giants and dragons, they represent under this image our struggles with the delusions of our passions.  You have exalted me, an unhappy girl, to the skies; you have called me a saint, and portrayed in your imagination an angel in human form.  Let her remain such to you, let her continue to be as you have supposed, and be assured that she will consider a share in your esteem as her highest treasure.  Think not that I would allure you from the path in which your conscience leads you; for you know I respect the conscience of others, as I would die for my own.  Elfonzo, if I am worthy of thy love, let such conversation never again pass between us.  Go, seek a nobler theme! we will seek it in the stream of time, as the sun set in the Tigris.”  As she spake these words she grasped the hand of Elfonzo, saying at the same time—­“Peace and prosperity attend you, my hero; be up and doing!” Closing her remarks with this expression, she walked slowly away, leaving Elfonzo astonished and amazed.  He ventured not to follow or detain her.  Here he stood alone, gazing at the stars; confounded as he was, here he stood.

Yes; there he stood.  There seems to be no doubt about that.  Nearly half of this delirious story has now been delivered to the reader.  It seems a pity to reduce the other half to a cold synopsis.  Pity! it is more than a pity, it is a crime; for to synopsize McClintock is to reduce a sky-flushing conflagration to dull embers, it is to reduce barbaric splendor to ragged poverty.  McClintock never wrote a line that was not precious; he never wrote one that could be spared; he never framed one from which a word could be removed without damage.  Every sentence that this master has produced may be likened to a perfect set of teeth, white, uniform, beautiful.  If you pull one, the charm is gone.

Still, it is now necessary to begin to pull, and to keep it up; for lack of space requires us to synopsize.

We left Elfonzo standing there amazed.  At what, we do not know.  Not at the girl’s speech.  No; we ourselves should have been amazed at it, of course, for none of us has ever heard anything resembling it; but Elfonzo was used to speeches made up of noise and vacancy, and could listen to them with undaunted mind like the “topmost topaz of an ancient tower”; he was used to making them himself; he—­but let it go, it cannot be guessed out; we shall never know what it was that astonished him.  He stood there awhile; then he said, “Alas! am I now Grief’s disappointed son at last?” He did not stop to examine his mind, and to try to find out what he probably meant by that, because, for one reason, “a mixture of ambition and greatness of soul moved upon his young heart,” and started him for the village.  He resumed his bench in school, “and reasonably progressed in his education.”  His heart was heavy, but he went into society, and sought surcease of sorrow in its light distractions.  He made himself popular with his violin, “which seemed to have a thousand chords—­more symphonious than the Muses of Apollo, and more enchanting than the ghost of the Hills.”  This is obscure, but let it go.