laudably right. You have a heart with talent and virtue enough in it not only to stock the whole tribe with wit and propriety to last them to their deathbeds, but to carry over for the next generation. Of course, you are impatient of their scorn-this scorn of fools-and so am I ; only my contempt is so true, so sterling, so altogether natural to me, that my impatience dies in its presence like a gnat in the heat of a flame."

"You insist upon making me out impatient. I am not impatient. I confess to being troubled-and by them, if you like; but in such a remote sense as to give them but a very very little share in the creation of my depression."

"I know what's coming-and will anticipate it. You think their conduct will influence mine?"

I looked him full in the eyes: could read there only truth and love: and laying my head against his breast murmured, "I have thought so sometimes-but I cannot think it when I meet your eyes. You do love me-nothing can alter your love"

"How good-natured I am," he said, caressing my hair with his hand, "to endure the insults of my little woman's suspicions without a single harsh word. Do you think that my sentiments repose on no surer foundation than the opinions of society? Why, at that rate, you would place the most poetic piece of idealism my heart could shadow forth at the mercy of an old woman's sneer. No, no, little one. Love like mine is not to be put to flight by society.

By this sort of conversation he endeavoured to reassure me, and succeeded. At the same time I was struck by the lawless sentiments he entertained. I had believed at first that his hard democratic opinions, and his republican, almost fanatical, hostility to the law, were assumed for the purpose of winning me. To a girl whom he wanted, but whom he could not legally marry, it was of course necessary that he should make use of every argument to disprove the reasonableness of the law that obstructed our desires. But though I clearly understood his motives, I was glad of his excuses. I needed, to satisfy myself, a better reason for my conduct than my love. I do not deny that I found enough common-sense in his arguments to induce me to suffer my love to take its course without any restraint on my conscience.

But after several conversations with him on topics which forced him to proclaim his sentiments, I soon discovered, by the consistent manner in which he argued upon and maintained his opinions, that he really entertained them. Do not mistake his lawlessness. It was not of the type made familiar to us by the incoherent sentimentalism of the Laras and Corsairs of poetry. It was of a deeper order. Yet it was not misanthropy. He had not enough Christianity in him to make him hate. I gathered from his language that the prevailing sense in his heart was that of the surpassing littleness of men. When with him in the streets of London, for example, the pavements crowded, the

roadway full of equipages, this sentiment has taken the expression of the bitterest irony. A crowd of persons always assumed the form of a satire in his eyes. He degraded mankind, their laws, their aspirations, and their works, to a condition of contemptible littleness far below the dream of Swift in his conception of Lilliput. In truth, he surveyed life with too keen an eye for the ridiculous. Man, in his estimation, was a puppet, who, with ignoble pride, had advanced himself as the standard of all things. He examined the standard, and found that its applications reduced creation to the pitifullest farce.

66

'Genius," he would say, "is the only thing that can be respected in this world for it is the only illustration the world offers of the desire of the human mind to enlarge the boundaries of thought, and to give scope for the play of something bigger than the mortality to which the spectacle of the streets, the church, the mart, and the senate has accustomed us. There must be an incessant roar of true Homeric laughter in heaven," he would exclaim, "at our theories and our practices on earth. The irony of nature in her displays suggests this eternal merriment. What is there above, or below, or beneath us, that man admires more than himself? I can give a painter a cheque to produce me a sunset of red paint, canvas, and gas-light, that will excite a roar of rapturous admiration from a crowd. I shall set this same crowd to watch a real sunset, and instead of looking and admiring they shall stare at each other. If I were among the gods my laughter would be the loudest; but being one of a race of animals who look upon Magna Charta as a grand achievement. I am satisfied

to remain silent.

Of his religious "convictions" I ascertained nothing. He often accompanied me to church-listened to the sermons of the clergyman, a simple-minded preacher with a truly affectionate love of platitudes, with close attention; and then, as we returned home, would comment upon these discourses with the intense irony of simulated interest in their teaching.

Shall I confess that his sentiments partially influenced me ?—that I found in me, as time went on, a perceptible decay of that reverence which in the young heart is the foundation of virtue ? I hope, I trust, I believe, that to my religious self I remained true. I speak of my feelings towards my fellow toilers, my fellow mourners, in this sad, this seldom smiling world. My love softened my mind to the admission of his influence in his views of men; my pride as a woman, humiliated by the slights and scorns of the people by whom I was surrounded, communicated the needful impulse to receive and digest the imparted bitterness of his teaching.

One day he returned home with a friend of his, a young baronet, named Sir Geoffry Hamlyn. The fact of no one ever visiting me made me very cold, almost haughty, in my manners towards all with whom I

was brought in contact. My feelings were surely intelligible enough. Living in the constant sense of this humiliation of neglect, and my mind being largely predisposed to contempt by the sentiments of the Major, I considered everybody to be my natural despiser, and I resolved to repay scorn with scorn.

I bowed with cold indifference to Major Rivers' introduction of Sir Geoffry, and sank back on the sofa within the shadow of the curtain, the better to observe, without being observed, the appearance of the man of whom I had heard the Major occasionally speak.

Sir Geoffry Hamlyn seemed about thirty-five years old. He was tall and slim, with a large nose, and a heavy yellow moustache. The expression of his face did not please me. As his eyes met mine I seemed to find something ominous in their pale lustreless glance-eyes which dissipation might have robbed of their natural light. His thick protruding under lip was a deformity not to be wholly concealed by the moustache carefully combed over his mouth. In his manners however he was very gentlemanly. He had a pleasing voice and spoke with a peculiarly refined accent.

