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sant, so habitual was its fierce and ever-eager expression. | the constancy of their faith and christian heroism. And The other features of the face would have been decidedly handsome but for their extreme emaciation; and the finely expansive and lofty forehead might have been deemed noble but for the excessive severity of the habitually contracted brow.

CHAPTER III.

FORMING A MIND.

the endurance of it was not embittered to them by the burning indignation, the stinging sense of wrong and injustice, which such treatment would awaken in the breasts of men of other days, and other modes of thinking.

Coming forth as martyrs among their adıniring townsmen, neither of the two friends had much difficulty in stepping back into that social position which they had occupied before their imprisonment. The widowed merchant returned to his ware-rooms and counting-house, and the preacher to his old avocations amid his congregation. To the little Pauline the difference, consequent on this change in her place of dwelling, rather than in her mode of life, was for some years at least but small. A female governante, indeed, was employed to superintend her education, and moral development. But this person was of course chosen with a special view to her

Bartenau and his friend Riberac remained in prison till the period of the king's death, which occurred in 1643. The D'Aubignés had long since been suffered to return to such liberty as could then be found in France, on giving an extorted promise of embracing Catholicism. To avoid the necessity of keeping this promise the Sieur D'Aubigné sailed for Martinique, carrying with him his wife and the infant, for whom fate was reserving so extra-religious opinions and qualifications. ordinary and so brilliant a fortune in the land she was now leaving a proscribed fugitive. A different lot awaited the other prison-born child. They never met againthose two infant playmates, Françoise D'Aubigné and Pauline Bartenau ; but from the time of that parting in the prison of Niort went forward on their widely divergent paths of life, each to accomplish the course marked out for her.

Well! Françoise D'Aubigné went to Martinique; and Pauline Bartenau remained in prison at Niort. Great history has charged herself with recording the subsequent fortunes of the former. It is the business of this historiette to preserve, ere it has quite perished from the memory of tradition, the, perhaps, equally instructive story of the latter.

Jacques Bartenau would far rather have gone forth from the prison to martyrdom, than have escaped from it by such a promise as D'Aubigné had given. And when he and the preacher were left behind by their patrician fellowprisoner, they solaced their captivity with grim reflections that the world knew its own, and God doubtless knew his own also.

So for eight years, till the year 1643 that is, the little Pauline grew, and learned between these two stern men. Well! a graver, grimmer, more serious, and more joyless education never poor child had. Yet it was a gay, happy-hearted, and laughter-loving little creature. Good kindly Dame Nature had clearly set herself against the two grave and reverend seniors, in the matter of forming this child's mind and temperament. It was like to be a toughly contested match; but with at least two to one in favour of Mother Nature. Meanwhile the little object of the struggle seemed to suffer less in thus being pulled two different ways than might have been imagined. The fact is, that Dame Nature was taking it easy; and those who are in the habit of watching her ways, and observing the development of her operations, might have foreseen that in this case she was sure to win.

It was difficult for the little Pauline to love her father; so little was there to attract, so much to repel the tender, easily-wounded heart-shoots of a child's affection in the hard, cold man. Yet Pauline did love her father; for hers was a loving nature, and her heart had nought else to cling to.

CHAPTER IV.

A FATHER AND DAUGHTER.

Thus time wore on; and the Huguenot's daughter, from being a merry, happy, lovely child, became a lovely, but not very happy or cheerful young woman. Externally matters had changed but little with her during this lapse of years. The same vinegar-faced and verjuice-hearted old maid had been her duenna and constant companion. Her father's society, austere and almost morose as he was, relieved in some degree the odious monotony of the many tête-a-tête hours poor Pauline was constrained to spend with her unamiable governante during such brief intervals of leisure as his business allowed him. And the family circle was rarely increased or diversified, save by the frequent visits of the preacher Riberac. What a home for a young girl just entering into the brightest springtide of her existence and one too, whom nature had endowed with a mind as bright as the laughing dark-blue eye it lighted up, and with a spirit intended to be as gay as ever dwelt in a youthful heart. Alas! poor Pauline, her lot was surely cast in a stony place!

In the meanwhile, Time, which had done its work so well and featly on her person, had also been silently and gradually at work on the development of her mind. Could the whole process of Time's schooling with its every influence, its every lesson, its every cause, and every effect in the formation of a mind be faithfully written down, the recital would fill more volumes than do our most voluminous encyclopedias of all human knowledge; and the volumes would yet be well worth the reading. But as well might one sit down by a sapling to watch its growth into an oak. And it must content us to describe, and that very imperfectly, the general results of this timeeducation, as observable at a given point in its progress. Nature had truly intended Pauline Bartenau for one of her choicest creations.

