Maltravers appeared to pay equal attention to Caroline and her friend; still Evelyn's inexperience in equestrian matters was an excuse for his being ever by her side.

They had a thousand opportunities to converse; and Evelyn now felt more at home with him; her gentle gayety, her fanciful yet chastened intellect, found a voice.

Maltravers was not slow to discover that beneath her simplicity there lurked sense, judgment, and imagination.

Insensibly his own conversation took a higher flight.

With the freedom which his mature years and reputation gave him, he mingled eloquent instruction with lighter and more trifling subjects; he directed her earnest and docile mind, not only to new fields of written knowledge, but to many of the secrets of Nature, subtle or sublime.