"Certainly, I have, but what of that ?"

"Only this," said Alice, with a smile, "that that very steward was no other than the formidable Jesuit himself, disguised in a dependant's garb, to evade the rigour of the law."

"Impossible! You are jesting with me, fair lady."

"No, what I say is most true. It was owing to his assuming this character that he was enabled to remain so long at the Priory unsuspected, exercising his ministerial functions for the benefit of his family."

"How extraordinary!" rejoined the minister, halting a few seconds, and fixing his eyes vacantly on the ground, as if endeavouring to recall some incident gone by. "It is true, that I have not only constantly encountered this steward, but held a lengthened conversation with him quite recently,

d, moreover, by some strange coincidence, our subject turned upon this very society of which he is a member, and of which I spoke in no very flattering terms."

"And what, said he, to your remarks."

"He took it all in good part, though firmly refuting my charges; but this he did so mildly, and with so much forbearance, as to make me suspect he was, perhaps as ignorant as myself, of the true tenets of those he was attempting to defend."

"You are now convinced he had good authority for what he said."

"Yes I am," replied the minister, "and by no means regret the conversation, as it succeeded in doing away with a good deal of that dislike which I had been taught to entertain against these self-denying men, a dislike which proceeded from mistaken notions of their true sentiments. And though I can now understand how he must have writhed under the base insinuations I threw out against his brethren, he conquered his emotion, and gave no more than a passive dissent.'

"We are indeed," said Alice, "too apt to be led away by early impressions, without pausing to inquire into their truth or fallacy.'

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"That is a just observation," rejoined Mr. Treverbyn. "Our proud nature often needs self correction; it is an evil which frequently leads us astray, and how few there are who permit their better judgment to prevail against strong rooted prejudices. At present I will only say, that I trust we may hear of no further molestations against that hapless family."

"How glad I am to hear you speak thus. I feared I stood almost alone in my friendly wishes towards these unfortunate people, with the exception of my brother Gerald, who has ever been, as you know, foremost in condemning sectarian exclusiveness. He will be sorry to hear of this business. I am confident he will. I wish he were here. His moderation might be of infinite service."

"I perfectly agree with you," said the minister. So sound a judgment, blended with so many good qualities of the heart, could not fail to carry weight in the right quarter."

Having now reached a path that led back to the rectory, Mr. Treverbyn took his leave. He had ascertained what he was most anxious to learn,

and had no need of proceeding further. Still he lingered on a few moments admiring the beauty of the avenue, and pointedly expressing his regret, that it should not be so favourite a resort with Mistress Alice, as it was with himself. Alice smiled, she guessed his meaning, and was not unwilling to respond to it, at least she inwardly resolved to give no future occasion for such an observation.

Some days after the above interview, Alice was tempted to take one more stolen glimpse of her dear Urcella Trevillers. She had heard she was on the point of leaving the country, and was therefore most desirous of bidding her farewell. She felt sure she had not detected her as the author of the important notice, so thoroughly had she disguised her writing; and also being totally unknown to the individual to whom she had confided it. Being, therefore, secure on that head, she was determined to lose no further time in making the attempt. She had not visited this once favourite spot on the sea shore, for a considerable period, owing to what old Mrs. Trenchard had inadvertently dropt, respecting Sir Algernon's aversion to his daughter's carrying on a clandestine intimacy with a member of his unfriendly neighbour's family. These rendezvous had consequently been suspended, though with a tacit understanding on each side, that their abandonment of one another proceeded solely from motives of deference to the will of others.

Her mind being thus quickly made up, Alice turned her steps towards the long and rugged pathway, that led to the sea shore, her heart beating with joyful anticipation at the pleasure she should feel, in once more beholding her dear Urcella. After some little toil, she at length reached the remembered spot, where she happily descried in the distance the object of her search. She hurried onwards. The recognition was reciprocal, and these two attached young persons were soon clasped in each others arms.

"Receive my gratitude, my sincerest, deepest gratitude," exclaimed Urcella, as soon as she was able to speak. I have paced this beach for hours, that I might obtain a chance of seeing you, and expressing my heart-felt acknowledgments for your noble exertion in behalf of my poor uncle."

