overheard, and in that something, all. Given the
arc, the eye completes the perfect circle; furnished the angle and
the object's distance, and we can tell the dizzy altitude. Mark
me, sir. We climb with risk, but there is greater danger in
descending. Young sir seigneur, you have ascended to a height you
may not safely stoop from. As sportive and adventurous schoolboys
sometimes ascend a scaffolding in the absence of the builders, and
continue to scale from tier to tier, until they pause for breath;
so, I fear, that you this night, in her protector's absence, have
soared in the affections of my ward. Beware, beware: I would not
threaten you--a gentleman neither needs nor brooks a threat--but,
by my life and the strength that yet is left me, woe to the man
that shall fool me in yonder girl! Seek not to trifle with me,
Claude Montigny. Tell me your purpose; inform me how your acquaintance
with my ward began; how it was fostered; how it has been concealed;
and how it thus has ripened into this secret, midnight interview.
Speak; what do you say, sir, in arrest of judgment? Be seated, and
recount to me the story of your love, if you do love my ward--as
you have told her that you do--and to that love be attached a story,
long or brief; or if this passion--which you have propounded most
passionately to her--be of a mere mushroom growth, born of to-night,
sown by the hand of moonlight in a girl's dark eyes; or in her
heart, perhaps, by the fairies that you spoke of, and producing
some form of feeling or forced fruit of fancy; coeval with, and
meant to be as transient, as is the present fungi of these fields.
Sit down by me, and let your tongue a true deliverance make between
yourself, me, and my foster-daughter." And seating himself heavily
on a garden bench, and leaning with both hands clasped over the top
of his gold-headed cane, he looked enquiringly up into the face of
the young man, and added: "Come, plead before me to this charge of
heart-stealing, as touching which you have been taken in the act."

"Sir," then said the stranger with dignity, whilst he slowly seated
himself; "sir, you are justified in thus misdoubting me; for though
a gentleman should, like the wife of Caesar, be above suspicion,
never yet knew chivalry a time but there were recreant knights.
Moreover, I can perceive that circumstances now must shadow, and,
as with refracting influence, distort me, so that I may well stand
here seeming to be deformed, al