This Heroine was a sylph.  Her chiefest charm lay in her physical feebleness.  She was generally presented to us in some such words as these: 

“Let us now introduce to our readers the fair Madeline of Rokewood.  Slender and graceful and of a form so fragile that her frame scarce fitted to fulfil its bodily functions...she appeared rather as one of those ethereal beings of the air who might visit for a brief moment this terrestrial scene, than one of its earthly inhabitants.  Her large, wondering eyes looked upon the beholder in childlike innocence.”

Sounds simple, doesn’t it?  One might suspect there was something wrong with the girl’s brain.  But listen to this:—­

“The mind of Madeline, elegantly formed by the devoted labours of the venerable Abbe, her tutor, was of a degree of culture rarely found in one so young.  Though scarce eighteen summers had flown over her head at the time when we introduce her to our readers, she was intimately conversant with the French, Italian, Spanish, and Provencal tongues.  The abundant pages of history, both ancient and modern, sacred and profane, had been opened for her by her devoted instructor.  In music she played with exquisite grace and accuracy upon both the spinet and the harpsichord, while her voice, though lacking something in compass, was sweet and melodious to a degree.”

From such a list of accomplishments it is clear that Madeline could have matriculated, even at the Harvard Law School, with five minutes preparation.  Is it any wonder that there was a wild rush for Madeline?  In fact, right after the opening description of the Heroine, there follows an ominous sentence such as this:—­

“It was this exquisite being whose person Lord Rip de Viperous, a man whose reputation had shamed even the most licentious court of the age, and had led to his banishment from the presence of the king, had sworn to get within his power.”

Personally I don’t blame Lord Rip a particle; it must have been very rough on him to have been banished from the presence of the king—­enough to inflame a man to do anything.

With two such characters in the story, the scene was set and the plot and adventures followed as a matter of course.  Lord Rip de Viperous pursued the Heroine.  But at every step he is frustrated.  He decoys Madeline to a ruined tower at midnight, her innocence being such and the gaps left in her education by the Abbe being so wide, that she is unaware of the danger of ruined towers after ten thirty P.M.  In fact, “tempted by the exquisite clarity and fulness of the moon, which magnificent orb at this season spread its widest effulgence over all nature, she accepts the invitation of her would-be-betrayer to gather upon the battlements of the ruined keep the strawberries which grew there in wild profusion.”

But at the critical moment, Lord de Viperous is balked.  At the very instant when he is about to seize her in his arms, Madeline turns upon him and says in such icy tones, “Titled villain that you are, unhand me,” that the man is “cowed.”  He slinks down the ruined stairway “cowed.”  And at every later turn, at each renewed attempt, Madeline “cows” him in like fashion.