to be cheated out of my senses by an old man's scruples, or to be disturbed by a foolish passion. She was a sweet girl, and perhaps loved me, but she was, like all her sex, artful, and sought but to take advantage of my love for her to triumph over me. These women are never to be trusted. They are always seeking to ensnare our affections merely to gratify their own vanity, for their own caprice, ambition, or interest. They are well enough in their proper place, but woe to the man who suffers them to wind around his heart. He may well envy Laocoon in the foul embrace of the serpents.

Time wore on, and I was fast recovering my former equanimity and carelessness, when I chanced to form a new acquaintance which came very near putting Katharine out of my head. This acquaintance was in its first stages, sufficiently familiar to be pleasant and attractive, and not sufficiently intimate to make its loss severely felt, when suddenly my old friend or enemyas yet I knew not which-appeared before me, with a wrathful countenance, and an eye flashing the most cutting reproof.

CHAPTER V.

"ADMIRABLE young man!" said he, after gazing at me with a most withering look for some moments. "Admirable young man!" said he, in a tone of cutting irony. "How sincerely you repent, and how firmly you adhere to your pious resolutions! You have repaired the wrong you have done, and made your peace with God, I presume. You have washed your heart clean, become a new man, and are prepared to commence a new career."

"Old man, do not reprove me too severely. I have resolved, and I will keep my resolution. Tell me where is

Katharine Howard?"

"Wherefore? What is she to you, and what would you with her?"

"Make honorable reparation for the wrong I have done her."

"How?"

"By giving her an honorable marriage."

"But whom do you propose for bridegroom."

"Myself."

"Yourself! And I presume you have not even doubted of your acceptableness?"

"Not at all. She loves me, and she cannot doubt my love to her. Its violence was a proof of its warmth and sincerity.

And I do not apprehend that I am a man likely to be rejected as a husband, even though I might be as a lover."

"Then you are really willing to offer yourself in marriage to Katharine Howard, and you do not doubt that she will accept you ?

"Let me see her, and I will make the offer, and you shall see whether it will be rejected or not."

"Go with me and you shall see her." "Where is she?"

"Not far off. Half an hour's ride will bring us to the house where she has resided ever since

"No matter when. But has she really been so near me all this time, and I have not suspected it?"

"There are many things, young man, close to us, which we dream not of, and the good we are seeking abroad is always under our eyes did we but know it. But come with me, and you shall see the young lady herself, that is, in case she will consent to see you."

About half an hour's drive brought us to an old-fashioned house, buried in a grove, and which I had supposed to be untenanted. It had formerly belonged to my own estate, but had been sold for some purpose by my predecessor, and, as it was not in the direction of my usual drives, I had paid little attention to it, and had never thought of inquiring whether it was inhabited or not. We entered, and the old man led me into a small, plainly, but neatly furnished parlour, and commanded me to be seated. I obeyed, and he left me alone. I expected him to return in a moment with Katharine. But time passed, a full hour passed, and no one entered, and no sound of human voice or footstep was heard. My patience began to give way, and I felt the old man was playing me a trick. This waiting a full hour in suspense, and especially to see one to whom you have come to make a proposal of marriage, is no pleasant affair, and makes one half envy St. Laurence broiling on the gridiron. But all things are destined to have an end. The old man at length returned followed by Katharine herself. I had never seen her so beautiful. Neatly and simply dressed, but with exquisite taste, so as to set off her fine figure in all its fulness, grace, and dignity. Her countenance was mild and serene, her expression cheerful. "She has not suffered," said I, and, for the first time, a doubt flashed across my mind, whether, after all, my proposal would be so acceptable as I at first imagined. But diffidence was not one of my faults, and the doubt vanished as quickly as it came.

"Katharine," said the old man, "I introduce you to Mr. Edward Morton, whom perhaps you may remember having once

seen."

"O Katharine," I exclaimed, rising and rushing towards her to fall on my knees at her feet, "God be thanked. I see you again."

"Be seated, Mr. Morton," replied she, in a quiet, commanding tone, which I dared not disobey. I did not kneel, but returned to the couch on which I had been sitting, abashed, and awed into my own insignificance. She turned to her protector, "Leave us alone, my more than father," she said; "you can rely on your daughter, and I have that to say to Mr. Morton which I would not pain him by having a third person hear." The old man went out, and Katharine took a seat quite near but opposite me. She looked at me silently for a few moments; for an instant her color changed, and there seemed to be passing a struggle within. It was but for an instant, and her calm, serene, and almost cheerful look returned.

"Mr. Morton," at length she broke silence by saying, "why have you sought me, and what pleasure could you expect it would give either of us for you to be here? What is your wish?"

The quiet and half business-like tone in which this was spoken nearly disconcerted me; but I remembered the passing change of color, and replied, "Katharine, I have come to atone for my past baseness, and to begin the amendment of my life by asking your forgiveness."

