ing, languages, arts, sciences, and dancing, which are too often thought to be all the acquirements necessary for life. How many now are thrust out into the arena of life totally uninstructed in the part they are really to act, surrounded as every mortal must sooner or later be by perplexities, tried by temptations, infatuated with pleasure, or wrung with sorrows. Who does not pity any girl plunged into the whirlpool of society without a conception how difficult a thing human life is? The whole happiness of her existence may be shipwrecked by one heedless action, by a mistaken estimate of its objects, by a false estimate of its attachments, or by any one headlong impulse of a young, unsophisticated, and affectionate heart. Above all, in the case of Beatrice we must guard her mind against the present tendency of idle enthusiastic young minds to Romanism, that fearful blight to the intellect and happiness of all who embrace its withering tenets."

"She will receive from you," replied Mrs. Clinton earnestly, "what I consider the best part of education, so strangely neglected by many mothers in our day, the familiar companionship and conversation of one whose experience in life can direct her judgment for future years in the prospects, hopes, and objects of existence."

CHAPTER IV.

"Wolves shall succeed for teachers, grievous wolves,
Who all the sacred mysteries of heaven

To their own vile advantages shall turn
Of lucre and ambition; and the truth
With superstition and tradition's taint,
Left only in these written records pure,
Though not but by the Spirit understood.

Then shall they seek to avail themselves of names,
Places, and titles, and with these to join
Secular power: though feigning still to act
By spiritual, to themselves appropriating
The Spirit of God, promised alike and given
To all believers."

MILTON.

THE next day after this conversation Sir Evan sent a friendly note to Lord Eaglescairn, announcing that more than a week having now elapsed he meant to call at the castle next day at four o'clock, with Lady Edith, when he trusted that no impediment would be permitted to interfere with their seeing the Spanish lady who had been recently delivered from shipwreck, as he felt entitled to an interview, and was resolved to obtain one even though she might choose to observe her vow by remaining both deaf and dumb during their whole visit.

"How very strange," said Sir Evan to Mr. Herbert when folding up his letter, "are these Popish vows to abstain from the common functions of nature, sleep, food, or speech! Suppose I could make a vow only to inhale my breath six times in a minute instead of sixty, how usefully my attention would be occupied in the painful effort to check the inclination to breathe, which is, in fact, a very innocent indulgence."

"Two-thirds of the insane patients in a madhouse chiefly show their derangement by an intention of starving themselves to death; most of them are sleepless, and many are voluntarily dumb," replied Mr. Herbert. "I think those well-meaning persons who so closely imitate the effects of derangement reduce the vigour of mind and body, till they become more liable to those strange delusions, which cause Papists to 'see visions and dream dreams.""

"There is quite a new code of sins in the Popish world," observed Sir Evan, sealing his letter; "the sin of reading the Bible, of eating, of sleeping, of speaking, of marrying, of having one's own opinion, or of looking each other in the face, and their code of virtue is to make unnecessary vows against those very necessaries of life which God has appointed as the means of our existence and of our improvement. Suppose the

birds were suddenly to think it wrong to sing, would they fulfil the purposes of their creation better by leaving off?"

The carriage which was to convey Sir Evan to Eaglescairn Castle stood already at the door next morning, and Lady Edith had taken her seat, when to their astonishment Father Eustace appeared in the approach and advanced to meet the Chief, with a look of resolute calmness, evidently assumed with great effort, for his handsome dark face was lividly pale, and his firmly-clenched mouth bore an expression of reckless determination.

"I am come," he said, endeavouring to speak in a careless conversational tone, "to save you a useless drive. Madame Farinelli, our foreign guest, has taken, contrary to my advice, a very decided step by retiring for some weeks of solitude and penance to the convent of St. Columba, at Inverness, where she wishes to collect her mind and thoughts, after the terrors of shipwreck and the delirium which so calamitously followed. She desires me to convey her thanks to you for her wonderful deliverance, an obligation which she can never possibly either forget or repay; and I am also empowered to relieve you from the charge of her little girl, who is to join Madame Farinelli at Inverness."

Sir Evan fixed his firm intelligent eye with penetrating examination on the handsome countenance of Father Eustace, which looked immovable as a mask, when the Chief replied in accents. of stern reproof and of contemptuous indignation:

"You are deceiving me and I know it, Father Eustace. It may perhaps hurt your conscience to be found out, and it has most deeply shocked me that you are. The Spanish Captain has revealed that letters of mine which were entrusted to him were at your instigation destroyed. Lord Eaglescairn cannot surely be cognisant of this crime? I do not allow myself to suspect that possible, therefore to him I shall immediately communicate the very painful discovery of so much guilt on your part, the inducement to which seems totally inconceivable. This attempt to intercept my communications must prove utterly unavailing, as I shall send duplicates of my letters by the sure vehicle of the post immediately,"

Father Eustace assumed the aspect of a man meekly suffering under a false accusation, raised his eye-brows, dropped his eye-lids, bent his head, and remained for several minutes perfectly silent; but as Sir Evan resolutely waited for an answer he said, "I had a bad opinion of that shipwrecked captain from the first, and this lying invention of his confirms it. He has stolen a sum of money