"You are speaking with certainty, dear Urcella. Why may you not be throwing away your thanks on one who has no claim to them ?"

"Alice, say not so. Who, but you, would have run such personal risk to serve us? Oh, that I could make known to you those you have so befriended, and of whom you have, no doubt, heard nought but ill; men of bad faith, cunning, disloyal, etc., but let not such cruel aspersions have any weight with you, for they are utterly untrue, believe me, dear Alice, they are; on the contrary, if you did but understand the true character of him your courage has so greatly benefitted, you would be convinced, I feel confident, he was not unworthy of your goodness."

"I am certain I should," said Alice, taking her friend's hand, much moved at her earnest appeal; "but let us no longer refer to the past, let us talk of the future, which has, I feel sure, much happiness in store for When do you leave the old Priory ?"

you.

"Very shortly, perhaps in a few days. We no longer feel any security

here, and, therefore, my father is desirous that we should cross the channel as soon as possible."

"How happy I feel," replied Alice, "to have had this opportunity of seeing you once more, and bidding you farewell. Your prospects are, I trust, more cheering, and your sorrows all at an end."

"You give me good encouragement, dear Alice, and I am the more grateful for it, knowing that you stand alone in these friendly assurances towards me and mine."

"Perhaps not quite alone," replied Alice, with a smile; "there is Mr. Treverbyn our kind minister, who has more than once expressed regret at the severity exercised toward your kinsman."

"Mr. Treverbyn is a good man, but his cold, chilling manner seems to warn me off from encroaching on his exclusiveness."

"If you knew more of him, this reserve that you complain of would soon disappear, and you would discover in its place, as many good qualities as you could wish. There is also my brother Gerald who has a considerate feeling for every one, and who will learn with much concern, what has occurred; besides," continued Alice, fixing her eyes on those of her friend, and looking inquisitively in her countenance, "what will be his disappointment, when he finds that the fair lady, whom he so much admired for her superior mind and beauty, has left the country?"

A momentary and somewhat awkward pause ensued. "Do not be offended," at length said Urcella. "Do not call me ungrateful, dear Alice, if I ask you not to name your brother to me again. I may ill-judge him, but something seems to tell me to mistrust his courteous professions of goodwill towards myself and family."

"You have grievously mistaken my brother Gerald," replied Alice, reproachfully," and it is not the first time that I have had occasion to know this. I will not, however, quarrel with you, at this our last meeting, upon a point which has so strangely seized hold of your fancy, but trust that some day he may have an opportunity of convincing you how much in the wrong you are, to doubt for a moment of his sincerity. Oh that I could be convinced of the truth now," rejoined Urcella, " and acknowledge my error. No humiliation on my part could sufficiently atone for the unworthy suspicions I had dared to entertain against one so nearly allied to my beloved Alice."

On saying which, Urcella struggled to overcome the emotion which betrayed itself in her eyes. Alice was, however, too quick-sighted not to perceive what her friend wished to conceal, and finding that the subject only distressed her, dropt it, and commenced inquiring after old Mrs. Trenchard, saying she understood she was then staying at the Priory.

"She is so," said Urcella. We wish her to remain with us till we leave. My father has much regard for the poor woman; he looks upon her as a remaining link in the chain of his old and cherished recollections of days gone by."

"I will take care of her when you are gone. She shall never want for anything. It will be my pleasure to see that she ends her days in

comfort. Is there any other old domestic that you would wish me to befriend ?"

"There is a good old man called Joseph," replied Urcella, "who is greatly attached to our family, and who would be made happy in his declining years, could he occasionally hear some intelligence of those he had served so long."

"This I will willingly afford him, if you will enable me to do so."

"I will do my best," said Urcella, "to send you some tidings of my unworthy self, it will provide me with an opportunity of expressing again and again my gratitude for the many obligations I owe you."

Thus did these two young women impress on each other their mutual affection, till the hour arrived for their separation, when taking a lasting farewell, accompanied with every assurance of eternal friendship, they tore themselves away, and hurried back to their different homes.

