Veiled for ever to the world’s callous eye must be the transport of that moment.  Still do I feel her graceful form press against my full-fraught heart—­still does sight, and pulse, and breath sicken and fail, at the remembrance of that first kiss.  Slowly and silently we went to meet Adrian, whom we heard approaching.

I entreated Adrian to return to me after he had conducted his sister home.  And that same evening, walking among the moon-lit forest paths, I poured forth my whole heart, its transport and its hope, to my friend.  For a moment he looked disturbed—­“I might have foreseen this,” he said, “what strife will now ensue!  Pardon me, Lionel, nor wonder that the expectation of contest with my mother should jar me, when else I should delightedly confess that my best hopes are fulfilled, in confiding my sister to your protection.  If you do not already know it, you will soon learn the deep hate my mother bears to the name Verney.  I will converse with Idris; then all that a friend can do, I will do; to her it must belong to play the lover’s part, if she be capable of it.”

While the brother and sister were still hesitating in what manner they could best attempt to bring their mother over to their party, she, suspecting our meetings, taxed her children with them; taxed her fair daughter with deceit, and an unbecoming attachment for one whose only merit was being the son of the profligate favourite of her imprudent father; and who was doubtless as worthless as he from whom he boasted his descent.  The eyes of Idris flashed at this accusation; she replied, “I do not deny that I love Verney; prove to me that he is worthless; and I will never see him more.”

“Dear Madam,” said Adrian, “let me entreat you to see him, to cultivate his friendship.  You will wonder then, as I do, at the extent of his accomplishments, and the brilliancy of his talents.” (Pardon me, gentle reader, this is not futile vanity;—­not futile, since to know that Adrian felt thus, brings joy even now to my lone heart).

“Mad and foolish boy!” exclaimed the angry lady, “you have chosen with dreams and theories to overthrow my schemes for your own aggrandizement; but you shall not do the same by those I have formed for your sister.  I but too well understand the fascination you both labour under; since I had the same struggle with your father, to make him cast off the parent of this youth, who hid his evil propensities with the smoothness and subtlety of a viper.  In those days how often did I hear of his attractions, his wide spread conquests, his wit, his refined manners.  It is well when flies only are caught by such spiders’ webs; but is it for the high-born and powerful to bow their necks to the flimsy yoke of these unmeaning pretensions?  Were your sister indeed the insignificant person she deserves to be, I would willingly leave her to the fate, the wretched fate, of the wife of a man, whose very person, resembling as it does his wretched father, ought to remind you of the folly and vice it typifies—­but remember, Lady Idris, it is not alone the once royal blood of England that colours your veins, you are a Princess of Austria, and every life-drop is akin to emperors and kings.  Are you then a fit mate for an uneducated shepherd-boy, whose only inheritance is his father’s tarnished name?”