in THE
DAWN a broader channel of philanthropy and chivalry than any we have
yet had a notion of in England!--a school of popular education into the
bargain.

Beauchamp reverted to the shining curl. It could not have been clearer
to vision if it had lain under his eyes.

Ay, that first wild life of his was dead. He had slain it. Now for the
second and sober life! Who can say? The Countess of Romfrey suggested
it:--Cecilia may have prompted him in his unknown heart to the sacrifice
of a lawless love, though he took it for simply barren iron duty.
Brooding on her, he began to fancy the victory over himself less
and less a lame one: for it waxed less and less difficult in his
contemplation of it. He was looking forward instead of back.

Who cut off the lock? Probably Cecilia herself; and thinking at the
moment that he would see it, perhaps beg for it. The lustrous little
ring of hair wound round his heart; smiled both on its emotions and its
aims; bound them in one.

But proportionately as he grew tender to Cecilia, his consideration
for Renee increased; that became a law to him: pity nourished it,
and glimpses of self-contempt, and something like worship of her
high-heartedness.

He wrote to the countess, forbidding her sharply and absolutely to
attempt a vindication of him by explanations to any persons whomsoever;
and stating that he would have no falsehoods told, he desired her to
keep to the original tale of the visit of the French family to her as
guests of the Countess of Romfrey. Contradictory indeed. Rosamund shook
her head over him. For a wilful character that is guilty of issuing
contradictory commands to friends who would be friends in spite of him,
appears to be expressly angling for the cynical spirit, so surely does
it rise and snap at such provocation. He was even more emphatic when
they next met. He would not listen to a remonstrance; and though, of
course, her love of him granted him the liberty to speak to her in what
tone he pleased, there were sensations proper to her new rank which his
intemperateness wounded and tempted to revolt when he vexed her with
unreason. She had a glimpse of the face he might wear to his enemies.

He was quite as resolute, too, about that slight matter of the Jersey
bull. He had the bull in Bevisham, and would not give him up without the
sign manual of Lord Romfrey to an agreement to resign him over to the
American Quaker gentleman, after a certain term. Moreover, not