l,
although it be impossible to acquiesce in the conclusions to which they
lead.

While Julian remained, as if spell-bound to his chair, scarce more
surprised at the company in which he found himself, than at the opinions
to which he was listening, another circumstance reminded him that the
proper time of his stay at Black Fort had been expended. Little Fairy,
the Manx pony, which, well accustomed to the vicinity of Black Fort,
used to feed near the house while her master made his visits there,
began to find his present stay rather too long. She had been the gift
of the Countess to Julian, whilst a youth, and came of a high-spirited
mountain breed, remarkable alike for hardiness, for longevity, and for
a degree of sagacity approaching to that of the dog. Fairy showed the
latter quality, by the way in which she chose to express her impatience
to be moving homewards. At least such seemed the purpose of the shrill
neigh with which she startled the female inmates of the parlour, who,
the moment afterwards, could not forbear smiling to see the nose of the
pony advanced through the opened casement.

"Fairy reminds me," said Julian, looking to Alice, and rising, "that the
term of my stay here is exhausted."

"Speak with me yet one moment," said Bridgenorth, withdrawing him into
a Gothic recess of the old-fashioned apartment, and speaking so low
that he could not be overheard by Alice and her governante, who, in the
meantime, caressed, and fed with fragments of bread the intruder Fairy.

"You have not, after all," said Bridgenorth, "told me the cause of your
coming hither." He stopped, as if to enjoy his embarrassment, and then
added, "And indeed it were most unnecessary that you should do so. I
have not so far forgotten the days of my youth, or those affections
which bind poor frail humanity but too much to the things of this world.
Will you find no words to ask of me the great boon which you seek, and
which, peradventure, you would not have hesitated to have made your
own, without my knowledge, and against my consent?--Nay, never vindicate
thyself, but mark me farther. The patriarch bought his beloved by
fourteen years' hard service to her father Laban, and they seemed to
him but as a few days. But he that would wed my daughter must serve,
in comparison, but a few days; though in matters of such mighty import,
that they shall seem as the service of many years. Reply not to me now,
but go, and peace be with you."

He ret