Time wore on, and at length came the liberation of Jacques Bartenau the merchant, and Andrè Riberac the preacher, from their long imprisonment. They walked forth amid their fellow-citizens once more, self-contained, unexulting, and sternly calm. The grievous infliction of nearly ten years' confinement within the walls of a prison had been borne by these men with stern unshrinking And how had grown the spiritual nature of this fair fortitude, as a heaven-sent infliction, destined to prove | creature amid the influences, exclusively of one description,

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which we know had ever surrounded it? It is said that the infant mind is as a sheet of white paper ready to receive whatever characters the first comer may trace thereon-as virgin wax, ready to assume whatsoever form it may please the hand which can first seize it to impart. Yet plastic as the infant mind may be, it is not so simple and easy a matter to fashion it entirely according to the will of those who may seem to have the most uncontrolled power to direct it. Its very impressionability foils the educator. Influences unseen, untraceable, whose approach the utmost vigilance can no more prevent than it can that of the circumambient air, assist, modify, or mar the efforts of him who would assume the responsibility of forming a mind. The intellectual powers which he himself has awakened and called into action may, in their free operation, which he has no longer the power to control, fight against him. Nay, his own efforts, unskillfully applied, or injudiciously enforced, not unfrequently produce results exactly the reverse of those which they have intended to bring about. The young mind is truly as plastic as new wax; but it is often forgotten that it is not equally passive. It is forgotten that every touch produces on its delicate impressionability results which it is difficult for the most experienced to foresee.

The educational efforts of Jacques Bartenau and his female and male assistant had not been crowned with success. The ethical and religious system which it had been the object of their united endeavours to inculcate had been rejected by the mind of the pupil. Gradually, estrangement grew up between them. It could not have been otherwise. The rebellious child was to him as a lost sheep.

of every generous and gentle emotion. Let the bright and sparkling intelligence that leaps forward to meet the approach of kindred thought, illuminate the features and animate the sparkling eye.

Poor Pauline! all this and more was hers. Nor was there wanting to the completion of the fascinating whole a fair share of those peculiarly female qualities which, in the presumption of our masculine wisdom, we are wont to designate as imperfections. Among these was a strong but most innocent love of admiration. Yes! shake your heads, wise moralists! and think what a much better plan for the construction of a female bosom you could have suggested, had Nature only consulted you! Ilere and there-rarely, thank heaven-one meets a monster woman without this quality. Are they such as to make us fall in love with the improvement?

Well! such was Pauline in her twentieth year. It is needless to say that she was not happy in her father's house-that her life had been an ungenial and cheerless one, which would have dimmed into pining, broken-spirited helplessness, a weaker spirit, and have perverted to bitterness and gall a less right-hearted and thoroughly healthy one. Needless, too, to admit that the glimpses of that gay and bright-looking outer world, which rare and farbetween had reached her in her deep retirement, had appeared to her gay and bright. She would not have been the loveable and fascinating creature we have endeavoured to describe her had it been otherwise.

Do you feel any interest, reader, for the Huguenot's daughter? See her, as she sits there at the window over that of her father's warehouse, and looking into the narrow street, formed almost entirely of the dull and quiet-looking tenements of other similar dealers. She is plying, somewhat languidly, it is true, the needle which is elaborating some of that gorgeous work, delicate and yet durable, which employed so many of the hours of our great-greatgrand-mothers; and listening as little as possible to the interminable lecture of her grim governante--delivered almost avowedly for the pleasure of the deliverer, rather than from any expected advantage to the recipient-on the exceeding wickedness of the world in general, and of herself in particular, and the fearful sinfulness of all

And what was the effect of such an education and such a position on the unhappy girl herself? The fallaciousness of the only guides she had having become manifest to her, she was left without guidance to find or make a path for herself. And worse than this, her whole experience of the hearts and opinions of those who preached and taught religion, had been such as to leave her mind impressed with no very high opinion of the vital importance of religion itself, in the conduct of life and the formation of character. From her cradle up-worldly occupations, especially the fabrication of vanities, wards, every idea of religion which had reached her mind had reached it in connexion with ideas of persecution, hatred, and bigotry. The doctrines of her father's sect were loathsome to her unperverted heart; and the palpable absurdities of the Roman faith, together with the nature of the deeds it produced and sanctioned, had been too often and too forcibly pointed out to her, to leave any possibility of her embracing Catholicism.

