He is a born gentleman and a knight's son." "And what reduced him thus ?" "I have said," answered the girl, simply, yet with the same half-scorn on her lip that it had before betrayed; "he is a scholar, and thought more of others than himself." "I never saw any good come to a gentleman from those accursed books," said the Nevile,--"fit only for monks and shavelings.

But still, for your father's sake, though I am ashamed of the poorness of the gift--" "No; God be with you, sir, and reward you." She stopped short, drew her wimple round her face, and was gone.

Nevile felt an uncomfortable sensation of remorse and disapproval at having suffered her to quit him while there was yet any chance of molestation or annoyance, and his eye followed her till a group of trees veiled her from his view.
The young maiden slackened her pace as she found herself alone under the leafless boughs of the dreary pollards,--a desolate spot, made melancholy by dull swamps, half overgrown with rank verdure, through which forced its clogged way the shallow brook that now gives its name (though its waves are seen no more) to one of the main streets in the most polished quarters of the metropolis.

Upon a mound formed by the gnarled roots of the dwarfed and gnome-like oak, she sat down and wept.
In our earlier years, most of us may remember that there was one day which made an epoch in life,--that day that separated Childhood from Youth; for that day seems not to come gradually, but to be a sudden crisis, an abrupt revelation.

The buds of the heart open to close no more.