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"Yes! as drivers break in a too spirited horse by yoking it into a London omnibus;" replied Lord Iona, assuming a tone of good-humoured conceit. "People all live and think at railway speed, Anne, while nothing makes any permanent impression on anybody. It is like the way we look at a landscape in travelling now, when you can scarcely tell a tree from a house, or a horse from a donkey, and it does not matter for the passing moment which they are; but, long ago, every object was deliberately viewed in every light, and remembered for ever."

"Suppose we all make an old-fashioned tour this summer on horseback, to admire the country at our leisure? You shall ride Plantagenet, and carry me on a pillion behind to point out what you should admire."

"In that case I must have eyes at the back of my head, Anne, to see what I should of course admire most! I shall be quite ready to go on the thirteenth month of this year."

"Or, suppose we fix it for the fifty-third week? -and in case any one else asks me, I shall now label myself, like the railway-carriages Preengaged.'

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"Not to me, Anne! We know each other too well; for, as the poet says, how soon you'll shift the merry toy-shop of your heart!' Our meetings are always pleasant to me, as a breeze that has

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passed over a garden of roses, but I never expect the said breeze to settle itself with me for life!"

"You know, Iona, that water requires to be kept incessantly agitated to preserve it from stagnating, and my mind really needs the effervescing powder of variety and amusement," said Lady Anne. "Who would have dreamed, long ago, that either Sir Allan or I would have plunged into monastic life? but I am always in extremes. How happy and cheerful he and I used to be at Rome together!"

"And how happy you might be yet!" answered Lord Iona, in a tone of heartfelt kindness; but Lady Anne sighed heavily, and turned away-her face pale, and her eyes filled with sudden tears, as she gazed at Beatrice, who was speaking at the moment to the young Chief, Allan looking now, in his Highland dress, quite himself again, in all the dignity of free and intellectual manhood.

CHAPTER IX.

"But flowers of amaranth spring not in the shade,
And faith, hope, charity, are vain parade

In him whose sour abstraction to the cell
Of malcontent misanthropy retires,
Forgetting and forgotten, there to dwell,
Cumbering the ground." -HOYLE.

LADY EDITH and Beatrice, when they saw the unnecessary wretchedness endured around them by those who preferred "a voluntary humility and worshipping of images" to the free exercise of their liberty and faculties, were reminded of a celebrated old picture often described in books. It represents Satan gambling with a young man for his soul, and the stake his victim hopes to win consists of wealth, jewels, equipages, every sensual pleasure and every frivolous amusement which the natural heart of unrenewed man is apt to desire; but strangely otherwise are the snares to Romanism baited! health, sleep, food, light, air, liberty, and affection, are all to be sacrificed, as well as the worship of a Holy Trinity in Unity, which is to be set aside for the adoration of a woman, not only

made equally an object of worship with the God of creation, but substituted in His place of glory.

Lady Edith was seated one day on a camp-stool in the glen enjoying a bright gleam of sunshine, and listening delightedly to the loud roar of the cataract, when she suddenly observed two figures strolling along a shady lane towards the little rocky recess in which she had sat down to rest. Their heads were both down, and the conversation appeared so deep and earnest, that they were evidently unconscious of all surrounding objects, so anxiously did they listen to each other.

The tall figure of a man in black, standing occasionally still, in the vehemence of animated discussion, while he demonstrated gracefully with his arms, might have formed an admirable accident to any artist studying the picturesque in that beautiful landscape; and beside him was a slight girlish form, enveloped in black and white draperies of a conventual aspect, and almost crouching with apprehensive timidity of look and attitude, as she slowly, as well as very feebly moved along. Her step was almost tottering, her head drooping, and her hands folded with an air of hopeless, heartless dejection; but still the girl's attention seemed in a state of fascination so intense, that Lady Edith could have touched her without disturbing the dream-like absorption of her thoughts as they approached.

It did not long remain a mystery to Lady Edith

who these were. recognised the tall portly figure of Father Eustace, which could not be mistaken, though his usually solemn countenance had in it now a sentimental expression not very usual, while he spoke in accents less grave and stern than common.

From the second glance she

But who was the companion of Father Eustace? Lady Edith looked at the pale, wan, wasted countenance, and the attenuated form, which spoke of suffering and sorrow, of long fasting, of agonizing thoughts, of sleepless nights, and of painful austerities. She looked at a face pallid as death and convulsed with agitation. Never in all her long experience of life had Lady Edith seen any young face so utterly mournful. Never!-Yes! it was all that remained of Bessie McRonald!

Lady Edith covered her face with her hands, and in a moment, quick as thought, she had before her mind's eye the recollection of that day when she had first seen Robert Carre escorting Bessie home, with an air of rustic gallantry and of honesthearted attachment; while then her favourite young pupil, in all the bloom of health, had a countenance beaming like sun-light, with modest happiness and grateful attachment. Now, like a devotee to the old man of the mountains, Bessie was but a mechanical puppet, without even the privilege of thought.

"Surely," meditated Lady Edith, "we injure a

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