e the maiden from the wooing that will blight her
peace and blast her name! And now, Lord Hastings, I wait your gracious
answer."

The sensations experienced by Hastings, as Alwyn thus concluded, were
manifold and complicated; but, at the first, admiration and pity were
the strongest.

"My poor friend," said he, kindly, "if you thus love a demoiselle
deserving all my reverence, your words and your thoughts bespeak you no
unworthy pretender; but take my counsel, good Alwyn. Come not--thou from
the Chepe--come not to the court for a wife. Forget this fantasy."

"My lord, it is impossible! Forget I cannot, regret I may.

"Thou canst not succeed, man," resumed the nobleman, more coldly,
"nor couldst if William Hastings had never lived. The eyes of women
accustomed to gaze on the gorgeous externals of the world are blinded
to plain worth like thine. It might have been different had the donzell
never abided in a palace; but as it is, brave fellow, learn how these
wounds of the heart scar over, and the spot becomes hard and callous
evermore. What art thou, Master Nicholas Alwyn," continued Hastings,
gloomily, and with a withering smile--"what art thou, to ask for a bliss
denied to me--to all of us,--the bliss of carrying poetry into life,
youth into manhood, by winning--the FIRST LOVED? But think not, sir
lover, that I say this in jealousy or disparagement. Look yonder, by the
leafless elm, the white robe of Sibyll Warner. Go and plead thy suit."

"Do I understand you, my lord?" said Alwyn, somewhat confused and
perplexed by the tone and the manner Hastings adopted. "Does report err,
and you do not love this maiden?"

"Fair master," returned Hastings, scornfully, "thou hast no right that
I trow of to pry into my thoughts and secrets; I cannot acknowledge
my judge in thee, good jeweller and goldsmith,--enough, surely, in all
courtesy, that I yield thee the precedence. Tell thy tale, as movingly,
if thou wilt, as thou hast told it to me; say of me all that thou
fanciest thou hast reason to suspect; and if, Master Alwyn, thou woo and
win the lady, fail not to ask me to thy wedding!"

There was in this speech and the bearing of the speaker that superb
levity, that inexpressible and conscious superiority, that cold,
ironical tranquillity, which awe and humble men more than grave disdain
or imperious passion. Alwyn ground his teeth as he listened, and gazed
in silent despair and rage upon the calm lord. Neither of these men