lit the weed, he had again to blush and shrink beneath those great blue eyes.

“Thank you, Alice,” he said; "thank you. Do sit downthere-out of the draught. I am going to open the window, the night is so lovely.

He opened the casement, overgrown with creepers, and the moonlight lay fair and breathless upon the smooth lawn. The calm and holiness of the night soothed and elevated his thoughts, he had cut himself off from the eyes of Alice, and he proceeded with a firm, though gentle, voice:

"My dear Alice, we cannot always live together in this way; you are now wise enough to understand me, so listen patiently. A young woman never wants a fortune so long as she has a good character; she is always poor and despised without one. Now, a good character in this world is lost as much by imprudence as guilt; and if you were to live with me much longer, it would be imprudent, and your character would suffer so much that you would not be able to make your own way in the world; far, then, from doing you a service, I should have done you a deadly injury, which I could not atone for besides, Heaven knows what may happen worse than imprudence; for, I am very sorry to say," added Maltravers, with great gravity, "that you are. much too pretty and engaging to-to-in short, it wont do! I must go home; my friends will have a right to complain of me, if I remain thus lost to them many weeks longer. And you, my dear Alice, are now sufficiently advanced to receive better instruction than I or Mr. Simcox can give you. I therefore propose to place you in some respectable family, where you will have more comfort, and a higher station than you have here. You can finish your education, and instead of being taught, you will be thus enabled to become a teacher to others. With your beauty, Alice," (and Maltravers sighed,) “and natural talents, and amiable temper, you have only to act well and prudently, to secure at last a worthy husband and a happy home. Have you heard me, Alice? Such is the plan I have formed for you.' The young man thought as he spoke, with honest kindness and upright honour; it was a bitterer sacrifice than perhaps the reader thinks for. But Maltravers, if he had an impassioned, had not a selfish', heart; and he felt, to use his own expression, more emphatic than eloquent, that "it would not do," to live any longer alone with this beautiful girl, like the two children, whom the good Fairy kept safe from sin and the world, in the Pavilion of Roses.

But it is observable, that woman is never so sure of going to the deuce, as when her lover attempts to save her from it. She is comparatively safe if she is persecuted and pressed, by an

ardour evidently selfish. But whether it is that her pride is alarmed, or her affection wounded, or her generosity appealed to, she certainly never can bear that her lover should have any feeling, however high-minded, so strong as his passion for her. And thus, directly the friendly hand is extended to warn her from the precipice, she shuts her eyes and down she goes. Certainly Alice was unconscious of this perversity of her sex, for she comprehended neither her own danger nor Ernest's motives, but she took precisely the way to upset the virtue of an anchorite. She rose, pale and trembling-approached Maltravers, and laid her hand gently on his arm.

:

"I will go away, when and where you wish the sooner the better-to-morrow-yes, to-morrow; you are ashamed of poor Alice and it has been very silly in me to be so happy." (She struggled with her emotion for a moment, and went on.) “You know God can hear me, even when I am away from you, and when I know more I can pray better; and God will bless you, sir, and make you happy, for I never can pray for anything else.

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With these words she turned away, and walked proudly towards the door. But when she reached the threshold, she stopped and looked round, as if to take a last farewell. All the associations and memories of that beloved spot rushed upon her-she gasped for breath, -tottered, and fell to the ground insensible.

Maltravers was already by her side; he lifted her light weight in his arms; he uttered wild and impassioned exclamations"Alice, beloved Alice-forgive me; we will never part!" He chafed her hands in his own, while her head lay on his bosom. He could not resist the temptation, and he kissed again and again those beautiful eyelids, till they opened slowly upon him, and the tender arms tightened round him involuntarily.

"Alice," he whispered—“ Alice, dear Alice, I love thee;' and he kissed no longer the eyelids, but the lips themselves, as they half-sighed and half-smiled an answer. The kiss lingeredwas it returned? he thought so. Maltravers lost his head, and, all things considered, Zeno himself would have done the same, at the age of eighteen!

CHAPTER VII.

How like a younker or a prodigal,

The scarfed bark puts from her native Bay!
Merchant of Venice.