Such was the condition and position of Pauline Bartenau when she reached her twentieth year. That she was beautiful, surpassingly beautiful, has already been intimated. Let each reader complete the sketch to his mind's eye according to his fancy. But when his imagination shall have presented to him his beau ideal of beauty, let him, if his conception is to personate adequately the Poitevin Huguenot's daughter, endow the creation with such a heart and intellect as can alone render beauty perfectly irresistible. Let the warm and genial heart, unchilled, though aching from the want of an object on which it might worthily expend, with uncalculating muniâcence, its overflowing treasures of affection, be the seat

such as that on which she was then engaged. Do you feel any interest in her fate? If so, pass we on to the next Chapter.

CHAPTER V.

"VIRGINIBUS PUERISQUE."

It was about that period of Pauline's life, of which we were speaking in the last chapter, that an incident occurred, which eventually gave rise to the circumstances that coloured the entire sequel of it. Jacques Bartenau was a scrupulously honest and honourable dealer; and the probity and loyal character of his transactions had hitherto kept him clear from any of those disputes and misunderstandings to which commercial affairs are so liable. But he was not a man to give up an advantage to which he deemed himself honestly entitled. And it so happened that some difference respecting the terms of a contract entered into between him and a large manufacturer of Sedan-already the seat of a thriving cloth trade-led to a warm dispute between the manu

facturer and the merchant.

The matter in question in- | open frank-looking features, animated with an irresistibly volved interests to a considerable amount. Neither merry and laughing blue eye-these were advantages inparty would yield to the representations of the other, estimable in the societies that Jules de Pontarlier best and it became necessary to submit the matter to the loved to frequent in his hours of recreation; and which arbitration of the tribunals. were by no means thrown away even among the grave seniors who stood around the path of professional success.

The question at issue was to be tried at the "Grands Jours de Poitiers," as the session for the purpose of holding what we should call "assizes" was then termed; and Bartenau had neglected no fair precaution to ensure a successful issue to his suit. Among the measures he had adopted was that of securing the services of an advocate, who had been especially recommended to him as particularly conversant with the laws and customs regulating commercial affairs. The advocate thus selected was still a young man, though already marked as a rising one in his profession, and favourably known to the judges and to his seniors at the bar. His name was Jules de Pontarlier..

The legal profession was, at the period of which we are speaking, becoming daily more important in the government of his country, and occupying a position of greater consideration in the eyes of the court, the military noblesse, and the people. The members of the profession were held together by an esprit de corps at the least strong as that which united the old feudal nobility to as each other. And the parliamentarian families, many of whom for several generations together had enjoyed the honours of the "gown," were as proud of their long-robed ancestry, as the haughtiest of the "noblesse de l'epeé." In many of these families wit and learning seemed to be hereditary; and in general the legal profession at that day comprehended, in the ranks of its junior members, a very large proportion of the talent of the rising generation.

Of those who had been recently admitted to the honours of the bar, and to whom its seniors most confidently looked to maintain and add to the credit of the profession, both as a sound lawyer and a man of talent, none occupied a more prominent place than Jules de Pontarlier. He was one of those gifted few, who can carry cumbrous learning, without in any degree making the weight of the load manifest to the mere looker-on by the heaviness of his step or constrained action of his gait. When out of court, and not engaged in preparing the affairs of his clients for their appearance there, the playfulness of his wit, and light gaiety of his manner, were such as rendered him a favourite in circles where the gayer-plumaged scions of the sword noblesse were his rivals, in competing for the guerdon of a smile from lovely lips, or an approving glance from bright eyes. And a dangerous competitor was the young lawyer to the gayest and gallantest empty-pated young soldier. For despite the axiom laid down to the contrary by that great authority in such matters, Thomas Moore, in the charming little song of "Beauty, Reason, and Folly," we maintain, with all respect, that Folly never yet succeeded in making himself so agreeable to Beauty as Reason can, when he chooses to don the cap and bells for an hour, and wear them with a grace and effect that their own silly owner can never contrive to produce. Other qualifications there are, without which neither Reason nor Folly need hope success in Beauty's bowers. Some fair share of Beauty's own especial graces is absolutely necessary; and these the young lawyer possessed in no trifling degree. A handsome and singularly elegant person, fine!

Such was the young advocate to whom Jacques Bartenau had, by the recommendation of some of the seniors of the profession, entrusted the conduct of his case; a case which involved property to a larger amount than any that had hitherto been confided to his zeal and skill.