ONE of the many advantages attaching to the sciences—which have two ends, that of amplifying our knowledge of the power and beneficence of Divinity, and that of enlarging, by their application, the powers and ameliorating the condition of mankind-as compared with the ancient philosophies, arises from the universality of their adaption to the human intelligence, which is a consequence of the demonstrative character of their truths. While also the first are progressive and infinite in their researches as nature itself, the latter have been stationary; while the one are addressed to all communities, the second have merely been calculated to form small and particular sects, each the representative of some half truth, but encompassed with a mass of speculative error so considerable as to arrest their development, and render any expansive relegation through their influence impossible. Platonism, Phyrronionism, Epicurism, Stoicism, respectively appealing to the imagination, the isolated reason, the senses, and the reason and will, flourished in ancient societies according to the attractions exercised by each upon the affinities of special sections of the aggregate; but their respective attempts to solve the great problems of life and destiny, failing to attain the requirements of general conviction, were thus incapable of realizing the conditions of a credo; and the conflict between their theories, which was waged with little less acerbity than that of interests, continued until all disappeared with the revelation of a diviner system. Meanwhile, however, as the speculations of the metaphysicians ceased to exercise any influence on the sequent generations, further than that arising from the interest connected with them, as curiosities in the history of the human mind, the pure sciences not only established a permanence, but exhibited a

connective progress; and while the former, like dimly luminous clouds, occupied an isolated position on the horizon of the past, a continued rapport has been maintained-as though the undulations of a ray of light, brightening ever as it passed, from age to age-between Euclid and Hipparchus, Kepler and Newton, the morning souls of science, and those of later and present centuries, which still shine upon our planet, as it rolls toward summers of peaceful empire amid the mature civilizations of Time.

Life

From the epoch of Pericles to that of Augustus, the schools of Phyrro and Zeno appear to have exercised a preponderating influence over the community of Greece and Rome, appealing as they did, in their leading dictates, to the speculative reason of the one, and the iron character of the other. Stoicism, indeed, though vague and contradictory, and impossible as a human cultus, was not without a certain grandeur in its theistic and moral aspect. According to Epictetus, the soul-itself an emanation of deity is placed in the body for a short period, during which its object and duty is to exercise a favourable providence over the human race. ended, it will again be absorbed into deity. Immortal in its essence, it is to hold all that men most desire or dread, pleasure and pain, in contempt. By cultivating the reason and will, wholly for virtue's sake, and substantiating a complete dominion over the passions, it will attain to god-like being, and thus, after a life-long battle with nature, pass from the sphere of existence in concentrated power, crowned with victory. In realizing those precepts, indeed, several of the philosophers held that the soul thus attained a glory greater than that of the perfect gods themselves. "Certe magnum habere fragilitatis hominem, securetatem dei," says Seneca. To attain personal perfection in union with passionless alturism, to create a god of man and make a god of necessity-such is the Stoic ideal. That their philosophy was almost exclusively based upon a system of artificial reasoning we need not say, or that nothing can exceed the ingenuity with which its authors have shaped logical weapons for its defence and realization. "What is poverty ?" asks Seneca "no man lives so poor as he was born. What is pain? it will end itself or ourselves; if that of death is tolerable, it cannot be great; if intolerable, it cannot last long." In Seneca, Epictetus, and the philosophical works of Plutarch and Cicero, a complete armoury of Stoical weapons may be found, nor can any better illustration of this argument be presented than that of the latter against deafness. "How many languages," asks Cicero, are there of which we are ignorant? Iberian, Punic, Egyptian, etc.-Is it, then, any great misfortune to be deaf to one more?" While inculcating a love for humanity, it likewise insists upon a perfect indifference to the loss of all objects of affection, thus overlooking the consequence that with the extinction of the passions that of the virtues would follow-a system analogous to that of arriving at internal perfection by destroying the nerves, which are alike the source of pain as of pleasure. The greatest imperfection of stoicism, however, arises from its being essentially barren and uncreative. "It is a mark of a narrow mind," says Seneca, to condemn the order of the universe, and propose the mending of nature rather than ourselves." Thus, those inventions

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