, that ever rose up to meet
instruction as if already formed--and that heart-throbbing that stirs
the blood of youth when the innocent eyes it loves are beaming in the
twilight through smiles or through tears,--these, and a thousand other
feelings, and above all, the creative faculty of a poet's soul, now
constituted his very being when Lucy was in presence, nor forsook him
when he was alone among the mountains.

At last it was known through the country that Mr Howard--the stranger,
the scholar, the poet, the elegant gentleman, of whom nobody knew much,
but whom everybody loved, and whose father must at the least have been a
lord, was going--in a year or less--to marry the daughter of Allan
Fleming--Lucy of the Fold. O, grief and shame to the parents--if still
living--of the noble Boy! O, sorrow for himself when his passion
dies--when the dream is dissolved--and when, in place of the angel of
light who now moves before him, he sees only a child of earth, lowly
born, and long rudely bred--a being only fair as many others are fair,
sister in her simplicity to maidens no less pleasing than she, and
partaking of many weaknesses, frailties, and faults now unknown to
herself in her happiness, and to him in his love! Was there no one to
rescue them from such a fate--from a few months of imaginary bliss, and
from many years of real bale? How could such a man as Allan Fleming be
so infatuated as sell his child to fickle youth, who would soon desert
her broken-hearted? Yet kind thoughts, wishes, hopes, and beliefs
prevailed; nor were there wanting stories of the olden time,