heart-broken old friend. It would stir up the smouldering ashes of my existence, if I could yet hope to see you snatched from this fearful gulf, and no longer cowering in slavish obedience before your priestly uncle. Cowper describes the captive chained in a dungeon, but whose mind could soar unfettered to the skies! It remained for Jesuitism to deprive man of his most glorious gift, freedom of thought and of prayer, to put out the eyes of the soul, and to leave you a mere breathing image, without will, responsibility, feeling, or conscience! Allan in the name of Sir Evan, I implore you to pause, and may God himself protect you, for no power of man is able to cope with the falsehood and cunning that are employed for your destruction!"

There were tears in Sir Allan's eyes when the venerable Lady Edith held out her trembling hand to him; and the expression of his countenance had become more natural,-less pre-occupied, and less oppressed with a nameless horror, than it had been. He looked for a short moment himself again, but at this instant a slow heavy step was heard coming along the passage, which caused the whole countenance of Sir Allan to change. It seemed as if a magical spell were upon him, for in a moment the dull, blank, musing look of wretchedness overclouded that handsome young face again; the words froze on his lips, and he seemed alarmed and uneasy.

There was a knock at the door, and

the grand authoritative bell of the chapel at the same moment sounded. Sir Allan rose to look out, and in an instant stood face to face with his uncle, the priest, who said, in a bland, smooth tone of courteous censure, though there was much suppressed excitement in his deep impressive voice, "I rightly guessed, my son, that your kind heart would bring you here, to visit our old friends, and am happy also to pay my sincere respects to Lady Edith and Miss Farinelli." A bitter smile parted his thin compressed lips, as he added, “At the same time do not forget, Allan, that though you have been beguiled into an imprudence by coming here, we are under strict rules of punctuality. Dinner before prayers, and there is not now a moment to lose. Good morning, Lady Edith! Excuse this necessary interruption, health must be attended to, and our watch-word is obedience."

Lady Edith listened with a quiet stateliness of demeanour. Now for a moment the pride of manhood and of independence, flashed proudly in the bright eyes of the young Chief, and his whole figure seemed to expand with a new dignity. He paused, as if about, with almost despairing resolution, to assert his own freedom; but Mr. Ambrose, whose eyes in general scarcely ever looked at anything, as if they were only placed in his head for ornament, not for use, now fixed them on Sir Allan with an intensity perfectly startling. Slowly then

the light of intellect became quenched in the countenance of Sir Allan, his expression grew haggard, his cheek of an ashy hue, and, with one farewell look of speechless anguish at Lady Edith and Beatrice, ashamed to yield, yet unable to resist, he slowly, and evidently with great unwillingness, disappeared.

Lady Edith, shivering with agitation, exchanged a look of unutterable sorrow with Beatrice, who, pale as ashes, felt it a grief under which to wither and grow old, when she thought that never more was she to listen, probably, to all the hundred things she had hoped to hear from Allan, and that all she had to tell him must remain for ever unsaid; but her thoughts were in a moment transferred to her kind-hearted and aged benefactress, who sunk upon the sofa, exhausted with agitation, and burst into an agony of tears, saying, "Anything else I could have borne better, but to see all the noble works that dear Sir Evan lived to accomplish destroyed by his own beloved Allan,-to see Allan cheated of his all, enslaved and degraded,why have I survived to witness that! Yet let me not question the wisdom and mercy of all that is ordained. I am crossing the last arch in the mysterious bridge of life, and possibly there is yet something left for me to do, that may cheer my latest breath with the consciousness of having not lived my last hours in vain.”

Beatrice struggled for composure, but large tears drenched her long dark eyelashes as they drooped on her pallid cheek, and she thought, "How true is that ancient saying, The crowning sorrow of sorrow is the remembrance of happiness for ever departed!' Even if those feelings were a deception, would that we might all dream them over again! But the past has vanished like a shadow in the stream;—like a flashing meteor, that leaves us all darker than before it shone."

Beatrice conscientiously believed herself not at all in danger of becoming attached to Lord Iona, yet she caught herself constantly, incessantly, and invariably thinking of him, and certainly rather more interested in the reflection of her own mirror than formerly. There was a gay light-heartedness in his manner, extremely attractive from the very first, but on more intimate acquaintance she discovered, that beneath a surface of strange wayward originality, and odd whimsical thoughts, there lay a mine hitherto deeply hid and unsuspected, of solid thought, genuine and sterling as Californian gold. On every subject that had come under his own observation, he had evidently noticed very acutely and thought much. He bought every new book of any distinction; yet like all those who buy many, he read little, but that little was thoroughly remembered; and he seemed one of those fortunate people, who, if they merely dip into an

odd volume, in the most casual manner, pick up more in five minutes, than a plodding conscientious reader in five hours. Beatrice never saw Lord Iona study any work more maturely, than merely standing ten minutes with his elbow leaning on the chimney-piece, his legs crossed, and the volume dangling carelessly in his hand, while he seemed leaping on, from chapter to chapter, in a perfect steeple-chase; yet she felt confident that he could have reviewed it for any magazine better than the author himself. It was the same in respect to the discussion of religious subjects or politics. Lord Iona's mind seemed distinctly made up upon them all, and he was one of the very few who preferred forming his own opinions to taking them up readymade. Sometimes, in a sketchy slap-dash style, he hit off an entire subject with a few strokes of his graphic humour, so that Beatrice thought Lord Iona appeared to go over the ground with the rapidity and precision of a thorough-bred racer, while all who preceded or followed him in conversation seemed lumbering and heavy in comparison, as a cart-horse.

"Iona!" said Lady Anne, one day, in a complaining tone, "I might as well attempt to argue with a whirlwind as with you! The great secret of success on all occasions is, to take people by surprise and you always do, Mr. Cousin. We must put a drag on the wheels of your chariot, to make you keep pace with other people."