"I have been reproaching my old friend the Major," he said to me, with an easy, high-bred air, too honest, I thought, to be libelled as it was by his face," for having deferred for so long a time the great happiness I feel in becoming known to you." He then entered into a light conversation with me. My quickness detected an effort on his part to make himself very agreeable. He complimented me in a delicate way by making the Major the groundwork of his inoffensive flattery. I noticed that the Major regarded him with an air of surprise, and once interrupted him by saying:

"Come, my dear Hamlyn, all this is hardly fair. You should temper truth with justice. Remember that my praises of my wife to you may not have been intended to reach her. I have studied psychology, and know that you may sometimes give the female mind more flattery to feed on than is good for it. You see I do not give Maggie more praise than I think is beneficial for her. If I have spoken to you about her out of the fullness of my heart, pray respect my confidence by your secrecy."

I looked at him with happy eyes and a slightly flushed face. My heart swelled with love and pride to think that he spoke of me in such terms as Sir Geoffry had partially alluded to to his friends. The gratified feeling even modified, but did not remove, my first movement of dislike to the baronet.

Soon after this Sir Geoffry arose to take his departure. bidding me good-bye he turned to Major Rivers.

Before

"Will you convey my invitation to Mrs. Rivers, or shall I?" he said. "Oh!" said the Major, "Sir Geoffry has been polite enough to ask us to dinner on Thursday next, Maggie . . .

"You will, I am sure, pardon the informality of the invitation, Mrs. Rivers," interrupted the baronet. "The truth is, I look upon Newtown as the country, and avail myself of the privileges of provincialism to dispense, not, I trust, with the politeness, but with the dreary formalities, of society. I need hardly assure you how delighted I shall be if Major Rivers and yourself will honour me with your presence." I glanced at the Major, who seemed to respond with a faint nod. Addressing Sir Geoffry, I told him that we should be happy to accept his invitation.

"Well," said the Major, after the Baronet was gone, "what do you think of Hamlyn?"

"He is gentlemanly," I responded, "and knows how to flatter." "Ho! Maggie is too sharp to accept his flattery as an illustration of his breeding?"

"Of course she is. But she can like him none the less for being accomplished in an art that serves at least to supply her with cherished proofs of her husband's love."

"Ay, but the dog had no right to betray me."

"He is a bachelor, is he not ?"

"Yes. But all the marriageable and a good many of the unmarriageable women of the place are after him. There's one old lady, I'm told, with one grown-up woman for a daughter, who pursues this man as relentlessly as the hideous shadow pursued the wretch

"Who on a lonesome road

Did walk in fear and dread,"

in the Ancient Mariner.' He is in hourly anguish lest this horrid beldame should fix him with her glittering eye-she has only one, but what a one is that! It beams on every bachelor!"

"Where's the fascination? The title, I suppose?"

"And the money. He's well off: worth, I should say, three thousand a year."

"Has he no intention of getting married ?"

"None. I should know if he had. He would have begged me to shrive him, had he even harboured such a notion. If he's married it will be in spite of himself. He'll have to be carried to the altar by force."

"How long have you known him?" I asked.

Why, pretty well ten years. I met him at Chatham first. He was a great friend of one Dick Trevor, a captain in my regiment, and constantly dined at our mess. He used to drink heavily in those days -was a mad fool, whose title made him a few staunch acquaintances, who plundered him almost into the presence of the money-lender. The fellow, in a drunken fit, at a drinking party in his own lodgings, insulted me. I forget what remark he made; but I thought it offen

sive enough to deserve repayment by a tumbler of hot brandy-andwater, which I threw over his face. A grand scene ensued, and a duel across the table was strongly and warmly recommended by every brave son of Mars or Mammon in the room, except the two subjects of this kindly solicitude. Hamlyn was too intoxicated to understand even the nature of the recommendation so cordially offered; and seeing his state, I left the room, prepared for something deadly next morning. All that the morning brought, however, was a letter from Hamlyn expressing great sorrow for the conduct of the preceding evening, begging my pardon, and asking me to go and see him that we might shake hands and become friends."

"And you went ?" I said.

"Certainly. I had great expectations at the time-had heard that a rich uncle of mine was dying, and knew that I was down for his property. I hardly courted extinction at such a pleasant crisis of my life. Besides, had I been shot-what would Maggie have done ?"

I laughed. "And I suppose," I said, "that you have been good friends ever since ?"

"As friendship goes, yes. I had no idea he was living here when I took this house, though I had, often come across him in town. I think he likes me. For myself I am not so much enamoured. But he is a good enough fellow in his way; means well; is very hospitable, and is thought a good deal of here. Has what I have said prejudiced you ?"

"Not in the least. Your story is true, I suppose, of hundreds of young men."

"He is quite reformed, he tells me-lives here with all the temperateness of highly cultivated celibacy. I am sure that Maggie doesn't like him ?"

I looked up at him with a smile, but made no answer.

"You don't like his under lip; his heavy, stolid, sensual mouth; his treacherous eyes, from whose pallid centres hard living has expelled every trace of humanity; his big nose, which looks criminal; his expression of face like a villain's à la G. P. R. James, eh?"

"Nonsense!" I exclaimed, surprised and a little vexed to find my opinion anticipated and ridiculed. "The face is not the heart. Perhaps the eyes may have something to do with the soul; but if his eyes are blank it only proves that he has no soul.

"Good. Let us argue him into a negation. We shall make him then safe and reliable." And, patting me on the cheek, he strolled out of the room.