heir place of meeting. One instant set the
palfrey at liberty, with slackened girths and loosened reins, to pick
its own way through the dell at will; another placed Julian Peveril by
the side of Alice Bridgenorth.

That Alice should extend her hand to her lover, as with the ardour of a
young greyhound he bounded over the obstacles of the rugged path, was
as natural as that Julian, seizing on the hand so kindly stretched
out, should devour it with kisses, and, for a moment or two, without
reprehension; while the other hand, which should have aided in the
liberation of its fellow, served to hide the blushes of the fair owner.
But Alice, young as she was, and attached to Julian by such long habits
of kindly intimacy, still knew well how to subdue the tendency of her
own treacherous affections.

"This is not right," she said, extricating her hand from Julian's grasp,
"this is not right, Julian. If I have been too rash in admitting such a
meeting as the present, it is not you that should make me sensible of my
folly."

Julian Peveril's mind had been early illuminated with that touch of
romantic fire which deprives passion of selfishness, and confers on it
the high and refined tone of generous and disinterested devotion. He let
go the hand of Alice with as much respect as he could have paid to that
of a princess; and when she seated herself upon a rocky fragment, over
which nature had stretched a cushion of moss and lichen, interspersed
with wild flowers, backed with a bush of copsewood, he took his place
beside her, indeed, but at such distance as to intimate the duty of an
attendant, who was there only to hear and to obey. Alice Bridgenorth
became more assured as she observed the power which she possessed over
her lover; and the self-command which Peveril exhibited, which other
damsels in her situation might have judged inconsistent with intensity
of passion, she appreciated more justly, as a proof of his respectful
and disinterested sincerity. She recovered, in addressing him, the
tone of confidence which rather belonged to the scenes of their early
acquaintance, than to those which had passed betwixt them since Peveril
had disclosed his affection, and thereby had brought restraint upon
their intercourse.

"Julian," she said, "your visit of yesterday--your most ill-timed visit,
has distressed me much. It has misled my father--it has endangered you.
At all risks, I resolved that you should know this, and blame me not