Suddenly Lord Avondale turned to Calantha and asked her if she were ill? She knew not, she could not define the sort of pain and joy she felt at that moment. Her eyes had long been fixed upon one who took no part in this convivial scene—whose pale cheek and brow expressed much of disappointed hope, or of joyless indifference. He had that youthful, nay boyish air, which rendered this melancholy the more singular.—It was not affected, though his manner had in it nothing of nature; but the affectation was rather that of assumed respect for those he cared not for, and assumed interest in topics to which he hardly attended, than the reverse. He even affected gaiety; but the heart's laugh never vibrated from his lips; and, if he uttered a sentence, his eye seemed to despise the being who listened with avidity to his observation. It was the same,—oh! yes, it was, indeed, the same, whom Calantha had one moment beheld at St. Alvin Priory.
