e governor,
would have given three times the money for her. I could not do better
than make her over to a kind-hearted man, who would use her well, and
who, I think, is fond of her. Not to part with her for a heavy sum
would be fixing a stigma upon her;" and wretched as all this reasoning
appeared to be, I was convinced that the man had really meant to have
acted kindly by selling his own daughter. What a pernicious damnable,
atrocious social system that must have been where such a state of things
existed!

CHAPTER FORTY NINE.

RALPH DESERTETH HIS DUTY--ALL FOR LOVE, OR "THE WORLD WELL LOST," WITH
HIS WITS INTO THE BARGAIN--VERY NICE DISQUISITIONS ON HONOUR.

The _soyez tranquille_ of Monsieur Manuel had but a transient effect.
It brought no consolation with it. What I had heard, seemed to clog the
usual healthy beating of my heart; my respiration laboured, and I fell
into a bitter reverie. The profoundest pity, the most impassioned
admiration, and the most ardent desire to afford protection--are not
these the ingredients that make the all-potent draught of love? Let
universal humanity reply--I loved. But the feeling, generally so
blissful, came upon my young heart, and steeped it in the bitterness of
apprehension. My bosom was swollen with big resolves, with the deepest
affection for one, and hate for all the rest of my species; and the
thought came over me vividly, of flight with the young and pensive
beauty into the inaccessible seclusion of the woods, and of the
unalloyed happiness and the imaginary glories of a savage life. In this
sudden depression of spirits, my mind looked not unloathingly on mutual
suicide. It was a black and a desponding hour, and fell upon me with
the suddenness of a total eclipse on a noontide summer's day.

I sat with my clasped hands between my knees, and my head hanging upon
my breast, almost unconscious of the black servitors around me, who were
re-ordering the room that I had so recently disarranged. I noted all
this as something that did not belong to the world in which I had
existence. Everything around me seemed the shadows of somebody's dream,
in which I had no part, and could take no interest. I had but two
all-absorbing ideas; and these were--injustice and Josephine. So
distraught was I with the vastness of the one and with the loveliness of
the other, that, when the young and splendid reality stole into the
apartment softly, and moved before my eyes in all t