"I have forgiven you, Mr. Morton; and hope you will not delay a moment to ask forgiveness of Him whom you have offended more than you have me. Do you wish any thing else of me?"

"Yes, Katharine, yes. You once loved me, you owned it to me. I loved you, as you well know."

"How did you manifest your love to me?"

"But you have forgiven me. You have just assured me of your forgiveness. If you have forgiven me, you can love me, and do love me still. I am a better man than I was. I come to assure you of my repentance, that I bitterly repent the wrong I have done. But no great harm has been done. My heart is yours, and I come to beg you to accept it, and my hand with it."

"A fair proposal, Mr. Morton," said she, in a tone of most exquisite sweetness, "and one which, had it been made one year ago, I frankly assure you would not have been rejected.

I should have thanked you for it, and have modestly but joy

fully accepted it.”

"And why not now?" "IT IS TOO LATE."

"O, say not so.

You are not married?" said I, a terrible

suspicion crossing my mind.

"No, not yet.

"Are you betrothed?"

"No; and to relieve you on this point, for I see it troubles you, I have no prospect of being, and no wish to be, unless it be to heaven.”

"Why, then, say it is too late?”

"Because, Mr. Morton, I am better acquainted with you than I was. You were the son of my father's spiritual director and most honored friend. You were the idol of my young dreams, and almost from my cradle I was taught to love and reverence you. Your kindness to the orphan, and the provision you made for my education, the tenderness you showed me, and the fatherly care you took of me, bound me to you by the strong tie of gratitude. I grew up for you; I sought to accomplish myself for you; I lived for you, and for you only. All my future clustered around you, and even heaven itself, it seemed, would be no heaven to me unless shared with you. This was sinful idolatry. I knew it, even then, but I said to myself, I would rather be damned with Mr. Morton, than to go to heaven without him. It was so I loved you. an evil hour, you sought to abuse my love and my confidence. You revealed to me in a word your real character. I saw the foulness of your principles and the hollowness of your heart. And I knew I had loved the demon in the guise of an angel of light. You are now, in reality, what you were then; and can I bind my fate to yours, or aggravate your doom so much as to aid you in ever calling any decent woman your wife?"

In

"I know, Katharine, I was wrong, that I was base; but passion carries us sometimes beyond ourselves, and I would not in my sober moments do what I would have done in that evil hour. I heartily repent of the wrong I did, and I will do all I can to atone for it."

"That is your duty, and gladly would I believe, for your sake, that you are capable of doing it. But as yet you have not repented. You have merely regretted the loss of an instrument of pleasure, a toy, or plaything; and, as for atonement, you are willing if you cannot recover the lost toy in one way to do it in another. In all you are profoundly selfish and

hollow-hearted. You think it would be a pleasure to you to call me yours, and to have me for your slave. But you think of nothing beyond your own pleasure. You have no high, no solemn aim in what you propose. You do not even think of

my good, far less of the glory of God."

Upon my word, Kate, you have learned to preach, and, if you were only a man, we would have you tonsured and clapped in a casşock forthwith. In what theological seminary have you been studying the last year ?"

"I understand your sneer, Mr. Morton, and its intent. I have studied in no seminary; I am a weak and sinful woman; but I have learned this much, thanks to other teachers than those you provided me, that I was made for a higher destiny than can be attained on this earth, and that in all I do, even in the tenderest and most sacred affections of the human heart, I am to seek the greater glory of God. My mind, heart, soul and body are his, and must be dedicated exclusively to his service; and though I may love and marry, it must be for love of him, because by so doing I can best honor and serve him. Marriage is a holy sacrament, and you-you believe in no sacrament, and hold marriage to be nothing but a gross union for low, earthly, and sensual purposes. How could there be marriage between us?"

"You talk finely, Kate, but marriage is a union of two hearts which mutually love, for their mutual happiness."

"Say for their mutual pleasure, and you will express your thought with more precision. The pleasure being the end of the marriage, when it ceases to be attained, the marriage is null, and either party is at liberty to seek pleasure elsewhere. Such, I am aware, are your views of marriage; but I hold marriage to be a holy union, and incapable of being formed except when both parties form it for the love of God, and form it not for their own personal pleasure, but for the purpose of serving God and obtaining his blessing. I can never consent to be united to a man who entertains such views as yours, because there could be no marriage between us, and nothing but profanation of the temple of God."

Really, much you say, Kate, seems to me like nonsense. True, such notions have been taught by a certain class of professed Christians, refining on notions borrowed from Oriental philosophy, and reinforced by the asceticism of monks and anchorets of the ages of Popish superstition and ignorance. But you know that no such notions are countenanced in the school in which we were brought up. My father was your