There was much in his gay and gallant temperament, accompanied as it was with sentiment and ardour, that resembled our beau-ideal of those chevaliers, ordinarily peculiar to the Continent,--heroes equally in the drawing-room and the field.

Observant, courteous, witty, and versed in the various accomplishments that combine (that most unfrequent of all unions!) vivacity with grace, he was especially formed for that brilliant world from which his circumstances tended to exclude him.

Under different auspices, he might have been--Pooh! we are running into a most pointless commonplace; what might any man be under auspices different from those by which his life has been guided?
Music soon succeeded to conversation, and Clifford's voice was of necessity put into requisition.

Miss Brandon had just risen from the harpsichord, as he sat down to perform his part; and she stood by him with the rest of the group while he sang.

Only twice his eye stole to that spot which her breath and form made sacred to him; once when he began, and once when he concluded his song.