Well consultations, explanations, much preparatory talking, were necessary. Jules de Pontarlier came frequently to the merchant's house-frequently saw Pauline -sat in the same room with her. And so, it came to pass that the reader knows the rest

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already. What! the old story, ch? Yes! un-gentle reader! it is an old story. It is 5848 years old, according to the computation of good Archbishop Usher, learned in these and many other matters. The tale, truly, has never been a new one, since it was first told amid the bowers of Paradise. And such has been the abiding influence of this, its first birth-place, on its nature, that when rightly told by fitting lips to fitting ears, it changes the scene of its telling- be that what it may-to a veritable Paradise, for the time being. Yes! ungentle reader, the story is old. But we must be excused if we take leave to hint, that were the story all that is old in the matter, its age would in no wise interfere with its favourable reception. Look at the inscription at the head of this chapter, old gentleman,

"Virginibus Puerisque !"-and to those indulgent readers we address ourselves for the present. Those to whom the story is too stale a one to be interesting may turn on to the sequel. Not but that is an old story too. Alack! but too old a story in this poor world of ours. But somehow there is something in it which often makes it pleasant reading to those who turn up their respectable roseate noses at a true love tale.

Jules de Pontarlier and Pauline Bartenau met frequently-somewhat more frequently perhaps than the strict necessities of the legal business in hand might have required. You, too, can perchance guess the result, ingenuous youths, gentle maids, be ye yet fancy-free, or bearing in your stricken hearts the wound. And now that we have appealed especially to you to listen to this section of our history, we are diffident of our own powers of worthily narrating it. We have the consolation, however, of feeling quite certain that every one among you can supply the "hiatus valde defendus" for yourselves.(Those "horrid Latin words," dear young ladies, signify "impassioned whisperings of devotion." It is the beautiful phrase of love's own poet-Ovid.) You will have no difficulty, we are sure, in imagining all this for yourselves, without aid of ours. How the young lawyer was smitten home to his heart's core by the charms of our Pauline-how he contrived to declare that fact to her with every sufficient intelligibility, without at all communicating the intelligence to the old merchant, to whom he was all the while busily explaining certain points and bearings of his case-how by an unfortunate mistake of half-an-hour in the time of an appointment to meet his client at his residence one evening on his return from hearing one of our friend Riberac's lengthened dis

courses, it chanced that the unpunctual advocate passed | eous indignation, righteous when visiting the rightful head; this half-hour alone with our Pauline, who had declined and the gentle may drop, as we hope, an equally wholeaccompanying her father and her governante to the lec- some tear over the fortunes of one as gentle, as lovely as tures-how the practised tongue, that had learned in themselves. But these readers will find nothing agreestately halls, and high-born ladies' bowers to charm the able presented to them in this chapter. ear of beauty, succeeded but too well in making this short half-hour fatal to the future peace of the provincial merchant's poor daughter-how this little half-hour, our Pauline's first stolen pleasure, was so sweet as to suggest the stealing of many a subsequent one by similar and various other contrivances-all this those readers to whom this chapter is especially dedicated will easily enough imagine.

Well! to stolen interviews in her father's house succeeded stolen interviews elsewhere-tête-a-tête walks on the wooded banks of the Sévre, outside the town, etc. etc. Then came the season of the full moon. And......alack! alack! who does not know the mischievous influences of that lovely, cold, shy, modest-looking moon?

Moon-light walks! and tête-a-tête ! But surely, sir, the impropriety of the thing must have struck any properly educated young lady.

Madame! we are fully aware of all you would urge. We might ask you, in return, whether poor Pauline was a "properly educated" young lady. You know what her bringing up was. But we prefer stating at once, that we are not anxious to submit our poor heroine to your ladyship's notice at all.

We know what "impropriety" is, far too well to bring it under your ladyship's eye in any shape. PROPRIETY! odious word! invented by the world's Pharisees to hold in their vocabulary the place of innocence, goodness, modesty, and every other truly Christian grace!

Of the rules of propriety Pauline knew nothing, so she walked by moonlight with her lover evening after evening, sometimes where the capricious light, glancing in chequered rays among the restless leaves, came to dance on the still waters of the sluggish river; sometimes to the top of the hill which rises to the westward of the town, and from which they could contemplate the entire city sleeping in the still white light beneath them.

Moments of happiness! which all that the world can give, can neither equal, nor alas, reproduce! moments how fleeting! but never to be forgotten!

CHAPTER VI.

