"That is indeed a singular being!" said the lady, gazing after the youth as he passed through the crowd and quitted the room. "Who and what is he?"
"'Tis him of whom I just now spoke," said Arderne; "but come, let us seek Charlotte Clopton; I thought I saw her leave the room but now to seek the purer air of the gardens. I will tell thee more of our acquaintance with this youth as we go."
It was a bright and lovely night, and, with all the freedom and licence of the age, many of the younger guests had sought the pleasure-grounds and gardens of the Hall, whilst their more staid guardians and parents held converse within doors.
Here and there was to be seen a group seated or reclined upon the velvet turf, whilst others paced up and down the terrace, or disappeared and were lost in the dark walks, till the joyous strains of the orchestra within again recalled them to the dance.
If the quick eyes of love had enabled the lady Clara to observe the object to which Walter Arderne's thoughts were that night fixed, the same observation had failed in shewing her on whom the affections of her rival was centred.
Indeed, although Charlotte Clopton, both from her beauty and her position as the heroine of the night, was necessarily the observed of all observers, and her hand sought for by every cavalier in the room, those who looked closely at her might have observed a tinge of melancholy in her countenance, and a restlessness about her which shewed she was not in the enjoyment of her own content. To herself hardly dared she own it, as her restless glance traversed the room, but she felt that one minute's conversation with her romantic friend,—nay, one word, or but an exchanged glance,—would be worth all the gallant speeches she endured from the gayer cavaliers by whom she was surrounded.
This new friend, however, had not once approached her on that night. He had studiously kept in the background, and although he had, unobserved, caught sight of her, he had even carefully avoided those parts of the room in which she was engaged with her various partners and friends. Nay, the pleasure he experienced in the gay and festive scene, like that of the fair Charlotte, was tinged with an occasional melancholy; a soft and dreamy sadness mingled with the brighter thoughts called into play by the sight of beauty and the strains of music.
With such feelings he quitted the house, and passed into the gardens of the Hall, those lovely grounds looking, as they did, so fair and soft, in the bright moonlight. And how often do we find it thus in life! How oft do we see the most worthy wending his way unnoticed, unobserved, unappreciated, and unknown, whilst the giddy, the frivolous, the vain, and even the vile, are sunning themselves in the smiles of patronage and favour, playing their fantastic tricks, and swollen with the success their cringing falsehood has attained, whilst patient merit, scorning the rout, passes on unsought.
The night, as Lorenzo words it, was but the daylight sick, "it looked a little paler." The youthful poet threw himself upon a grassy bank, shadowed by trees, and as the sounds of music crept upon his ears,
"Soft stillness, and the night,
Became the touches of sweet harmony."