CHAPTER XX.
"Who that have felt that passion's power,
Or paused, or feared, in such an hour?
Or thought how brief such moments last!
But yet—they are already past!
Alas! we must awake before
We know such vision comes no more."
Byron.
With a form uniting at once grace, dignity, and ease, Harcourt had neither escaped the attention of Mrs. De Brooke nor her daughter. The former might have entertained, from the hasty and precipitate manner in which he had followed them, some slight suspicion as to the real cause; particularly when, with a parent's pride, she had contemplated the perfect loveliness of her child: but in this instance, it was with a feeling of regret, supposing that, viewed superficially, the sensation she had inspired was that only which the light and trifling are susceptible of,—looking but to the surface, as wanton children to their toys, regardless of their intrinsic value.
Impressed with these ideas, she was glad to find
