CHAPTER SIXTEEN.
THE SCOUT CONTINUED, WITH A VARIETY OF REFLECTIONS.
Love is a rose growing upon a thorny bramble.

There is jealousy in the very first blush of a passion.

No sooner has a fair face made its impress on the heart than hopes and fears spring up in alternation.
Every action, every word, every look is noted and examined with a jealous scrutiny; and the heart of the lover, changing like the chameleon, takes its hues from the latest sentiment that may have dropped from the loved one's lips.

And then the various looks, words, and actions, the favourable with the unfavourable, are recalled, and by a mental process classified and marshalled against each other, and compared and balanced with as much exactitude as the _pros_ and _contras_ of a miser's bank-book; and in this process we have a new alternation of hopes and fears.
Ah, love! we could write a long history of thy rise and progress; but it is doubtful whether any of our readers would be a jot the wiser for it.
Most of them ere this have read that history in their own hearts.
I felt and knew that I was in love.

It had come like a thought, as it comes upon all men whose souls are attuned to vibrate under the mystical impressions of the beautiful.