ll go down
yonder and harangue the ocean on the sin of its ceaseless muttering,
as expect to remodel my aimless, blank life."

Pained and disappointed, he remained silent, and, as if conscious of a
want of courtesy, she added,--

"Do not allow your generous heart to be disquieted on my account, but
leave me to a fate which can not be changed,--which I have endured
seven years, and must bear to my grave. Now that you see how desolate
I am, pity me, and be silent."

"It will be difficult for you to regain your strength here, where so
many mournful associations surround you, and I came to-day to beg you
to take a trip somewhere, by sea or land. Almost any change of scene
and air will materially benefit you, and you need not be absent more
than a few weeks. Will you take the matter under consideration?"

"No, sir; why should I? Can hills or waves, dells or lakes, cure a
mind which you assure me is diseased? Can sea breeze or mountain air
fan out recollections that have jaundiced the heart, or furnish an
opiate that will effectually deaden and quiet regret? I long ago tried
your remedy--travelling, and for four years I wandered up and down,
and over the face of the old world; but amid the crumbling columns of
Persepolis, I was still Agla Gerome, the wretched; and when I stood on
the margin of the Lake of Wan, I saw in its waves the reflection of
the same hopeless woman who now lies before you. Change of external
surroundings is futile, and no more affects the soul than the roar of
surface-surf changes the hollow of an ocean bed where the dead sleep;
and, verily,--

'My heart is a drear Golgotha, where all the ground is white
With the wrecks of joys that have perished,--the skeletons of
delight.'"

He saw that in her present mood expostulation would only aggravate the
evil he longed to correct, and hoping to divert the current of her
thoughts, he said,--

"I trust you will not deem me impertinently curious if I ask what
singular freak bestowed upon you the name of 'Agla'?"

A startling change swept over her features, and her tone was haughtily
challenging.

"What interest can Dr. Grey find in a matter so trivial? If I were
named Hecate or Persephone, would the world have a right to demur, to
complain, or to criticise?"

"When a lady bears the mystic name, which, in past ages, was given to
the Deity, by a race who, if superstitious, were at least devout and
reverent, she should not be surprised if it