his conversation with Aram, and of artfully turning it into the channels
which he thought most likely to produce the impression he desired to
create. He was somewhat baffled, but by no means dispirited, in his
attempts; but he resolved to defer his ultimate proposition until it
could be made to the fullest advantage. He had engaged the Lesters to
promise to pass a day at the castle; and with great difficulty, and at
the earnest intercession of Madeline, Aram was prevailed upon to
accompany them. So extreme was his distaste to general society, and, from
some motive or another more powerful than mere constitutional reserve, so
invariably had he for years refused all temptations to enter it, that
natural as this concession was rendered by his approaching marriage to
one of the party, it filled him with a sort of terror and foreboding of
evil. It was as if he were passing beyond the boundary of some law, on
which the very tenure of his existence depended. After he had consented,
a trembling came over him; he hastily left the room, and till the day
arrived, was observed by his friends of the Manor-house to be more gloomy
and abstracted than they ever had known him, even at the earliest period
of acquaintance.

On the day itself, as they proceeded to the castle, Madeline perceived
with a tearful repentance of her interference, that he sate by her side
cold and rapt; and that once or twice when his eyes dwelt upon her, it
was with an expression of reproach and distrust.

It was not till they entered the lofty hall of the castle, when a vulgar
diffidence would have been most abashed, that Aram recovered himself. The
Earl was standing--the centre of a group in the recess of a window in the
saloon, opening upon an extensive and stately terrace. He came forward to
receive them with the polished and warm kindness which he bestowed upon
al his inferiors in rank. He complimented the sisters; he jested with