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WE are apt to connect the voice of Conscience with the stillness of midnight. But I think we wrong that innocent hour. It is that terrible NEXT MORNING, when reason is wide awake, upon which remorse fastens its fangs. Has a man gambled away his all, or shot his friend in a duel has he committed a crime, or incurred a laugh-it is the next morning, when the irretrievable Past rises before him like a spectre-then doth the churchyard of memory yield up its grisly dead-then is the witching hour when the foul fiend within us can least tempt perhaps, but most torment. At night we have one thing to hope for, one refuge to fly to-oblivion and sleep! But at morning, sleep is over, and we are called upon coldly to review, and re-act, and live again the waking bitterness of self-reproach. Maltravers rose a penitent and unhappy man-remorse was new to him, and he felt as if he had committed a treacherous and fraudulent as well as guilty deed. This poor girl, she was so innocent, so confiding, so unprotected, even by her own sense of right. He went down stairs listless and dispirited. He longed yet dreaded to encounter Alice.... He heard her step in the conservatory-paused, irresolute, and at length joined her. For the first time she blushed and trembled, and her eyes shunned his. But when he kissed her hand in silence, she whispered," And am I now to leave you?" And Maltravers answered fervently, "Never!" and then her face grew so radiant with joy, that Maltravers was comforted despite himself. Alice knew no remorse, though she felt agitated and ashamed; she did not comprehend that she had lost caste for ever in the eyes of her sex. In fact, she never thought of herself. Her whole soul was with him; she gave him back in love the spirit she had caught from him in knowledge..... And they strolled together through the garden all that day, and Maltravers grew reconciled to himself. He had done wrong, it is true, but then perhaps Alice had already suffered as much as she could in the world's opinion, by living with him alone, though innocent, so long. And now she had an everlasting claim to his protectionshe should never know shame or want. And the love that had led to the wrong, should, by fidelity and devotion, take from it the character of sin.

Natural and common-place sophistries! L'homme se pique! as old Montaigne said, man is his own sharper! The conscience is the most elastic material in the world. To-day you cannot stretch it over a mole hill, to-morrow it hides a mountain.

O how happy they were now-that young pair! How the days flew like dreams! No doubt we blame them, and women very properly; but men, at least, cannot blame them very justly. For all of us male-animals have either been as happy once in our lives, or wished we were so. Time went on, winter passed away, and the early spring, with its flowers and sunshine, was like a mirror to their own youth. Alice never accompanied Maltravers in his walks abroad, partly because she feared to meet her father, and partly because Maltravers himself was fastidiously averse to all publicity. But then they had all that little world of three acres-lawn and fountain, shrubbery and terrace to themselves, and Alice never asked if there was any other world without. She was now quite a scholar, as Mr. Simcox himself averred. She could read aloud and fluently to Maltravers, and copied out his poetry in a smal fluctuating hand, and he had no longer to chase throughout his vocabulary for short Saxon monosyllables to make the bridge of intercourse between their ideas.... Eros and Psyche are ever united, and love opens all the petals of the soul. On one subject alone, Maltravers was less eloquent than of yore. He had not succeeded as a moralist, and the thought it hypocritical to preach what he did not practise. But Alice was gentler and purer, and as far as she knew, sweet fool, better than ever-she had invented a new prayer for herself.... and she prayed as regularly and as fervently as if she were doing nothing amiss. But the code of heaven is gentler than that of earth, and does not declare that ignorance excuseth not the crime.... If a jury of Cherubim had tried Alice's offence, they would hardly have allowed the heart to bear witness against the soul!

It was a lovely evening in April, the weather was unusually mild and serene for that time of year, in the northern districts of our isle, and the bright drops of a recent shower sparkled upon the buds of the lilac and laburnum that clustered round

the cottage of Maltravers. The little fountain that played in the centre of a circular basin, on whose clear surface the broadleaved water-lily cast its fairy shadow-added to the fresh green of the lawn;

"And softé as velvet the yongè grass,"

on which the rare and early flowers were closing their heavy lids. That twilight shower had given a racy and vigorous sweetness to the air which stole over many a bank of violets, and slightly stirred the golden ringlets of Alice, as she sate by the side of her entranced and silent lover. They were seated on a rustic bench just without the cottage-and the open windows behind them admitted the view of that happy room-with its litter of books and musical instruments - eloquent of the POETRY of HOME.

Maltravers was silent, for his flexile and excitable fancy was conjuring up a thousand shapes along that transparent air, or upon those shadowy violet banks. He was not thinking, he was imagining. His genius reposed dreamily upon the calm, but exquisite sense of his happiness. Alice was not absolutely in his thoughts, but unconsciously she coloured them all-if she had left his side, the whole charm would have been broken. But Alice, who was not a poet or a genius, was thinking, and thinking only of Maltravers..... His image was "the broken mirror" multiplied, in a thousand faithful fragments, over everything fair and soft in that lovely microcosm before her. But they were both alike in one thing-they were not with the Future, they were sensible of the Present;— the sense of the actual life, the enjoyment of the breathing time, was strong within them. Such is the privilege of the extremes of our existence - Youth and Age. Middle life is never with to-day, its home is in tomorrow..... anxious, and scheming, and desiring, and wishing this plot ripened and that hope fulfilled, while every wave of the forgotten Time brings it near and nearer to the end of all things. Half our life is consumed in longing to be nearer death.

<< Alice," said Maltravers, waking at last from his reverie, and drawing that light, childlike form, nearer to him, “you enjoy this hour as much as I do."

"Oh, much more!"

"More! and why so?"

“Because I am thinking of you, and perhaps you are not thinking of yourself."

Maltravers smiled, and stroked those beautiful ringlets and kissed that smooth innocent forehead, and Alice nestled herself