, and weakness have so hopelessly entangled me?"
Once more I rose from my knees, without any fixed purpose,
without any steady resolution; the creature of circumstance,
and the sport of events.

As I was walking back to the house, I met Mr. Escourt, who
joined me, much to my annoyance. After a trifling remark or
two, he, apparently as if by accident, mentioned Henry Lovell;
I answered coldly, but was conscious that I coloured; more,
however, from the recollection of the part which he himself
had acted towards him than from any other reason. He fixed his
scrutinising eyes upon me, and evidently remarked that
something had moved me.

"He is married, is not he, and to a very beautiful woman?"

"Yes, Mrs. Lovell is very pretty."

"I had heard of his marriage," he continued, "but had doubted
the truth of the report, from seeing him so constantly about
in the world unaccompanied by a wife."

He looked at me inquiringly; but as I said nothing in answer,
he went on:--

"I met them walking one day; and by Jove, if he is of a
jealous turn of mind, he does well to shut her up. A more
beautiful creature I never set eyes upon. Is she clever?"

This was one of those trifling questions which it is
particularly disagreeable to answer, especially when put by a
person with whom one wishes to converse as little as possible.
Alice was not clever according to the common acceptation of
the word; and to explain to a hardened man of the world in
what consisted the superiority of her understanding, seemed to
me like throwing pearls before swine; but in this I was
mistaken; for when I answered, "I cannot exactly say whether
she is or not," he immediately replied,

"I think I can guess at your meaning. She has no doubt a mind
as fair as her face, but none of the tinsel which we so often
take for gold. Is it not so?"

I nodded assent and he continued--

"Is she a saint, that she thus forswears the pomps and
vanities of this world?"

"She is, no doubt," I replied, "one of those to whom the world
is in the habit of giving the appellation of saints, whatever
sense impiety on the one hand, or cant on the other, may
attach to that designation."

"In that case," returned Mr. Escourt, "I will e'en take her
for my patron saint; hang up her picture in my room, if I can
get it; and say, like Romeo, I'll turn, fair saint, idolater
to thee!"

As he said these words, I gave this hateful man a look of
mingled scorn and disgust. He returned