"Mary, dear," the young man replied with still somewhat of a knit and moody brow, "I will do anything to serve and please you; but I only want open and straight forward dealings in this affair. It is all this equivocating, tantalizing mystery that I can neither abide or understand. But," he continued, as Mary again droopingly listened to his words, "I am not so selfish as to let any impatient temper of my own, stand in the way of your comfort or gratification; I will do all that you desire. I will go to Trevor, and _on this occasion_, act and speak, as from your own trusting, loving, self."
Mary's spirit was again calmed and revived by this promise of her brother's, and after a little more anxious conversation on the subject, Arthur Seaham sought further to compose her spirits and divert her mind, before leaving the classic spot in which they found themselves. He conducted her down the Italian descent into the garden with the broad river gliding sluggishly below that parterre, which in the summer months from its trees and flowers, is so deserving of the name, but which a poet's hand has made to bloom with "roses above the real."
He strove also to excite and amuse her intelligent fancy by pointing out, and particularizing some of the principal points and buildings of this ancient and interesting seat of learning, ran over the names of those, who from "the great of old," to more modern, but none the less eminent instances, had either in connection with law, literature, or wit, graced or sanctified its precincts by their presence and abode. And he playfully asserted that, amongst those, he, Arthur Seaham, intended most surely one day to rank.
"Bye the bye, talking of great men, Mary," the young man suddenly exclaimed, "from whom do you think I have had a visit, to-day? From Mr. Temple."
"Indeed!" answered Mary, with no slight display of interest, "then I was right, it really was him who passed us just now."
"Yes, no doubt it was, for he had scarcely left me a quarter of an hour, before you arrived; he is on the eve of leaving England for the continent, and came, I fancy, to carry away the latest intelligence concerning you, Mary; for he made anxious enquiry with regard to your marriage, the report of which, it seems, reached his ears; though it appears he left Wales some months ago, and has since been living, in great seclusion, in some quiet, antiquated nook, in this very neighbourhood. Mary, what can be the history of that man? What a superior being does his countenance, his whole bearing, bespeak him to be, and yet--that some blight has fallen upon his existence, is but too evident. He gives one the idea of some being led forth from a higher sphere,