CHAPTER VII. And say, without our hopes, without our fears, JESSIE LEVINGSTONE was an elegant woman, but she did not know it. In traversing the neighbouring fields, and woods, and glens, and hills with her father and our students, there were many and fair opportunities given to Augustus to make himself an interesting object to her. When the reader has pictured to himself one of the finest female forms, and is told that Her eye was the morning's brightest ray, And her lip like the morel when glossed with dew; While under her veil, as it waved in air, he will not be astonished that Augustus, who had hitherto never formed any youthful attachment, should be captivated by Miss Levingstone. Nor have her beauty and elegant form been exaggerated: she was really what our verses have described her; and she had all the ardour of female youthful temperament to give, if possible, a still greater lustre to the finish which the lavish hand of nature had given her. In the excursions which Mr. Levingstone's family and their visitors took, the grotto, a most retired retreat, was their general rendezvous; and this place afforded Augustus many facilities to render himself agreeable to Jessie. Here was an elegant classical scholar, and a man of science too, thrown out. of all his philosophy in a "little month," and now displaying all the virtues of a passion that rendered his rugged temper the resting-place of docility. Indeed there never was a conversion so complete. He was quite a new man; the ease, the softness, and the grace of Jessie's temper did every thing. He made no attempt to inspire her with the passion he had received in so lively a manner from her modest blush and animated features; her sweet temper conspired to impart to his a docile ease, of which few instances could be produced as the mere effect; the force of a passion very opposite to what he displayed when his mother charged him not to intrude on her family any of his fellow-students. And there were no attentions came from this innocent artless maid to set forth her charms; indeed she was not aware she possessed the talents for drawing forth the lavish commendations, which Augustus bestowed, a virtuous education, the prime and bloom of woman, those sweetly-delicious conversations, those private lonely interviews, that something which a mysterious confidence, an innocent complaisance bestow, and every thing else the reader can supply: we will not ransack the ingredients further; For love pursues an ever devious race, It was so, and there the matter must rest. Augustus was precipitated from the high throne of philosophy and an unbending mind; and he and Jessie, true to nature's kindest teaching, were soon and imperceptibly of the same feelings. She was happy only when she caught his smile, or caught with rapture every word that 'scaped his balmy lips. Whenever Colin found this unconseiously loving pair in the grotto, and observed the dumb language of their eyes, and contrasted with this the calm and serenity which he saw reign in this solitude, the grief that consumed him in reflecting on the feelings which. Eliza seemed to be possessed with when he parted from her, was rendered exquisitely lively and bitter. Friendship, which in the world is hardly a sentiment, was a passion in Kelvin grotto. Jessie, by that indescribable sensibility reason has no sway over, had attracted entirely to herself the heart of Augustus. Pleasure was a shadow, love was their dream; their hearts, full of each other, exhaled that mutual consolation which the silence of the lips gives to the eyes. These two virtuous hearts, formed for each other, thought it not criminal to seek each other, and to attract and captivate re |