Page:Eugene Aram vol 1 - Lytton (1832).djvu/194

 one? Who but Eugene could be loved as I love?"

"What! are there none as worthy?" said Ellinor, half smiling.

"Can you ask it?" answered Madeline, with a simple wonder in her voice; "Whom would you compare-compare! nay, place within a hundred grades of the height which Eugene Aram holds in this little world?"

"This is folly-dotage;" said Ellinor, indignantly: "Surely there are others, as brave, as gentle, as kind, and if not so wise, yet more fitted for the world."

"You mock me," replied Madeline, incredulously; "whom could you select?"

Ellinor blushed deeply-blushed from her snowy temples to her yet whiter bosom, as she answered,

"If I said Walter Lester, could you deny it?"

"Walter!" repeated Madeline, "the equal to Eugene Aram!"

"Ay, and more than equal," said Ellinor, with spirit, and a warm and angry tone. "And indeed, Madeline," she continued, after a pause, "I lose something of that respect, which,