of Scotland, and that her father had married her while quartered in that country.  The deep emotion of the terrible being before her, so often manifested in the course of what he had already given of his recital, added to her knowledge of the facts just named, scarcely left a doubt of the truth of his statement on her mind.  Her ear was now bent achingly towards him, in expectation of a continuance of his history, but he still remained in the same attitude of absorption.  An irresistible impulse caused her to extend her hand, and remove his own from his eyes:  they were filled with tears; and even while her mind rapidly embraced the hope that this manifestation of tenderness was but the dawning of mercy towards the children of her he had once loved, her kind nature could not avoid sympathizing with him, whose uncouthness of appearance and savageness of nature was, in some measure, lost sight of in the fact of the powerful love he yet apparently acknowledged.

But no sooner did Wacousta feel the soft pressure of her hand, and meet her eyes turned on his with an expression of interest, than the most rapid transition was effected in his feelings.  He drew the form of the weakly resisting girl closer to his heart; again imprinted a kiss upon her lips; and then, while every muscle in his iron frame seemed quivering with emotion, exclaimed,—­“By Heaven! that touch, that glance, were Clara Beverley’s all over!  Oh, let me linger on the recollection, even such as they were, when her arms first opened to receive me in that sweet oasis of the Highlands.  Yes, Clara,” he proceeded more deliberately, as he scanned her form with an eye that made her shudder, “such as your mother was, so are you; the same delicacy of proportion; the same graceful curvature of limb, only less rounded, less womanly.  But you must be younger by about two years than she then was.  Your age cannot exceed seventeen; and time will supply what your mere girlhood renders you deficient in.”

There was a cool licence of speech—­a startling freedom of manner—­in the latter part of this address, that disappointed not less than it pained and offended the unhappy Clara.  It seemed to her as if the illusion she had just created, were already dispelled by his language, even as her own momentary interest in the fierce man had also been destroyed from the same cause.  She shuddered; and sighing bitterly, suffered her tears to force themselves through her closed lids upon her pallid cheek.  This change in her appearance seemed to act as a check on the temporary excitement of Wacousta.  Again obeying one of these rapid transitions of feeling, for which he was remarkable, he once more assumed an expression of seriousness, and thus continued his narrative.

CHAPTER IX.