"Nay," said Ellinor in a tone somewhat sharpened from its native sweetness, and who now sate up in the bed, the curtain of which was half- drawn aside, and the soft light of the skies rested full upon her rounded neck and youthful countenance—"nay, Madeline, do not loiter there any longer; the air grows sharp and cold, and the clock struck one several minutes since. Come, sister, come!"
"I cannot sleep," replied Madeline, sighing, "and think that yon light streams upon those studies which steal the healthful hues from his cheek, and the very life from his heart."
"You are infatuated—you are bewitched by that man," said Ellinor, peevishly.
"And have I not cause—ample cause?" returned Madeline, with all a girl's beautiful enthusiasm, as the colour mantled her cheek, and gave it the only additional loveliness it could receive. "When he speaks, is it not like music?—or rather, what music so arrests and touches the heart? Methinks it is Heaven only to gaze upon him—to note the changes of that majestic countenance—to set down as food for memory every look and every movement. But when the look turns to me—when the voice utters my name, ah! Ellinor, then it is not a wonder that I love him thus much: but that any others should think they have known love, and yet not loved him! And, indeed, I feel assured that what the world calls love is not my love. Are there more Eugenes in the world than one? Who but Eugene could be loved as I love?"
"What! are there none as worthy?" said Ellinor, half smiling.
"Can you ask it?" answered Madeline, with a simple wonder in her voice; "Whom would you compare—compare! nay, place within a hundred grades of the height which Eugene Aram holds in this little world?"
"This is folly—dotage;" said Ellinor, indignantly: "Surely there are others, as brave, as gentle, as kind, and if not so wise, yet more fitted for the world."
"You mock me," replied Madeline, incredulously; "whom could you select?"
Ellinor blushed deeply—blushed from her snowy temples to her yet whiter bosom, as she answered,
"If I said Walter Lester, could you deny it?"