"WOMAN AND HER MASTER.'

And yet,

No! here the dedication must be a different one. Now, it is your turn, all you who “always expected" the misfortunes of your neighbours. Come to the feast all you who knew from the first what it must come to," and gloat over the fulfilment of your raven prophecies. You who candidly avow that you "have no patience" with sinners, whose sin is virtuous, compared with your virtue; you, whose exceeding purity "for your part cannot tolerate any symptom of levity in a young woman;” you, who chiefly wonder what the man could have seen in her" at all attractive; above all, you sweet sisters of your sex who "have no doubt that the hussy herself was chiefly, if not entirely, in fault, running after the poor man in that way;" come all of you, loathsome harpies! do not you snuff the carrion scent of a slaughtered reputation?

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Poor Pauline alas those sweet moonlight walks! those dangerous moonlight walks! Did she not know that there was danger in them? Why should she have dreamed of any?

Jules de Pontarlier! the winner of this inestimable prize, an innocent maiden's pure, loving, clinging heart! the partner of this trembling woman in her sin! the conqueror who has achieved this triumph over a weak and guideless girl! Stand forth, Jules de Pontarlier! while we scrutinize a little your portion of this deed. Were you, too, ignorant of the slippery nature of the path you were treading with this young creature? Were you as artlessly unconscious of the approach of danger as she was? Did you fall from your high estate of spotless innocence by the sudden assault of temptation on your human frailty, in an unguarded hour? If so, let pitying charity throw over your sin, also, her covering mantle. Though with infinitely less to excuse your fall than may be urged in extenuation of that of her who shared it-though armed with knowledge, habitual prudence, and worldly forethoughtthough the stronger, instead of the weaker, vessel; yet, if the case be as we have supposed, human censors will and ought to judge leniently your error. Reparation is open to you. The betrothed faith may be kept. And the evil you have done will make you doubly anxious ever to shield that delicate and fragile being from every ruder breath of the cold world's unkindness.

The world had every reason to be satisfied with the conduct of M. Jules de Pontarlier; and the world testified its approbation of him in many ways, bestowing sundry sufficiently solid and satisfactory testimonials of its favour and approval. He rose to a high position in his profession; and dying at Paris, full of years and honours, was buried in the church of St. Jacques, near the Marché des Innocents, with a long Latin inscription on his tomb, recording the admiration of his contemporaries for his virtues as a Christian, a magistrate, a husband, and a

But the sequel of the tale! what followed! the consequences, in other words-ay! the consequences! Well! the sequel must be told. For Pauline Bartenau was the denizen of no ideal Peri-land; and this her history is no Arcadian idyll. Yes! the sequel must be told. like a timid bather shivering on the brink, while he procrastinates the plunge he is determined to make, we approach reluctantly the precipice to which the course of our tale conducts us. We closed the last chapter, which contains-not the picture, for it cannot be painted,-but the intimation of so much happiness; and devoted a new father. one to the stern work that lies before us. For the espePoor Pauline! then she was happy at last? The evencial dedication, which commended the last to the particular ing of her days in some degree compensated for their cold attention of the young and innocent, is alas! not appro- unkindly morning? She was the happy mother of childpriate to this. Yet, let them too read what follows, that ren, and honoured wife of the exemplary magistrate, so the manly may feel the generous wholesome glow of right-recorded by the veracious marble?

Ha, ha, ha! It is a mad world we live in! A mad wag the innocent, and the young, and would fain bespeak your of a world!

Pauline Bartenau died-but we are anticipating unduly. Let us proceed regularly with this history, in which nothing occurred in anywise abnormal, but all passed perfectly "selon les régles."

The world was in all ways satisfied with the fortunate Jules de Pontarlier. He gained Jacques Bartenau's cause for him, in the first place; and much thanks, pelf, and credit for himself thereby. Having, therefore, nothing further to detain him at Niort, he returned to Paris, and there grew rapidly in the favour and esteem of the courts, and was again the soul and spirit of more than one gay circle, in which bright eyes looked the brighter in his presence, and laughing banter about his successes with the Poitevin belles, as laughingly replied to by the gay young advocate. But it was not long before the rising barrister thought proper to seek for a wife in earnest. And here, again, the world was well satisfied with him. He made 64 a proper marriage, in all respects." Rank, fortune, &c., all strictly "convenable.” A good Catholic, too, of course. What! marry a Huguenot? Fie! where would have been his sense of religion? The church would not have been satisfied with him then.

