thus
responded-for conviction had come like a quick flash upon his heart.

"But who finds it, Mr. Allison?" he said, shortly after, speaking
with stern energy. "Who comprehends the present and the actual? who
loves it sufficiently? Ah, sir! is the present ever what a fond,
cheating imagination prefigured it?"

"And knowing this so well," returned the old man, "was it wise for
you to build so largely on the future as you seem to have done?"

"No, it was not wise." The answer came with a bitter emphasis.

"We seek to escape the restlessness of unsatisfied desire," said Mr.
Allison, "by giving it more stimulating food, instead of firmly
repressing its morbid activities. Think you not that there is
something false in the life we are leading here, when we consider
how few and brief are the days in which we experience a feeling of
rest and satisfaction? And if our life be false--or, in other words,
our life-purposes--what hope for us is there in any change of
pursuit or any change of scene?"

"None--none," replied Mr. Markland.

"We may look for the good time coming, but look in vain. Its morning
will never break over the distant mountain-tops to which our eyes
are turned."

"Life is a mockery, a cheating dream!" said Mr. Markland, bitterly.

"Not so, my friend," was the calmly spoken answer.

"Not so. Our life here is the beginning of an immortal life. But, to
be a happy life, it must be a true one. All its activities must have
an orderly pulsation."

Mr. Markland slowly raised a hand, and, pressing it strongly against
his forehead, stood motionless for some moments, his mind deeply
abstracted.

"My thoughts flow back, Mr. Allison," he said, at length, speaking
in a subdued tone, "to a period many months gone by, and revives a
conversation held with you, almost in this very place. What you then
said made a strong impression on my mind. I saw, in clear light, how
vain were all efforts to secure happiness in this world, if made
selfishly, and thus in a direction contrary to true order. The great
social man I recognised as no mere idealism, but as a verity. I saw
myself a member of this body, and felt deeply the truth then uttered
by you, that just in proportion as each member thinks of and works
for himself alone will that individual be working in selfish
disorder, and, like the member of the human body that takes more
than its share of blood, must certainly suffer the pain of
inflammation. The truth then prese