mother to accompany their guest to the end of the Jane that led from their house to the auberge. Mrs. Belson smiled; Tremaine was delighted; and giving each lady an arm, felt more interested than he had

for years.

When they came to the end of their walk, Tremaine, on taking leave, said, "my dear madam, how is it possible for me to thank you for perhaps the most charming evening I ever spent!"

Eugenia's heart throbbed at the words, and she was not a little pleased at her mother's answering, with good-humoured ease, " By trying whether the morning may not prove as pleasant as the evening. I should be sorry that the first should be also the last day of our acquaintance."

On Tremaine's expressing his intention of profiting by her kindness, Eugenia exclaimed,-" Oh! then we shall see him again!" and she actually clapped her hands with pleasure.

Her mother smiling, said, ""Tis the strangest girl! She knows not how to conceal an emotion!" "Heaven forbid she should," exclaimed Tremaine, and the parties separated for the night.

CHAP. V.

THE SUBJECT CONTINUED.

"I pray, Sir, tell me-is it possible

"That love should of a sudden take such hold?"

SHAKSPEARE.

RETURNED to his inn, it was late before Tremaine could seek his bed, and then not to sleep.

"She is by far the most interesting young creature," said he to himself, "I ever met with. If nature ever yet spoke in person, she is here."

He turned, and turned again in his bed, and attempted to close his eyes; but Eugenia was ever before them. Who she was, and what she was, were questions he did not fail to ask himself. But it mattered not, he said; it was evident that both mother and daughter were, in mind and manners, far removed from vulgar life, if they might not belong to his own sphere. He went on to hazard a hundred conjectures of another nature. Eugenia seemed all sensibility; had she ever loved, or was her heart virgin? It seemed made for love! But could she love him?

It must be owned, he had gone very far indeed when he reached this topic. Not that it was very distinct even to his own mind. It however floated .there, with a thousand other vague thoughts; the only thing certain to his consciousness being, that he had met with a person, who, to the most lovely beauty he had ever seen, appeared to join all that simplicity and truth of nature which his heart had so long and so fondly coveted.

Eugenia, on her part, was scarcely less restless. She loitered long with her mother, to talk of their extraordinary adventure. "Was there ever any thing so elegant, so noble, as their guest! such propriety, yet such softness! so perfect a gentleman! so fraught with good taste, and every virtue!”

"That last is going very far," said her mother;

we

must see much more of him before we can judge of that."

"Oh! I'm sure of it," said Eugenia. "What happiness to be his friend! and to be called his friend! How kind to a mere cottage girl! Oh, mother, if he stays here, I shall love him too wellI already prefer him to all the world!"

The next morning brought Tremaine to their gate. His young friend was there already. "I have been looking for you all the morning," said she," and am so glad."

Tremaine again felt a little amazed; but perceiv

ing, as she said this, a glowing cheek, a sparkling eye, and a form evidently agitated with pleasure, he could only give credence to this flattering appearance, and bless his good fortune for having thrown in his way such a study for his heart, in its present pursuit.

*,།*༎

It is needless to pursue the detail of this part of the narrative. It is sufficient that the day afforded the same delight to all the party, as the preceding evening had done; a and that Tremaine passed it, and the day after that, and the next, and the next, with his new friends, in a manner to confirm all his notions of Eugenia's sensibility, as well as his conviction that he alone was the absorbing object of that sensibility. He gathered, however (contrary to the course of romance), that there was nothing very remarkable, either in Eugenia's situation or history. Mrs. Belson was in fact the widow of a gentleman of merit, but in middle life. She had made herself what she was by the force of her own talent and observation, and had retired to this province, in order the better to conduct the education of her children.

To do Mr. Tremaine justice, this weighed either nothing, or very little with him. He had all his life long sought for a virgin heart, and an unsophisticated mind, which he might be able to attach to his own, for his own sake, without

any view to his

rank and situation. Without such demonstration he thought he never could count, either upon the actual existence of the feelings themselves of which he was in search, or the fidelity of the heart which might seem to possess them. To be sure he would have wished to have found his object in the midst of elegance and splendour; but, exclusive of his having sought it there in vain, his being every where known to possess many thousands a year, prevented all possibility of making an experiment on the reality and extent of the affection he wished to prove. He, therefore, as we have before hinted, had for some time past turned from the rich and great, without much immediate plan as to any others, when chance threw this daughter of nature and retirement in his way; and if Eugenia's mind answered his as a companion, all the rest, he imagined, was completely out of doubt. He therefore willingly gave some days to the farther contemplation of this great object; and his pleasure was complete on finding that, while her heart seemed framed to carry love to its most romantic excess, her mind was of so plastic a nature that he might mould it to what he pleased. An amiable yielding to the opinion and wishes of those she loved, was evidently its characteristic. But as yet he had made no actual experiment on her affections; and, indeed, such was the glow of her friendship, as Eugenia called it,