he adverted with becoming delicacy, slyly hinting that in the church to
which he belonged there might probably be no very strenuous objections
made, should he desire to contract new ties, and once more re-enter the
bonds of matrimony.

The expression which burst aloud from Bramleigh as he finished the
letter, conveyed all that he felt on the subject.

"What outrageous effrontery! The first part of this precious document
is written by a priest, and the second by an attorney. It begins by
informing me that I am a heretic, and politely asks me to add to that
distinction the honor of being a beggar. What a woman! I have done, I
suppose, a great many foolish things in life, but I shall not cap them
so far, I promise you, Lady Augusta, by an endowment of the Catholic
Church. No, my Lady, you shall give the new faith you are about to adopt
the most signal proof of your sincerity, by renouncing all worldliness
at the threshold; and as the nuns cut off their silken tresses, you
shall rid yourself of that wealth which we are told is such a barrier
against heaven. Far be it from me," said he with a sardonic bitterness,
"who have done so little for your happiness here, to peril your welfare
hereafter."

"I will answer this at once," said he. "It shall not remain one post
without its reply."

He arose to return to the house; but in his pre-occupation he continued
to walk till he reached the brow of the cliff from which the roof of the
curate's cottage was seen about a mile off.. The peaceful stillness of
the scene, where not a leaf moved, and where the sea washed lazily along
the low strand with a sweeping motion that gave no sound, calmed and
soothed him. Was it not to taste that sweet sense of repose that he had
quitted the busy life of cities and come to this lone, sequestered
spot? Was not this very moment, as he now felt it, the realization of a
long-cherished desire? Had the world anything better in all its
prizes, he asked himself, than the peaceful enjoyment of an uncheckered
existence? "Shall I not try to carry out what once I had planned to
myself, and live my life as I intended?"

He sat down on the brow of the crag and looked out over the sea. A
gentle, but not unpleasant sadness was creeping over him. It was one of
those moments--every man has had them--in which the vanity of life and
the frivolity of all its ambitions present themselves to the mind far
more forcibly than ever they appear when urged from the pulpit