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love was centred fled the old man. What if Jasper did discover him now; that very discovery would mislead the pursuit from Sophy. Most improbable that Losely would ever guess that they could become separated; still more improbable, unless Waife, imprudently lurking near her home, guided conjecture, that Losely should dream of seeking under the roof of the lofty peeress the child that had fled from Mr. Rugge.

Poor old man! his heart was breaking; but his soul was so brightly comforted, that there, where many, many long miles off, I see him standing, desolate and patient, in the corner of yon crowded market-place, holding Sir Isaac by slackened string, with listless hand—Sir Isaac unshorn, travel-stained, draggled, with drooping head and melancholy eyes—yea, as I see him there, jostled by the crowd, to whom, now and then, pointing to that huge pannier on his arm, filled with some homely peddler-wares, he mechanically mutters, "Buy"—yea, I say, verily, as I see him thus, I cannot draw near in pity—I see what the crowd does not—the shadow of an angel's wing over his gray head; and I stand reverentially aloof, with bated breath and bended knee.

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CHAPTER IV.

A woman too often reasons from her heart—hence two-thirds of her mistakes and her troubles. A man of genius, too, often reasons from his heart—hence, also, two-thirds of his troubles and mistakes. Wherefore, between woman and genius there is a sympathetic affinity; each has some intuitive comprehension of the secrets of the other, and the more feminine the woman, the more exquisite the genius, the more subtle the intelligence between the two. But note well that this tacit understanding becomes obscured if human love pass across its relations. Shakspeare interprets aright the most intricate riddles in woman. A woman was the first to interpret aright the art that is latent in Shakspeare. But did Anne Hathaway and Shakspeare understand each other?

Unobserved by the two young people, Lady Montfort sat watching them as they moved along the river banks. She was seated where Lionel had first seen her—in the kind of grassy chamber that had been won from the foliage and the sward, closed round with interlaced autumnal branches, save where it opened toward the water. If ever woman's brain can conceive and plot a scheme thoroughly pure from one ungentle, selfish thread in its web, in such a scheme had Caroline Montfort brought together those two fair young natures. And yet they were not uppermost in her thoughts as she now gazed on them;