party: accustomed to have her observations disregarded, her faculty of observation was but little cultivated; equally accustomed to silence, it was more natural in her eyes that people should not talk than that they should. It was enough for her to sit by her cousin's side, to breathe the air that he breathed, to catch his least look and lightest word. At even a little usual civility of the table from him she blushed; and if her eyes met his for a moment, they filled with light, which none who saw them at another time, spiritless and drooping, would have believed their faint azure could possess.
It was a beautiful feeling that which warmed the pale cheek of the youthful Constance. It was love in its gentlest, tenderest, and least earthly essence. It was hopeless; for, in her humility, she had never dreamed of return; it was unalloyed by any meaner motive of vanity or of interest, and surrendered its whole existence in a spirit of the purest and meekest devotion. The young and loving heart needed some ob-