Pass on thy way, Jules de Pontarlier! We have no more to say to thee, or of thee. Sail onwards down the pleasant and prosperous stream of life, with swelling sails filled with fortune's favouring gale, and brightened by the warm sunshine of the world's esteem! Nor pause to cast one backward glance on the lonely wreck thou hast left stranded on the cold inhospitable shore, to perish unregarded, save by the half-averted eye of scorn, and alone. Pass on! we have no new homily to read to the seducer. All that can be said has been said and re-said. And the pious world can listen to such talk, confined to safely vague generalities, with much edification. But for the visitation of its bitter pains and penalties the coward world prefers the weak and helpless victim. It is awkward, involves disagreeable results and inconvenience, to deal with strong, powerful men. So we really cannot look into these matters," with regard to them. But to wreak our dastard morality on the weak, the frail, the broken already, the prostrate helpless one-this is safe, cheaply virtuous-and pleasant withal.

CHAPTER VII.

THE PENALTY.

Leaving, then, the spoiler to pursue his prosperous path amid the noisy business, and still more noisy pleasures of the world of Paris, let us follow to its unmarked close the history of her whose fortunes we have undertaken to record, and whose story, like many a similar one, equally melancholy and equally suggestive of various unheeded moralities, would, like them, long since have perished and been forgotten, had not the tragedy been marked by certain incidental peculiarities, which connect it in Poitevin traditionary lore with historical circumstances of those times, not yet faded from the memory of the old inhabitants of the province.

And now once again, gentle readers, we appeal to you. Now that the worst is told-now that you know all the sad truth about our poor fallen Pauline-" fallen by too much faith in man"'—we appeal again to you, the gentle

sympathies in favour of an erring sister. Will ye not, with meek and gentle eyes, moist with heaven's bestloved sacrifice-a tear of pity-follow to its close her chill and cheerless pilgrimage? Would ye not have rejoiced to pour the healing balsam of a gentle word, a gentle look on that poor bleeding heart, to have bound up the wounds of that crushed spirit, to have lightened by a little-'tis but a little that human power can-the sore, sore load which that frail form must bear on its flinty path? Alas! her gloomy way was uncheered by any such angel's ministerings. Yet, pity! gentle ones! for the precious pity-drops you shed shall be a beneficent dew on the tender verdure of your own hearts, and the unavailing blessing, wherewith you would have blessed the stricken one, shall return again into your own bosoms, making yet gentler even your gentleness, and purifying even your purity. Fear not, then, gentle readers, despite the lessons of a cold, selfish, and hypocritical prudery, to walk with us awhile beside the path of your unhappy sister.

How Pauline first learned her lover's faithlessnessthe first stab-like agony-the angry incredulity-the hoping against hope—the heart-sickening gradual departure of all hope-and the stunning, numbing fulness of despair; -all this it is needless to detail at length; for alas! alas! is it not too trite a tale?

Then slowly, and by degrees, thoughts of herself, her own position, and future, would force themselves upon her. Her father! her stern and severe father! Could there be hope of pity or forgiveness from him? Would it be possible to conceal from him and from others the consequences of her shame? Oh! heavens! the madness that was in thoughts such as these! And yet, though each time the thought recurred, it seemed to mark in fire its passage through the brain, yet she could not fix her mind on the momentous subject. The rebel thought would stray to him, who had long since ceased to think of her. Importunate, tormenting, and yet alluring memory would paint and repaint on fancy's tablets that one same scene, brought out all vivid and distinct from amid the dreamy haze that seemed to hang over all the rest of the utterly severed and apparently far distant past. Like phantasmagoric scenes painted on their own bright circle of light, amid the surrounding darkness, unreproducible, except by throwing all around them into utter obscurity, this vision of the past showed bright and isolated, cut out of the black rim that encircled it, and leaving invisible all those objects lying outside the magic ring, whose appearance would have caused the brilliant picture to fade and disappear.

Thus time passed on with dull and leaden step, tediously slow in his progress over each heavy cheerless hour, but fearfully rapid in his resistless march towards the awful hour, when it now became evident to Pauline that she must disclose to unpitying ears her frailty and its results. Gradually had the full horror of her position, with all its attendant circumstances, developed itself to her stunned intellect. Gradually she had come to comprehend and fully realise the facts around and before her.

Appalling prospect! oh! the bitter, bitter hours; the long, long agony; the tear-spent nights; the terrorhaunted days; the pang-sharpest of all—of unrequited love and crushed affections; the heart-sick hopelessness, that punish frail, weak, sorely-tempted woman's first

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