Our readers have, of course, discovered that, in spite of his disclaimer, Reginald Darcy was in love with Emily Sherwood.  He was, indeed, very far gone, and had suffered great extremities; but his pride had kept pace with his passion.  Left an orphan at an early age, and placed by the will of his father under the guardianship of Mr Sherwood, Darcy had found in the residence of that gentleman a home during the holidays when a schoolboy, and during the vacations when a collegian.  Having lately taken his degree at Cambridge, with high honours, which had been strenuously contended for, and purchased by severe labour, he was now recruiting his health, and enjoying a season of well-earned leisure under his guardian’s roof.  As Mr Sherwood was old and gouty, and confined much to his room, it fell on him to escort Emily in her rides or walks.  She whom he had known, and been so often delighted with, as his little playmate, had grown into the young and lovely woman.  Briefly, our Darcy was a lost man—­gone—­head and heart.  But then—­she was the only daughter of Mr Sherwood, she was a wealthy heiress—­he was comparatively poor.  Her father had been to him the kindest of guardians:  ought he to repay that kindness by destroying, perhaps, his proudest schemes?  Ought he, a man of fitting and becoming pride, to put himself in the equivocal position which the poor suitor of a wealthy heiress must inevitably occupy?  “He invites me,” he would say to himself, “he presses me to stay here, week after week, and month after month, because the idea that I should seek to carry away his daughter never enters into his head.  And she—­she is so frank, so gay, so amiable, and almost fond, because she has never recognized, with the companion of her childhood, the possibility of such a thing as marriage.  There is but one part for me—­silence, strict, unbroken silence!”

Charles Griffith was not far from the truth, when he said that it would be difficult to find a better specimen of her fascinating sex than the daughter of their host.  But it was not her beauty, remarkable as this was—­it was not her brightest of blue eyes, nor her fairest of complexions, nor those rich luxuriant tresses—­that formed the greatest charm in Emily Sherwood.  It was the delightful combination she displayed of a cheerful vivacious temper with generous and ardent feelings.  She was as light and playful as one of the fawns in her own park, but her heart responded also to every noble and disinterested sentiment; and the poet who sought a listener for some lofty or tender strain, would have found the spirit that he wanted in the gay and mirth-loving Emily Sherwood.