8
"Indeed, my Lord," cried Rosamond, "I cannot."
"Oh! tell me—ease me of my hopes or fears at once—has any other love enthroned itself in thy fair breast?—or can it be, it yet is cold to passion?"
"Of love I yet have thought not," answered Rosamond.
"Say, you do not hate me."
"I never hated any earthly thing; and little cause have I to hate my fathers friend," cried Rosamond.
"May I then hope?" eagerly exclaimed Fitzwarren.
"All that in duty I should do, I will; and your lordship will believe, that I am not insensible to the honour that you proffer me."
Lord Fitzwarren found her answers even more evasive than he anticipated, and bowing respectfully left her, to communicate to her father his hopes.
That very evening Rosamond wandered with her maid from the castle, musing upon her early days, and tasking her mind to compliance with the wishes of her parents, when a rustling in the bushes beside her aroused her from her reverie. In an instant, a youth, clad in a green hunting tunic, leaped over the
